The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), enacted by Congress last February, presented key economical goals and allocated $90 billion of stimulus to be invested in the clean energy sector, energy efficiency, electric transportation, renewables, smart grid technologies, green building and construction, and green manufacturing in the U.S.
The Recovery and Reinvestment Act has four investment goals:
1. Solar -- Lower solar power costs by 50% by 2015, which will bring a significantly faster return on investment for customers, and will also bring the cost of watts to a similar level of the market-cost of electricity from the current power grid.
2. Power storage -- Reduce the cost of batteries, in particular for electric vehicles, by 50% by 2013, which will affect the price of electric cars (where the batteries are the most expensive component). This reduction will make electric cars and gasoline powered vehicles comparable, therefore will increase consumers’ adoption.
3. Renewable energy generation -- By 2012, increase generation of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass in the U.S. two-fold. Invest in the smart grid, transmission and distribution lines, grid storage, and address off-grid generation.
4. Other significant economic changers -- Reduce the cost of sequencing of the human genome, implement a high-speed passenger rail, promote public-school teachers’ accountability, digitize and provide patient health records electronically, and more.
The federal $90 billion stimulus funds represent primary steps toward carbon-neutral and sustainable economy, that along with private and venture capital (VC) investments, is expected to grow rapidly in the next decade. The ARRA programs have already begun to reform the cleantech, energy infrastructure, renewables, the power grid industries, and their related sectors.
Recently, Deloitte published a report titled “Sustainability in business today, a cross-industry view.” Findings were based on survey results of 48 executives in multi-industries. The report indicated these findings as the most important environmental issues: Energy efficiency has the highest importance, followed by transportation, alternative energy, green building, water, and land/soil respectively.
Increasingly, organizations find economic value in ‘going' sustianable. Energy efficiency is commonly viewed as the fastest, cost-effective and least polluting way to meet growing demand for energy. In the survey, companies reported of increasing efforts to green their operations and improve their products' energy efficiency. Sustainability programs that require capital investment are a major concern to businesses, especially in a challenging economy. Furthermore, as long as we don’t pay the real cost of energy in the U.S., justifying investment in energy efficiency projects is not a given.
Another study titled “Sense & Sustainability“ was published last July by Gibbs and Soell Public Relations (G&S) and focused on green tech and sustainable business. Based on a survey of consumers and executives at Fortune 1000 companies, the study found that American corporations are in the process of moving toward sustainability, however, consumers are slow to adopt and about half of the consumer respondents doubted the ‘green’ commitments businesses declare. While two-thirds of the executives reported devoting resources to sustainability (through a team/teams, or by creating a senior level position), one-third noted that their company didn’t have a dedicated sustainability function or a designated executive that was responsible for the sustainability initiatives. Other challenges in moving toward a sustainable economy include insufficient return on investment (ROI), the need for public education (in an effort to accelerate consumers’ adoption), and the difficulty in measuring sustainability across the entire lifecycle of a product.
To move forward, the stimulus funds and private investments will continue to spur ‘green’ innovations that will reduce costs in the long run, meet challenges, enhance career opportunities, and drive more businesses and consumers toward sustainability.
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Click for more information about the American Recovery and Investment Act.
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Tags: green economy, green or sustainable economic goals, energy or environmental stimulus funding, going green, benefits of stimulus, energy efficiency, renewable energy, business strategies, sustainability trends, sustainability research, sustainability best practices, sustainability study or survey, social responsibility
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