I just came across an interesting blog post by Jagan Nemani about the State of Green Business Forum 2010 organized by Greenbiz.com.

Zero Waste Upgrade of Empire State Building Windows

First of all, Jagan outlined a fascinating story about upgrading all the windows in the Empire State Building. To improve  energy efficiency all of the Empire State Building’s 6,500 R2 windows were replaced with higher insulation R8 windows, which will enable the Empire State Building to reduce its energy bill by 40%.  But what is even more interesting is that replacing the 26,000 panes of glass did not involve carting the old glass out to the landfill, and then carting in the new ones. Instead a small factory was setup on one of the floors where the the old R2 windows were converted to R8 windows – minimal waste, no transportation costs and smaller carbon footprint for manufacturing these windows.

Autodesk Cleantech Partner Program

Secondly, Jagan pointed to Autodesk’s Cleantech partner program which he saw as “a win-win for the early stage startups
as well as Autodesk.”  In July of last year Autodesk setup the Autodesk Cleantech Partner Program, which grants free design and engineering software to early-stage clean technology companies in North America who are working to solve some of the world’s environmental challenges.

China’s run to become Cleantech Leader

Finally, Jagan discussed China’s very ambitious cleantech initiative.  According to Jagan, one of the panelist in the forum said “China is going to kick our (US) butt in cleantech industry if we do not act quickly”. Jagan “was amazed by the speed with which China is moving into the cleantech space, both in terms of developing green cities as well as building products for the cleantech industry. Mayors of China’s cities have the authority to approve green city projects within weeks, if right type of financing, project plan and technologies are presented to them. China has plans to pilot smart grid in 4 cities over the next 4 years, as well as plans to build many more green cities.”