This sparked the question, who are our Sustainable CEOs? The following were nominations submitted by Triple Pundit readers during the week of January 7-15, 2010 listed in order of their nominations. This list is impressive in its length and diversity of nominations. I posted with every name a link to their company’s webpage. Studying these leaders’ management practices and the “green” action items their companies are pursuing to grow profitability and revenues is an eye-opening window into the emerging sustainable global economy and why I now project $10 trillion of annual global sustainable revenues by 2017.

Doug Conan
Campbell’s Soup

Yvon Chouinard
Patagonia

Dan Hesse
Sprint

Mick Bremans
Ecover

Ray Anderson
Interface Carpet

BethAnn Lederer
Working Wonders

Lee Scott
WalMart

Jose Manuel Entrecanales
Acciona

Bill Bregman
Deltapaper Corporation

Jeff Hollender
Seventh Generation

Jeff Swartz
Timberland

Bill Ford
Ford Motor Company

Mark J. Woodward
Golf Course Superintendents Association of America

George Siemon
Organic Valley Company

Ed Lonergan
Johnson Diversey

Eric Schmidt
Google

Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan
New Belgium Brewery

Brian Walker
Herman Miller

Fuji Cho
Katsuaki Watanabe
ToyotaToyota

Steve Fambro
Paul Weber
Aptera Motors

Forrest North
Mission Motors

Dan DiMicco
Nucor CorporationNucor Corporation

William R. Johnson
H.J. Heinz Company

Jan Blittersdorf
NRG SystemsNRG

Steve Ells
Chipotle

John Mackey
Whole Foods

Irene Rosenfeld
Kraft Foods

Ross Taylor
Tenix

Gail Kelly
Westpac Bank

Indra Nooyi
Pepsico
Pepsico

Anita Roddick
CSR-Reporting

Sybil Goldfiner
comme il faut

Ofra Strauss
Strauss Group

Yehudit Bronicki
Ormat Industries

Maxine Fassberg
Intel Israel

Andy Ball
Webcor Builders

Shantanu Narayen
Adobe

Steve Roell
Johnson Controls

Why these ten? On average, they delivered a total shareholder return of 997%!

The study found that Americans consume almost 12 hours of information per day! It breaks down like this:
• Television: 4.91 hours per day
• Computer: 1.93 hours per day
• Radio: 2.22 hours per day
• Computer games: 0.93 hours per day
• Phone: 0.73 hours per day
• Print: 0.60 hours per day
• Recorded music: 0.45 hours per day
• Movies: 0.03 hours per day

Another amazing conclusion from this study is that the United States consumes approximately 34 gigabytes per day or 3.6 zettabytes in all of 2008. (a zettabyte is 1,000 exabytes. A single exabyte is 1 million gigabytes)

A key factor in the success of this program was an exceptional outreach program that identified barriers to implementation across the fullest range of stakeholders. This process was used to create a systems thinking model that allowed all participants to exercise their point of view to assess its implications for impacting their goals and the expectations of all other stakeholders. This was both a learning and reconciliation process that enabled pricing, program and information system design, and acceptance of the designs by the consumer.

I point to this experience in advancing the smart grid as a reference point for reporting on the GreenBeat 2009 Smart Grid Conference and my perception that the smart grid is now entering turbulent waters created not by the technology but by the marketing of the technology.

The GreenBeat 2009 Smart Grid Conference was an exceptional opportunity to hear presentations from the leaders in the smart grid’s development, from Vice President Al Gore, to Duke Power’s CEO Jim Rogers to a litany of experts in information technologies including senior officers from Oracle, Google and Cisco.

The vision of inserting the software and technology offered by the Information Age to create a smart grid was obvious to all attendees. But this is an industry in search of its “cost less, mean more” business model. The utilities were conflicted over how they were going to make money if their customers used the smart grid to use less electricity or use electricity supplied from a roof top solar system versus their excitement over a potential “killer app” of new revenue generated from plug-in electric cars. And the technology companies were both excited about the huge dollars required to install a smart grid and sanguine over the slow and uneven pace of change inherent in a regulated industry.

The 800 pound gorilla in the room that kept inserting itself during the Q&A period was the residential consumer. In a regulated industry the residential consumer is also a motivated voter when the lights go out or they receive a high monthly invoice. What has the industry on edge is a lawsuit in Bakersfield, California filed in behalf of customers who received higher bills after the installation of smart meters.

Market research I have participated in concluded that after about three days of exceptional summer heat a residential customer will crack-up their air conditioner to their satisfaction. Utilities call this peak demand and it is their highest incremental cost of operation. Smart metering enables a utility to charge for this demand on an hourly basis. As an economist I support this type of pricing to maximize efficiency. As an electric utility veteran I also know that just dropping time based pricing upon residential customers without a very compelling high-bill mitigation path that enables them to enjoy both a comfortable home and reasonable electric bills is the recipe for a consumer revolt.

And that is where the smart grid now stands. I have a smart meter. The brochure that was placed on my front door by the utility after the meter was installed does not have the word “price” anywhere in it! It talks about how in the future I will be provided “improved information you can use to better manage your electric bill.” That is not a “cost less, mean more” solution. It is a time bomb waiting to explode if I learn via my electric bill that I have to pay more to continue using electricity the way I have historically used it.

I would STRONGLY suggest those promoting the smart grid to read my book The Secret Green Sauce. The book does not mention smart grids but it does outline the best practices being used by actual business for growing green revenues. These best practices suggest consumers will embrace the smart grid if it is a path to “cost less, mean more” solutions and if they are supplied with “Know it, Embrace it” marketing outreach that engages them in the technology’s design and implementation. Otherwise, the smart grid may end up being more of a revolt than a revolution.