News

After the Deluge

Baton Rouge, Louisiana experienced historic flooding in August of this year, with the region receiving between 19 and 31 inches of rainfall. Six weeks later, Congress appropriated $500 million in flood aid for Louisiana. Yet Louisiana’s Governor reported that he expected more than 150,000 households in his state to apply for assistance with more than 80% of them located outside the 100-year-flood plain and lacking flood insurance. The total losses from the flooding, not including the public infrastructure, are estimated to be $8.7 billion. It bears repeating: everyone lives in a flood zone. Over the past five years, floods have occurred in all fifty states. Approximately 20 per cent of flood claims filed are for losses occurring outside defined flood plains. So make sure your business and home are properly insured.

 

By Donna | November 10, 2016 | Flood |

A Familiar Face

Swiss Re ExecutiveNational Geographic’s Emmy Award-winning series on Climate Change, “Years of Living Dangerously“, is now in its second season. The second episode was taped in Miami where, notwithstanding the impacts of rising sea levels, real estate developers have $20 billion of projects in the pipeline. Apparently they are not encountering opposition in securing permits to build in hazard-prone locales. It is probably not fair to single out Miami for this practice, which appears to be ubiquitous, but for the purposes of visual media, it is stunning to look at one high rise apartment building after the other directly on the waterfront of an area vulnerable to hurricanes. The episode contained a delightful surprise: a brief interview with Swiss Re Vice President Alex Kaplan, who commented on the inability of the insurance industry to continue to underwrite such reckless construction, given what is known about climate-related hazards. If you missed the episode on television, you can stream it online.

By Donna | November 8, 2016 | Climate Change Media |

Uber Pitch Accelerates Business Growth

uberpitchThe Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is once again finding an extraordinary way to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week. {Prisere LLC was selected for the GEW 50, the 50 most innovative start-ups in 2011, the year of our founding, by a panel of judges from the Kauffman Foundation.}  Together with business accelerator The Refinery and the ride-sharing service Uber, the Kauffman Foundation announced a nationwide pitch competition for women-owned businesses that are ready to scale. Business owners were invited to submit their written applications and those advanced to the next round of the competition took a 15-minute Uber ride in selected cities to pitch their business to an investor while driving about town. The investor provides immediate feedback on the pitch.

Prisere LLC participated in this “Fueling the Growth” Competition and were fortunate enough to pitch to an investor who had led a Boston-based company in the Inc. 5,000 and happened to have expertise in our area of work. Prisere received very thoughtful, detailed feedback that will inform our work going forward. If the “Fueling the Growth” Competition comes to your town, be sure to apply and many thanks to Uber for offering this innovative program to accelerate small business growth.

By Donna | November 7, 2016 | Growing Businesses |

Climate Capitalism

climate-capitalismWeekends afford the time to catch up on important reading and this weekend it was Climate Capitalism, a business title that did what few business books do: it addressed the needs of small businesses. (True, you can read about small business needs in small business titles, but it is rare that you find a general business book intended for a broad audience that considers small businesses, despite the fact that they account for most employment.) One section on page 39 was particularly relevant to Prisere LLC as we are undertaking an energy efficiency project:

Small businesses are the economic engine of any country, in North America generating more than half of non-farm private gross domestic product. They represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms, employing nearly 60 million workers, or about half of all private-sector employees. For the past decade they have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs each year. They confront correspondingly promising opportunities and bear significant responsibility for global sustainability. Energy efficiency remains one of the best investments that a small business owner can make.

The sections that follow present example of small businesses that have achieved returns of 20 to 30 percent or greater on their investments in energy efficiency. The authors address a timely topic with pragmatic, action-oriented steps. If you have not yet read Climate Capitalism, consider putting it on our reading list.

By Donna | November 6, 2016 | Book, Climate Change Media |