Leading members of the corporate community, including IBM, Sony, Nolia and Pitney-Bowes, have come together in a first-of-its-kind effort to help the environment, unleashing dozens of innovative, environmentally responsible patents to the public domain. The pledged portfolio, dubbed the "Eco-Patent Commons", is available on a dedicated, public website, www.wbcsd.org/web/epc, hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Examples of the environmental benefits expected for pledged patents include:

• Energy conservation or improved energy or fuel efficiency
• Pollution prevention (source reduction, waste reduction)
• Use of environmentally preferable materials or substances
• Water or materials use reduction
• Increased recycling opportunity.

Availability of these patents will encourage researchers, entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes in any industry to create, apply and further develop their consumer or industrial products, processes and services in a way that will help to protect and respect the environment.

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The UK Government has adopted the radical policy of using open-source, in preference to commercial, software.

Under the new policy, agencies will be required not only to consider open source solutions and make the choice soley on the basis of value-for-money, but will give peference to open source solutions where there is no cost difference and will actively seek to avoid becoming locked in to proprietary software.

The Minister for Digital Engagement, Tom Watson, said that “The world of technology has moved on hugely since we last set out our thinking on open source, which is why it was so important to update our policy. Open-source products are more competitive and have become easier to include in business, and major players in the IT industry now support the use of open standards."

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GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company, which has spent a fortune researching cancer, has announced that it is making most of its information available to the research community for free.

Glaxo’s logic is that academics and small companies to do pioneering work — identifying new targets for medications, discovering early warning signs and figuring out the underlying biological malfunctions that cause cancer. It is only when those groundbreaking studies have been done that large corporations can step into the picture and create new products.

The information, which is available through the National Cancer Institute’s CaBIG website (cabig.nci.nih.gov), is related to 300 different sets of cells taken from breast, prostate, lung and ovarian cancer tissues.

 
Another contribution to open source has come from Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum which has become the first museum in the world to release publicly held historical photographs for free access on Flickr (www.flickr.com) under a Creative Commons licence. About 8,000 photographs are being released in coming weeks.

The Library of Congress, the Brooklyn Museum and the Smithsonian have announced that they will also be contributing photos to the commons collection.

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How a small business is using rooftop gardens to solve heating, cooling and pollution problems in cities.

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Jerry Greenfield tells how a small icecream parlour become a successful franchise chain through a policy of social and environmental activism.

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The Timberland CEO, Jeffrey Swartz, talks about how his company pioneered profitable green business practices.

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Since the days after his graduation from the Georgia Institute of Technology as an industrial engineer, Ray Anderson has applied his entrepreneurial spirit to building one of the world’s largest interior furnishings companies. After founding the Interface carpet company in 1973, Ray and his company revolutionized the commercial floorcovering industry by producing America’s first free-lay carpet tiles. Now, Ray has embarked on a mission to “be the first company that, by its deeds, shows the entire industrial world what sustainability is in all its dimensions: People, process, product, place and profits — by 2020 — and in doing so, to become restorative through the power of influence. He’s leading a worldwide effort to pioneer the processes of sustainable development.

This 10 minute video is essential viewing for anyone concerned with the future of manufacturing.

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See how a small business like a bakery can succeed by focusing on the environmental impact of its business and products.

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A Chicago laundromat shows how solar technology can be successfully applied in a small business - even in a cold and cloudy climate.

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In September 2006, Charlie Rose recorded a video of a conversation with entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, Chairman and CEO of the Virgin Group and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla about their global environmental initiatives, the threat of global warming, and the potential of green technology. They also discuss Branson’s $3 billion commitment to fund research in alternative energy sources.

The 27 minute video is well worth watching.

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