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Janine Shea

How Mosaic brings cleantech investing to the masses | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

www.greenbiz.com/...ngs-cleantech-investing-masses

GroundUp Validation Crowdfunding Crowdsourcing Clean_Energy SEC Socially_Responsible_Investing

shared by Janine Shea on 10 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Invest as little as $25, or as much as you want, in clean-energy projects. Earn a princely 6.38 percent interest annually for the next five years. Make the world a better place.
  • Mosaic, based in Oakland, Calif., has figured out how to crowdsource solar projects in a way that seems to be a win-win for everyone. For each project, it seeks investors — smaller fries, like you and me — to fund a given project, promising a respectable rate of return. As loans get repaid, investors can roll the proceeds back into new projects, or take the money and run. Think of it as Kickstarter for clean energy.
  • He dropped out of Yale in 2002 to help build a youth movement for climate solutions.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • “30 under 30” in energy by Forbes.
  • Their company started slowly, garnering interest-free investments from individuals to fund solar installations on five community projects. They range from homes on a Navajo reservation in Arizona to the Asian Resource Center in Oakland. All are smallish installations
  • I invested $100 in the Asian Resource Center installation in 2011, in equal parts to support the fledgling company as well as a social-service organization in my hometown
  • Those first projects were funded using a zero-interest investment model similar to Kiva, where investors get their principal back over time but no interest. This allowed Mosaic to avoid federal regulation and to go to market, learn the business, get feedback, and show traction for the idea. At the same time, it launched into the process of registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that governs investment firms.
  • More recently, the company started raising money for projects in which it would pay interest. It can do this while waiting for SEC approval thanks to something called Regulation D, which exempts from regulatory oversight the offer and sale of up to $1 million of securities in a 12-month period.
  • A small group of investors was invited to put in as little as $25 and have been promised a return of 6.38 percent over five years.
  • The project is projected to save the youth center more than $160,000 through reduced electricity costs.
  • I invested $200 in this project as part of Mosaic’s private “beta” investment round
  • “As an asset class, the default rates on solar leases and power purchase agreements are extremely low,”
  • If I want, I can reinvest the earned interest and repaid principal in other Mosaic projects with the click of a button.
  • nlike investing in CDs, there are risks in Mosaic’s projects. The solar-installation customer could default on its monthly payments. The solar anels or installation could be faulty, tying the project up with repairs, negotiations, or worse.
  • There are a lot of unknowns: the number of people willing to invest sums, small or large, in energy projects offered by a start-up with a very short track record; the cost of attracting and servicing these investors; the number of available investment-quality energy projects; the actual performance of those projects during the life of the investments;
  • Together with a $2 million grant from the Department of Energy
  • All told, 51 investors ponied up $40,000 for the 106-panel installation; the whole project got funded in just six days. I’ve already received my first interest payment.
  • It’s a bold idea: Raise money from the masses in order to bring solar to the masses, providing value to everyone along the way.
  • Having proved the concept, Parish and Rosen are now ready to kick things into high gear, throwing open the doors to all qualified investors.
  • “The economics of solar have begun to make sense in more places, and online investing and peer-to-peer finance are becoming widespread. Those are the two big forces that we’re a part of.”
  • I asked him why no one had done this before. “It’s a really difficult set of skills and competencies that you need to pull together on one team to make this business model work,” he explained. “You need the securities law expertise. You need the solar project finance expertise. You need the technology expertise to build the online investment platform, and you need the marketing expertise to get people to invest in the projects.”
  • For each project, Mosaic provides the underwriting and due diligence. “If we like it and it meets our investment committee’s criteria, we make a loan offer to the project developer or the project owner, and negotiate a loan to them.” Mosaic takes a servicing fee (the difference between the interest rate charged the developer and the rate pays investors) and an origination fee of between 3 and 5 percent of the loan, which the developer pays. Mosaic doesn’t do the installation itself — it contracts that out.
  • Clearly, not yet a pathway to riches. What’s needed is volume.
  • “Our goal is to be doing billions of dollars of investments a year in clean-energy projects,
  • “We have already had a lot of developers coming to us," he says. "We’re interested in offering high-quality, clean-energy projects for people to invest in.
  • We believe clean energy is good in and of itself and is a great asset class for investment. So we’re looking at all kinds of projects.”
  • It’s not just solar. Parish and Rosen are looking at a broader category of projects to finance — what they call clean-energy infrastructure. That includes other forms energy as well as energy-efficiency projects and electric-vehicle infrastructure.
  • , the company aims to scale its offerings, including geographically, to get millions of Americans involved with funding clean-energy projects.
  • However it plays out, it’s a compelling and potentially disruptive business model. Allowing smaller investors to participate in clean-energy investments is an exciting possibility. And the relatively predictable returns of solar
  • can make these investments a safer bet than many traditional Wall Street investment vehicles.
  • And not for just small guys. Imagine if larger mission-driven investors, including pension funds and university endowments, started pouring money into Mosaic. The expanding investment pools could rapidly accelerate the growth of renewable energy and efficiency projects in the marketplace.
  • “I think a lot of people are just excited about the model,” says Parish, “and have been wanting to find a place that they can feel good about investing, that they can also generate pretty good yield from. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”
  • Parish makes a point: Some of this is an exercise in feel-good investing. But that’s nontrivial: How many of your investments do you feel good about? Even some of the so-called socially responsible funds hold stocks of fossil-fuel companies and other corporate nasties in their portfolios. If the nascent trend of disinvestment in fossil-fuel companies takes off among climate-minded investors, where will they next put their money? If Parish and Rosen have their way, there will be a new generation of cleaner investment alternatives to be found — perhaps, like me, right in your own community.
Janine Shea

Metrics for Responsible Property Investing: Developing and Maintaining a High Performan... - 0 views

www.scribd.com/...g-a-High-Performance-Portfolio

GroundUp Validation Responsible_Property_Investing Socially_Responsible_Investing Sustainability Metrics

shared by Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • To date, however, the industry has yet todevelop standards to evaluate ESG datathat compare to its traditional evaluation o portolio perormance.
  •   5 Responsible Property Investment [RPI] is anemerging investment strategy and disciplineconcerned with integrating environmental,social, and governance [ESG] data intoinvestment decision-making
  • Real estate investment plays a undamentalrole in determining how society usesresources, how the built environmentshapes social lie, how economic activitycan be sustainable over time. As an assetclass, real estate oers especially tangibledemonstrations o the importance o ESGanalysis in creating value or investors andsociety alike. We believe that a robustmetrics system can help shape the marketto better create sustainable outcomes or allstakeholders
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  •   6 Institutional real estate is in the midst o a major downturn
  • growing awareness among investorsthat environmental and social analysis canenhance their ability to assess building andportolio perormance over the long term.
  • Energyuseingreenbuildingis29to50 percent less than non-green counterparts. •Greenbuildingsuseanestimated40 percent less water. •Carbondioxideemissionsingreen buildings are reduced by 33 to 39percent. •Solidwasteattributabletogreenbuildings is reduced by 70 percent
  • In practice, these issues havebeen treated as vital by many investors – RPIoers a means to bring them together into acoherent ramework
  • SmartGrowth
  • SocialEquityandCommunity Development
  • UrbanRevitalization
  • size o the US commercial real estate marketat $5 trillion, with approximately $2.5 trillionin assets owned by institutional investors.
  • EnergyConservation
  • EnvironmentalProtection
  • WorkerWell-Being
  • HealthandSafety
  • LocalCitizenship
  • CorporateCitizenship
  • Figure 2: “Market standard” fund performance characteristics
  • The increased global and 2.2  Impacts o Sustainability on Institutional Real Estate Table 1: Sustainability Impacts on Real Estate social awareness about sustainability ingeneral has sharply impacted institutional realestate in several interrelated ways,
  • Global Reporting Initiativeand Principles or Responsible Investing
  • Ideally, a unied approach could also be takento visualizing, analyzing, and managing thedata obtained or individual metrics, buildingupon the action items mentioned aboveto create a dashboard or monitoring andimproving portolio perormance in the contexto RPI and investor and stakeholder interests.
  • The eld o RPI lacks a powerul, standardizedset o portolio-level metrics which isrecognized and used by investors andmanagers across the real estate industry,thereby dening and giving credibility to thepractice o RPI
  • CBRE Standardso Sustainability
  • we have developed a seto 26 quantitative metrics that can helpinvestors to nd, create and articulate valuethrough improving the economic, social, andenvironmental prole o their investments.
  • Thesemetrics were selected or their ability to allowreal estate proessionals to better addressrisks and identiy opportunities or long-termvalue creation.
  • Table 2: Proposed RPI Metrics
  • Measuring the walkscore or a property isa simple as putting in the address into thewalkscore calculator (www.walkscore.com)
  • the premiums suggesthigher rents, occupancy and general marketdemand or walkable properties.
  • By trackingthe ability o properties to create jobs andprovide services or underserved areas,investors can lower risks associated withregulation and community opposition as wellas setting an example o social sustainability
  • Buildings – even green buildings – oten lacka close connection to their surrounding areaand community. Developing CommunityEngagement plans on a site-by-site basisallows projects to be sensitive to the needso the citizens and areas in which they areconstructed
  • ensures that negative impacts and publicopposition to projects will be minimized.
  • These plans should also include provisionsor the public use o private space, which haswell-documented success in San Franciscoand other cities. Across a portolio, investingin projects that positively contribute to thecommunity in which they are anchoredcreates a positive image, minimizes, risk, andimproves social sustainability
  • Table 3: Portfolio Characterization
  • Several categories contain RPI metricswhich investment managers could directlytie to value either through their indication o decreased operating expenses or indirectlyaid in obtaining higher rents, lower vacancy orselling the property at a higher price. Othercategories do not link directly to asset value,rather allow the investor to property determinethe correct ESG measures which must bein place in order to achieve maximum RPIbenets
  • Prudent portolio managers will look toenter into portolio wide contracts orcommissioning, eciency, renewables, andother measures to improve perormance,and use RPI metrics to track the value o improvements portolio wide
  • Environmental metrics are perceived as havingmore direct links to value, however socialmetrics are seen as helpul in characterizingprogress on advancing the social agenda o the und, while maintaining nancial returns
  • Environmental metrics are more malleablethan social metrics—in other words, mostenvironmental metrics can be improved overtime across the portolio, whereas socialmetrics are oten determined at the point o acquisition, and remain static (walkability, CBDproperties, etc.)
  • To ensure ease o collection and interpretationo the additional data, systems should be putinto place to ensure the metrics are trackedat each property and easily aggregated to theportolio level.
  • Portolio managers, property managers,and stakeholders will be able to engage ina dialogue regarding value created acrossthe triple bottom line through responsibleinvestment practices
  • The scope o RPI is broad. It includes, orexample, “deep green” projects that ocuson poor communities or environmentallyragile areas, energy ecient buildings thatoer clear nancial advantages throughreduced operating costs, aordable housingprojects that draw upon local tax credits,and now carbon reduction projects thathedge risk and result in renewable energycerticates.
  • There are many useul sotware tools on themarket- rom EnergyStar Portolio Manager(mentioned previously) to proprietary systemssuch as Tririga (www.tririga.com). Tririgacombines portolio management tools withportal views or property managers, andacilities management unctionality. Thishelps to integrate goals and establishcommon metrics rom asset to asset
  • In a changing and volatileinvestment environment, there is a uniqueand urgent need to better understandthe benets o making a commitment toresponsible property investing. The potentialor improvements at the portolio level isgreat, with benets accruing to investors,the industry, and society as a whole, and thepotential or these considerations to improvethe industry as a whole is even greater.
  • •Long-termvaluecreationthrough increases in assessed value o property •Greatlyreducedoperatingcostsbydriving environmental metrics •Minimizationofriskinseveralkeyareas during acquisition •Improvedpublicimageandinvestor condence •Improvedrelationshipbetweeninvestors and asset managers •Increasedvisibilityandtransparency•Demonstrationofvaluesinpractice
  •   26  The benets o committing to RPI arepotentially signicant, but a lack o uniormmetrics which can be adopted industry-wide has hindered the potential impact o RPI on the real estate sector.
Janine Shea

Project for Public Spaces | Eleven Principles for Creating Great Community Places - 0 views

www.pps.org/11steps

GroundUp Community-Level Placemaking Non-Profit

shared by Janine Shea on 05 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • 11 key elements in transforming public spaces into vibrant community places,
  • identify the talents and assets within the community.
  • will help to create a sense of community ownership in the project that can be of great benefit to both the project sponsor and the community.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Partners are critical to the future success and image of a public space improvement project.
  • The best spaces experiment with short term improvements that can be tested and refined over many years! Elements such as seating, outdoor cafes, public art, striping of crosswalks and pedestrian havens, community gardens
  • The vision needs to come out of each individual community.
  • They can be local institutions, museums, schools and others.
  • encountering obstacles, because no one in either the public or private sectors has the job or responsibility to “create places.”
  • Starting with small scale community-nurturing improvements can demonstrate the importance of “places” and help to overcome obstacles.
Janine Shea

Project for Public Spaces | Place Capital: Re-connecting Economy With Community - 0 views

www.pps.org/necting-economy-with-community

GroundUp Community-Level Non-Profit Placemaking Economic_Development

shared by Janine Shea on 05 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • To put public space at the heart of public discourse where it belongs
  • tying culture change to economics
  • “We can shift the paradigm of how we build our cities; thinking about economics is a great way to do that because it cuts through the political divide.”
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  • Place Capital, which posits that the economic value of a robust, dynamic place is much more than the sum of its parts.
  • Great places are created through many “investments” in Place Capital–everything from individual actions that together build a welcoming sense of place, all the way up to major physical changes that make a space usable and accessible.
  • At its core, Place Capital is about re-connecting economy and community.
  • public space projects
  • tend to fall into one of four types of development
  • project-driven processes; top-down, bureaucratic leadership
  • Project-driven processes generally lead to places that follow a general protocol without any consideration for local needs or desires.
  • design-led process.
  • eliance on the singular vision of professional designers and other siloed disciplines can often make for spaces that are lovely as objects, but not terribly functional as public gathering places.
  • place-sensitive. Here, designers and architects are still leading the process, but there is concerted effort to gather community input and ensure that the final design responds to the community that lives, works, and plays around the space.
  • Finally, there are spaces that are created through a place-led approach, which relies not on community input, but on a unified focus on place outcomes built on community engagement. The people who participate in a place-led development process feel invested in the resulting public space, and are more likely to serve as stewards.
  • They are involved meaningfully throughout the process
  • turn proximity into purpose
  • concept of Place Capital is ideally-suited to guide the cooperation of so many individual movements that are looking for ways to work together to change the world for the better. Place Capital employs the Placemaking process to help us outline clear economic goals that re-frame the way that people think not only about public space but, by extension, about the public good in general.
  • surge of interest in Placemaking in the United States over the past few decades.
Janine Shea

WBCSD - World Business Council for Sustainable Development - 0 views

www.wbcsd.org/...overview.aspx

GroundUp Validation Research Non-Profit Sustainability Urbanism Corporate_Sponsors

shared by Janine Shea on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The WBCSD's Urban Infrastructure Initiative (UII) brings together a diverse group of companies: ACCIONA, AECOM, AGC, CEMEX, EDF, GDF SUEZ, Honda, Nissan, Philips, Siemens, TNT, Toyota and UTC. The UII Co-chairs are CEMEX, GDF SUEZ, Schneider Electric and Siemens; WBCSD is also actively involved as Co-chair. These companies from sectors including energy, buildings, materials, transport, engineering, water, equipment, and support services are collaborating to help urban authorities develop realistic, practical and cost-effective sustainability action plans. The project draws on the expertise of individual companies who already work with urban planners and engineers to provide services and solutions to sustainability challenges in cities.
  • For cities, the case for action is compelling: A sustainable city is more competitive and offers its citizens better lives. It uses resources more efficiently, thrives economically, and creates an inclusive community. For companies, the case for action is also compelling:  the urban market offers companies the opportunity to provide systems solutions, products and services in support of sustainable development in cities (buildings, energy, infrastructure, waste collection and recycling, etc.)
  • Each city faces different challenges. Tailor-made solutions are required, as challenges and opportunities vary from country to country and city to city. Some cities can capitalize on expanding populations. Others need to deal with aging and declining numbers. City governments must therefore find systemic solutions to address the interlinked social and environmental challenges and create the right framework conditions to make them competitive in order to attract investments.
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  • Working with authorities in key cities, the UII will help create action plans and translate their defined issues into landscape solutions for sustainable urban development.
  • The initiative is currently in the process of identifying the cities which will participate in the UII project.
Janine Shea

Project for Public Spaces | What is Placemaking? - 0 views

www.pps.org/...what_is_placemaking

GroundUp Placemaking Community-Level Sustainability Crowdsourcing Non-Profit

shared by Janine Shea on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • “’Placemaking’ is both an overarching idea and a hands-on tool for improving a neighborhood, city or region. It has the potential to be one of the most transformative ideas of this century.”
  • Placemaking is both a process and a philosophy
  • his process is essential–even sacred–to people who truly care about the places in their lives.
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  • parks, downtowns, waterfronts, plazas, neighborhoods, streets, markets, campuses and public buildings
  • unite people around a larger vision for a particular place
  • Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who use them.
  • Unfortunately the way our communities are built today has become so institutionalized that community stakeholders seldom have a chance to voice ideas and aspirations about the places they inhabit.
  • Experience has shown us that when developers and planners welcome as much grassroots involvement as possible, they spare themselves a lot of headaches.
  • underperforming development projects can be avoided by embracing the Placemaking perspective that views a place in its entirety, rather than zeroing in on isolated fragments of the whole.
  • guidelines that help communities integrate diverse opinions into a vision, then translate that vision into a plan and program of uses, and finally see that the plan is properly implemented.
  • designing cities that catered to people,
  • perpetuate the community-driven, bottom-up approach that Placemaking describes.
  • Placemaking Grows into an International Movement
Janine Shea

Crowdfunding gives rise to projects truly in public domain - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...2127541

GroundUp Crowdfunding Urbanism +POOL

shared by Janine Shea on 15 May 13 - No Cached
  • small donors help lay the foundation for
  • major municipal innovations, galvanizing communities.
ccfath

Public housing looks for outside investors | Marketplace.org - 0 views

www.marketplace.org/...ousing-looks-outside-investors

public housing investors Community-Level Urbanism Socially_Responsible_Investing

shared by ccfath on 10 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Thursday afternoon in Savannah, Ga., the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development will unveil a pilot program meant to address poor maintenance conditions at public housing developments across the nation. HUD’s idea?  Let outside investors fix them up.
  • The problem: Like tens of thousands of other subsidized developments, Tobie Grant Manor falls under Section 9 of the federal housing act. Any money to fix it up has to come from the government, and HUD says it’s about $26 billion short.
  • That’s why HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan says shifting properties like Tobie Grant Manor from Section 9 to Section 8 gives more options.  
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  • Section 8 is different because it allows for private investors to front money for repairs and redevelopment. HUD then pays those developers back under a long-term contract. Donovan says the shift doesn’t cost taxpayers a penny extra.
  • In the first thirty days of the national pilot program, HUD has raised $650-million in private investments for housing authorities in 22 states.
  • ccfath on 10 Jan 13
     
    HUD looks to private investors for renovation and redevelopment of public housing projects.
Janine Shea

A Chicago Park Learns from New York's High Line - Next City - 0 views

nextcity.org/...earns-From-New-Yorks-High-Line

Urbanism GroundUp Financing Community_Investing Public_Spaces

shared by Janine Shea on 07 May 15 - No Cached
  • corporations like Boeing and Exelon have added $12 million in donations.
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 07 May 15
       
      CORPORATE DONATIONS
  • The High Line has reportedly spurred more than $2 billion in area investment. Though it cost the city $112 million, the park is expected to bring in an estimated $900 million in additional tax revenues over two decades.
  • already New York City’s second-most popular attraction, pulling in nearly 4.5 million visitors in 2012, and ranks among the most influential public works projects of the past half-century, altering our thinking about public space and urban revival.
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  • Funded by a $467,000 grant from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Trust for Public Land
  • Parks are suddenly big business.
  • d Friends of the High Line,
  • reliance on non-municipal funding
  • property values along the park doubled within two years.
  • Since the city rezoned the area in 2005 to encourage development, nearly 30 new building projects have accounted for more than $2 billion in private investment, adding some 12,000 jobs, 2,500 residential units, 1,000 hotel rooms and nearly half a million square feet of new office and gallery space
  • Aping the High Line, then, is not merely about sustainable reuse or new park construction. It’s about sparking investment and increasing a city’s ability to attract new residents.
  • “Cities have really become aware that they are competing with each other for the businesses and well-educated mobile citizens that make cities work,”
  • choose green, walkable cities with great neighborhoods, great parks, good cultural institutions. I think the reason cities are investing in these opportunities is that they are really trying to position themselves to attract these people.”
Janine Shea

Kanye West Comes Out to Support +POOL at Fall Benefit at Brooklyn Bridge Park | Inhabit... - 0 views

inhabitat.com/...-west-and-olympian-conor-dwyer

Celebrities endorsement Public_Spaces PR events +POOL Kanye_West Humberto_Leon Opening Ceremony

shared by Janine Shea on 26 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Janine Shea on 26 Jun 15
     
    US Olympian swimmer Conor Dwyer hosted the event, and rapper Kanye West attended in support of the innovative project
Janine Shea

The Challenges of Living Large: Scaling Up Sustainable Urban Growth | BSR Insight | BSR - 0 views

www.bsr.org/...ng-up-sustainable-urban-growth

shared by Janine Shea on 07 Dec 12 - No Cached
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 07 Dec 12
       
      Get city departments talking to each other - breaking out of their silos! More accessible ways to communicate with each other - CASUAL, i.e. social network
  • Just like in corporations, setting goals and having a vision proves to be an essential start for cities that want to engage business.
  • Matthew Lynch, the project lead, said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The companies in the UII are engaging collaboratively with cities upstream in the planning process, demonstrating the value of the early involvement of business and showing how a multisector group of leading companies can help cities find integrated solutions to interconnected challenges,” he said.
  • The “solution landscape” presents a menu of potential options for cities to address their key sustainability challenges. Lynch said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “Business adds value by being involved in the beginning, looking at the big plan, and looking at the issues landscape and challenges,” he said. WBCSD decided to work with multiple companies as opposed to a more ad hoc engagement to encourage the idea that it was business, not just individual companies working with cities.
  • The WBCSD expects that companies will use the landscape reports to refine their own approaches to working with these cities, targeting specific challenges and opportunities.
  • One significant challenge with deploying sustainable infrastructure solutions in cities is the vastly different time cycles used by business and government.
  • “Our experience is that building trust is critical.
  • there’s a “need for better coordination and understanding among governments, industries, and NGOs so that cities holistically plan for and build the infrastructure of tomorrow rather than create an infrastructure of mismatched components and potentially stranded assets.
  • “The aging population is the fastest-growing cohort, yet most of our cities are designed by men for young men in commerce,” he noted. How will women, children, and the elderly thrive in those cities?
  • At BSR, we know that when business engages stakeholders proactively, the insights gained will lead to more informed decision-making, more valuable collaboration, and more inspired business models.
  • The sooner meaningful engagement is at the forefront of the sustainable urban infrastructure agenda, the sooner we can hit fast-forward and have a chance at truly sustainable growth.
Janine Shea

How to Get Startup Ideas - 0 views

www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

GroundUp Start-up Founders blog Paul_Graham

shared by Janine Shea on 05 Dec 12 - No Cached
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 05 Dec 12
       
      Colleges ~ cities 
  • Live in the future, then build what's missing.
  • They grew out of things their founders built because there seemed a gap in the world.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • When you have an idea for a startup, ask yourself: who wants this right now? Who wants this so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a two-person startup they've never heard of? If you can't answer that, the idea is probably bad.
  • In practice the link between depth and narrowness is so strong that it's a good sign when you know that an idea will appeal strongly to a specific group or type of user.
  • it's not a sufficient one
  • Facebook was a good idea because it started with a small market there was a fast path out of. Colleges are similar enough that if you build a facebook that works at Harvard, it will work at any college. So you spread rapidly through all the colleges. Once you have all the college students, you get everyone else simply by letting them in.
  • When you find the right sort of problem, you should probably be able to describe it as obvious, at least to you.
  • Live in the future and build what seems interesting.
  • For some reason, the more a project has to count as research, the less likely it is to be something that could be turned into a startup.
  • gravitate toward solving users' problems
  • Worrying that you're late is one of the signs of a good idea.
  • It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors—so rare that you can almost discount the possibility.
  • if the beachhead consists of people doing something lots more people will be doing in the future, then it's probably big enough no matter how small it is.
Janine Shea

How the Experts Would Fix Cities (part 2) - 0 views

www.businessweek.com/...w-the-experts-would-fix-cities

GroundUp Validation Community-Level Richard_Florida Urbanism Creatives Rise_of_the_CC

shared by Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • What role are public-private partnerships going to have in funding development in cities? Is that just happy talk or is there reality to it? Hsu-Chen: It’s very real talk. And we’re getting smarter and better at it. Right now a lot of the incentives the city offers are around getting the right density at transit nodes. Kate and I worked together on a project just a couple years ago—Kate in the private sector, I in the public—to deliver a new state-of-the-art skyscraper right across the street from Pennsylvania Station.
  • In Europe you have a strong central government that can come in and work with the private sector to deliver something locally. Here it’s up to the municipalities to figure out how to use those public-private partnerships at the local level to deliver the types of benefits that Edith was talking about.
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12
       
      Facilitate public-private partnerships at the LOCAL LEVEL
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • At a time when some technologists talk about telecommuting, what makes you so sure that cities will continue to grow at the kind of pace that we’re talking about? Hoornweg: Well, people want to be with other people. Entrepreneurs want to be with other entrepreneurs. The idea that they could live anywhere is very much available to them. But they’re not choosing to.Ascher: It’s not just on a neighborhood level. It’s also on a business level. You want to interact with your business counterparts face to face. The physicality of a city is still so important.
Janine Shea

Impact investing 2.0: Time for a new approach | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

www.greenbiz.com/...investing-20-time-new-approach

GroundUp Validation Socially_Responsible_Investing 3BL Financing

shared by Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The two most common laments from impact investing devotees were the enormous difficulty of generating positive impact at the necessary scale, and the related fear that there simply weren’t enough investable projects to absorb the level of capital potentially interested in investing in them.
Janine Shea

european smart cities - Why smart cites? - 0 views

www.smart-cities.eu/why-smart-cities.html

Performance_Criteria GroundUp Validation 3BL Sustainability Urbanism Community-Level

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  • cities in Europe face the challenge of combining competitiveness and sustainable urban development simultaneously.
  • This project, however, does not deal with the leading European metropolises but with medium-sized cities and their perspectives for development. Even though the vast majority of the urban population lives in such cities, the main focus of urban research tends to be on the ‘global’ metropolises. As a result, the challenges of medium-sized cities, which can be rather different, remain unexplored to a certain degree
  • Medium-sized cities, which have to cope with competition of the larger metropolises on corresponding issues, appear to be less well equipped in terms of critical mass, resources and organizing capacity.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • specific aims focused on shareholder interests
Janine Shea

How the Experts Would Fix Cities (part 1) - Businessweek - 0 views

www.businessweek.com/...w-the-experts-would-fix-cities

GroundUp Validation Community-Level Rise_of_the_CC Creatives Urbanism Richard_Florida

shared by Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • What role are public-private partnerships going to have in funding development in cities? Is that just happy talk or is there reality to it? Hsu-Chen: It’s very real talk. And we’re getting smarter and better at it. Right now a lot of the incentives the city offers are around getting the right density at transit nodes. Kate and I worked together on a project just a couple years ago—Kate in the private sector, I in the public—to deliver a new state-of-the-art skyscraper right across the street from Pennsylvania Station.
  • The world has become increasingly urban—more than 50 percent of the globe’s population now live in cities. How can we make them more sustainable, efficient, and prosperous?
  • We don’t have a strong central government. We have a federal system.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • In Europe you have a strong central government that can come in and work with the private sector to deliver something locally. Here it’s up to the municipalities to figure out how to use those public-private partnerships at the local level to deliver the types of benefits that Edith was talking about.
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12
       
      Work with cities and investors to facilitate public-private partnerships at the LOCAL LEVEL
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12
       
      Corroborates Richard Florida's research - Rise of the Creative Class
  • Generally, cities are very good at talking to each other. Mayors talk to mayors. City officials talk to city officials. The lessons that are starting to really take root are that there’s safety in numbers.
  • We’ve also gravitated toward the idea that economic development is really the result of creating a city where people want to live. It’s the attraction of human capital. If you can attract highly educated people from other parts of the country and keep your own best and brightest, chances are the job creators are going to be successful. And people no longer chase jobs. Jobs chase people.
  • At a time when some technologists talk about telecommuting, what makes you so sure that cities will continue to grow at the kind of pace that we’re talking about? Hoornweg: Well, people want to be with other people. Entrepreneurs want to be with other entrepreneurs. The idea that they could live anywhere is very much available to them. But they’re not choosing to.Ascher: It’s not just on a neighborhood level. It’s also on a business level. You want to interact with your business counterparts face to face. The physicality of a city is still so important.
  • What kind of people are going to live in these cities that will be growing so quickly the next couple decades? Will retirees want to be in them? Families? Or will they have to flee because they won’t be able to afford them? Hoornweg: All of the above. With good city management, a city is attractive to everybody. There are really interesting studies coming out of the Santa Fe institution that basically say that if there were no externalities for traffic or whatever, the human population would like to live in one city, because we really like being with each other.
  • Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12
     
    Corroborates 'Rise of the Creative Class'!   Public-private partnerships at the LOCAL level
ccfath

Benchmarking Green: The First Investable US Green Property Indexes for REITs - Forbes - 1 views

www.forbes.com/...een-property-indexes-for-reits

shared by ccfath on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • FTSE Group, NAREIT, and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recently announced a jointly developed green property index for both institutional and retail investors. This first of a kind index was a collaborative effort bringing together global market leaders in US real estate indexing, REIT market expertise, and environmental building standards.
  • The indexes, currently in the final stages of implementation, will give investors a structured and disciplined way to measure and model the risk and reward profile of green property, using the first codified, transparent definition of listed green property. In addition, the indexes will also provide investors with new ways to incorporate principles of sustainability into their property selections and portfolios, and access this investment theme through index-linked financial products
  • owners include many of the largest green portfolios, measured as the estimated share of total portfolio value that has either LEED or EnergyStar certification. Just a few of the representative green indexed REITs include Douglas Emmett (DEI), Government Properties Income Trust (GOV), Piedmont Office Realty Trust (PDM), Boston Properties (BXP), Franklin Street Properties (FSP), Brandywine Realty Trust (BDN), Vornado Realty Trust (VNO), SL Green Realty (SLG), Ashford Hospitality Trust (AHT), Kilroy Realty (KRC), Washington REIT (WRE), and Cousins Properties (CUZ).
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Seems like NAREIT and FTSE are launching these indices in response to investor demand for a new benchmark and new investment vehicles that reflect interest in sustainable real estate projects.
  • have recently been hearing more from our clients about which companies own LEED certified or Energy Star certified assets
  • Because of the growing demand for investors seeking to understand how their portfolios will be affected and how they can reduce their risk, the new green property indexes should be well received for institutional investors.
  • This bold new initiative is a milestone product that should lead to significant opportunities for this participating in the growing market.
  • Academics have been finding that green-certified properties outperform otherwise similar non-certified properties with higher rents and higher occupancy rates, but until now there’s been no way for any investor to take advantage of that outperformance except to buy the buildings themselves or to do immense research into which REITs own green portfolios.  We’ve essentially done the background work that makes it possible for investors to participate in the greening of the real estate market.
    • ccfath
      ccfath on 30 Nov 12
       
      Added Green REITs to list
Janine Shea

FTSE Group, USGBC, NAREIT Develop Investable Green Property Indexes - 1 views

www.reit.com/...le-Green-Property-Indexes.aspx

GroundUp Validation Investor_Demand REITs Metrics Green Market_Size_Growth

shared by Janine Shea on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • “To date, no comparable benchmark has been available. We’ve already received expressions of interest from many large asset owners concerned about their exposure to a rapidly changing sector directly affected by the transition to the low carbon economy.”
  • The new indexes will be a milestone for real estate investment worldwide and will enable more real estate investors and managers to integrate sustainability factors into their strategies – both as benchmarks and as the basis for investment products.”  Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, USGBC said, “Green building is a win-win, offering both environmental and economic opportunity. Greater building efficiency can meet 85% of future demand for energy in the United States and a commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million jobs. The sector has seen incredible growth and is projected to add $554 billion to the U.S. economy each year. This partnership creates significant investment opportunities for those ready to participate in this growing market.”
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