Entries for March 14, 2007

With big fish like Al Gore and General Electric tackling climate change, it seems there isn't much room in the debate for minnows. "Small business has never had a seat at the table, so they always get screwed," says Byron Kennard, founder of the Center for Small Business and the Environment. However, not only do small businesses consume about half the nation's commercial energy output, but they are also on the front lines of helping address the problem. In 2004, more than $1 billion of venture capital went to start-ups researching clean technology. So any new policies coming from climate-change politics will have a big impact on smaller companies. Still, none of the more than 50 climate-change bills making their way through Congress even address small businesses, Kennard says.