Every now and then a brilliant idea comes along and one needs to find that unique individual to match the opportunity. Usually its the other way around – by this I mean there are lots of good people looking for opportunities, but no good ideas !

At Ecopreneur we are going to help find one individual who is looking for his own business, but is short of a great idea. We have a client who has a brilliant idea in the South African (and could be world wide) security business and is looking for someone to partner him to build a great business. Our client has done the necessary research and is well skilled in business start-ups and particularly in marketing. He seeks a partner to help develop this business – he wants the person to develop the technical, and operational side of the business and to ultimately train others to grow the business. To begin the process please make contact via the Security Industry opportunity

The right candidate will be an enthusiastic and passionate person who has been looking for the right idea for his own business. He may be currently in a corporate environment or already on his own. He is ready to commit to a vision and begin to build a business of which he will be proud. He will be useful with his hands and have a sharp engineering type mind that seeks to technically innovate on existing technologies. He may have had some experience in the electrical/mechanical disciplines, but generally loves a challenge. He will be able to impart his knowledge to others to help grow the business. He will be comfortable with marketing, although this will not be a long term part of his role.

If this is for you, please send an email motivating why this opportunity is for you together with your CV. Details here: Security Industry opportunity

This position has been filled and opportunity is now closed

Over the holidays, we reviewed all of the smart new business ideas we covered in 2009, and selected 10 that we believe will provide entrepreneurs with plenty of opportunities in 2010. Needless to say, it was a huge challenge to pick just 10 from such a wide range of innovative concepts. We hope you’ll find our selection as inspiring as we did!

1. Small-scale food production using membership models

The past year or two saw a huge increase in innovative, upscale mobile food purveyors working from trucks and selling everything from premium ice-cream to Korean BBQ tacos. Requiring an even lower investment, the next wave could be small-scale culinary subscription services, which allow fledgling entrepreneurs to get a foothold in the food business, and create a steady income and a loyal client base for future business activities.
Milk Made » — Dulcinea »

2. Low impact advertising

Realising that green concerns are here to stay, British media agency Curb offers nothing but low-impact advertising. Its first service used rainwater to clean logos into grubby pavements, and was quickly followed by other techniques that use sand, sea water, grass, glow-in-the-dark funghi and more to broadcast their clients’ messages in an earth-friendly manner.
Curb »

3. Health tracking devices

From wireless headbands that track sleep patterns to wearable gadgets that track every move, an increasing number of options is available for people who want to track their own health-related behaviour. Recording and relaying detailed information that was previously only available through medical monitoring, most of these devices aren’t yet available worldwide, which creates a host of opportunities for distributors and localized versions.
Zeo » — Fitbit » — DirectLife » — TheCarrot.com » — Bedpost »

4. Sample stores, cafes & vending machines

Sophisticated sampling—dubbed tryvertising by trendwatching.com—isn’t new. On the rise, however, are dedicated spaces that facilitate sampling by a variety of brands, attracting consumers through the irresistible offer of free goods. Following sampling stores in Spain, sampling cafes in Tokyo and sample vending machines in Belgium, we suspect this concept will spread even further in 2010.
Esloúltimo » — L CAFE » — Boobox »

5. Discreet rooftop solar panels and wind turbines

While most homeowners would in theory like to generate their own wind or solar power, many are put off not just by cost, but by the aesthetic impact of wind turbines and solar panels. Aiming to resolve that problem are smart engineers who are creating new options that blend in with their environment. Two promising examples: rooftop wind turbines that almost disappear along the apex of a sloping roof, and solar panels shaped like traditional clay roof tiles. Plenty of opportunities here over the next decade, both in distribution and in the development of similar products.
Solé Power Tile » — Ridgeblade »

6. Rotating retail at airports and in malls

Pop-up, temporary retail is still going strong, but a new alternative has entered the game: rotating retail. Two spottings: opening soon in Glasgow Airport is Planeshop, a permanent store that brands will take over for a limited time, including changing the shop’s exterior graphics to match their identity. And in the Netherlands, BrandNew Stores aims to turn those fleeting pop-up shops into a chain concept, creating fixed spaces where brands can temporarily present themselves in a regular retail environment.
Planeshop » — BrandNew Stores »

7. Remote farming for consumers

According to Wikipedia, farm simulation game FarmVille has become the most popular game application on Facebook with 73.8 million active users in January 2010. Offering consumers a way to remotely control a patch of land that will actually provide them with an edible harvest is a new Italian start-up: Le Verdure Del Mio Orto, which lets anyone build an organic garden right from their web browser. As the produce grows, it’s picked and delivered to the customer’s door within 24 hours. Weekly deliveries are part of the package.
Le Verdure Del Mio Orto »

8. Connecting creative consumers with local fabricators

A partnership between New Zealand-based Ponoko and North Carolina-based ShopBot Tools, 100kGarages is a community of workshops distributed around the world that are equipped with the digital fabrication tools needed to precisely cut, machine, drill or sculpt the components of virtually any creative project. The network allows designers or consumers turn their ideas into physical products, and creates new business for small workshops.
100kGarages »

9. Paying consumers to promote products they use and love

As our sister-site trendwatching.com pointed out in its sellsumers briefing, selling is the new saving: a recession-induced need for cash plus an ever-growing infrastructure are fueling concepts that help ordinary consumers make money instead of spending it. One of the easiest ways to do so is by taking on the role of marketeer for products they already use and love: from promoting concerts by their favourite bands, to helping small companies launch new products.
Hollrr » — People’s Music Store » — Posse » — Looklet »

10. Single-use toilet bag turns human waste into fertilizer

While this is a numbered list, we love all of these ideas equally. So, last but not least, a potential solution to a problem that 2.6 billion people have to deal with: no access to a toilet. Designed for use sitting, squatting or standing, the single-use, biodegradable plastic Peepoo bag is lined with a urea-coated gauze layer that disinfects all waste. Used bags are odour-free for at least 24 hours and are safe for burial underground. Within two to four weeks after use, their contents are converted to high-quality fertiliser—something that’s also rare in many areas and could become a source of income and further enrichment for individuals or villages.
Peepoo bag »

There are plenty of schools out there with green practices among their goals, but a new school in Bali will be entrepreneurially green from top to bottom:

• The Green School in Bali boasts a working organic chocolate factory, aquaculture ponds, organic vegetable gardens, edible mazes and perma-cultural gardens all located on a campus built entirely of low-impact and environmentally conscious materials. The Green School is open to preschool through eight grade level children from all over the world, with tuitions ranging from roughly USD 4,000 to USD 9,000 per year.

• To stick with kids: how about green educational toys? Doesn’t sound fun? Check out the Power House by Thames & Kosmos, a USD 149.95 miniature (working) green house with solar panels, a wind turbine and a desalinization system. The kit’s aim: teach children what it’s like to live off the grid, and get them (and their parents) to “consider a life without fossil fuel.” To make the experience more realistic, the user manual incorporates a storyline about high-tech pioneers inhabiting a small island who must make use of limited resources to survive. The 70 experiments and 20 building projects that form part of the kit mimic the tasks the kit’s fictional pioneers must perform. Expect many new toys to have a green slant, not only in the materials they’re made of (or being solar-powered, for that matter) but with a green purpose, too.

Matching our recent GENERATION G trend with all things eco is a no-brainer. GENERATION G (that’s G for generosity) captures the growing importance of generosity as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy — which has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate. For many, sharing a passion and consequently receiving recognition has replaced ‘taking’ as their status symbol of choice. Businesses should follow this societal and behavioral shift, as much it may oppose their age-old devotion to me, myself and I.

Here are some smart innovations by brands that manage to be generous to both their customers and the environment:

For an extensive overview of the new wave of perks, we’ll refer you to our October 2008 briefing, in which we defined PERKONOMICS as follows:

As outlined in our October 2008 briefing, one of the most visible perks right now is dedicated—if not free parking—for hybrid cars, but how about free charging, too?

• Through a pilot program, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport now offers six prime parking spaces for electric vehicles. The green-striped spots—with power sockets—are located on the garage’s fifth floor and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Standard parking rates apply, but the electricity is free.

FREE LOVE, or the art of giving stuff to consumers, is an enduring trend. For a lengthy FREE LOVE overview, please read the full briefing (published in March 2008). Here’s an eco-twist we like:

• Freegreen is a website that offers free, customizable green house plans in both traditional and modern styles. The service relies on paid placement from product manufacturers, but it takes pains to be transparent about the products it displays, offering users ratings from established third-party green certification programs such as LEED and NAHB and research performance data through its own energy modeling reports.

Reward schemes will forever be a favorite of both producers and consumers. Here are some green takes:

• Philadelphia-based RecycleBank enables households to earn RecycleBank Dollars, redeemable for discount coupons at Whole Foods, RiteAid, Starbucks and participating local companies just by leaving their recyclables out to be collected. RecycleBank containers are embedded with identifying barcodes which collection trucks scan to track how much each household is recycling; the more customers recycle, the more they earn in RecycleBank dollars—up to the equivalent of USD 35 per month.
• Currently operating in eight regions in the US, NuRide allows its 40,000 users to earn up to USD 350 per year in rewards exchangeable for retailer discounts, gift cards, and tickets to shows and attractions just by sharing rides and otherwise limiting their car use. Because registered carpoolers specify their trip origin, destination, travel preferences and vehicle information; sponsors are able to target highly specific sets of consumers, both nationally and locally.

Basically, once companies and consumers can no longer get away with anything less than totally offsetting their negative impact on the environment—and this will happen sooner rather than later—the only way to stand out, to gain any kind of respect in the eco-sphere, will be to go the extra mile and be over-generous. From planting more trees than is strictly required, to cleaning up not only your own mess, but someone else’s, too.

This is what we said in an earlier briefing:

Count on being sustainable or being carbon neutral to soon be just the starting point, not the end goal. So think about how your brand can actually boost the environment instead of just limiting damage. Call it PR or responsibility or both. As long as you go out of your way to be generous, everyone wins.

See the ECO-BOOSTERS section in our ECO-ICONIC briefing for examples.