Having grown up the son of a military aviator, I’ve had more than my share of patriotic experiences. Red, White and Blue runs through my veins. So, on this July 4th, amid the fireworks, parades and BBQ, I can think of nothing more patriotic than writing about Green PR and “environmental sustainability.” The reason being that for our country and our planet to sustain themselves we must be worthy partners of the environment and the earth. Now, none to late, critical mass seems to have been reached and it’s “cool” to go green. This is dramatically affecting the PR industry.             I was privileged to participate in a recent panel discussion on Environmental Sustainability, CleanTech and Green PR strategy with Vinod Khosla – Khosla Ventures www.khoslaventures.com . Vinod founded Sun Microsystems and was its first CEO. He is passionate about solving the planet’s problem with climate change and puts his money where his mouth is investing in clean technologies to replace polluting, non-renewable fossil fuel.  

Vinod’s passion is revealed in his counsel for investors to Go Green, “We have an energy crisis, a climate crisis, and a terrorism crisis - and all of them are tied to oil. Business needs to do something and do it now. We have to find solutions and alternatives to fossil fuels, and only those that are economically driven will achieve sufficient scale.” http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/howtosucceed/19.html  

When I asked Vinod about his thoughts on one of my areas of passion, geothermal technology, he indicated that investors will likely find success in this area and that he had just invested in some geothermal stock. I have done likewise. Raser Technology projects its first geothermal power plant will go online by Q2 2008. www.rasertech.com . I really like their Well to Wheels strategy.