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Archive for July, 2011

The Airbnb horror stories that have emerged in recent days expose the biggest pain point for the economy that has built up around using the web to share “stuff,” whether that’s a house (Airbnb, Crashpadder), a car (RelayRides, GetAround) or an item like a tool (Zilok, NeighborGoods). Protecting the item that is being rented, as well as the person who owns the item, and maintaining the trust of the community of users, should be the largest investment that these “collaborative consumption” companies are making. Some of these companies have seemed to realize this early on, while others haven’t.

In case you haven’t heard, there have been at least two Airbnb nightmare stories, where renters essentially used fake identities and trashed the apartments they had rented and stole items in the apartment. Both victims gave accounts to the media of Airbnb execs being both sympathetic and attentive but also giving mixed messages about compensation for the damages. The story is still spinning out of control, mainstream publications have picked it up and Airbnb has a major PR problem on its hands, which it seems ill equipped to deal with.

What is the right way?

If you look to the peer-to-peer car-sharing companies, which include RelayRides, GetAround and Spride Share, they were only able to launch their companies after they figured out how to supply users enough insurance, which included some business-model innovation and also lobbying to get a bill signed that maintained drivers’ insurance while participating in car sharing. RelayRides holds a $1 million supplemental insurance policy that goes into effect during each reservation period.

Because cars are potentially dangerous, and because car drivers already have a model for insurance set up, peer-to-peer car-sharing companies have seemed to take a proactive stance for protecting car renters and owners in their networks. Some companies like RelayRides have gone even further to maintain security and use technology like immobilizers, which keep the cars from being started without valid reservations.

Ensure success

It would seem natural that renting out something as valuable as an apartment would have similar significant insurance policies. Other collaborative-consumption sites that have built an economy around less valuable goods (like CDs or tools) might not need as robust insurance, but every site needs some baseline security system.

Beyond security and damage control, there are also privacy risks involved with renting cars and apartments in peer-to-peer networks. One of the Airbnb victims was concerned about a birth certificate being taken and his identity being co-opted. This new breed of collaborative-consumption sites need to be much more diligent in protecting privacy than their early peers like Craiglist were.

The major concern for me is that this budding movement of using the web to share stuff — which is a disruptive and sustainable new trend compared to ownership — could be dampened by companies that don’t invest enough in security and privacy tools. As Craig Shapiro, a partner at the Collaborative Lab, told me, “For pretty much anything related to sharing resources, thinking through trust and reputation is a critical first step —particularly as it relates to user acquisition.” If these companies don’t make their communities feel safe, they won’t have communities anymore. And the new green web-sharing economy could suffer.

Images courtesy of GigaOM, Collaborative Labs

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• How to leverage the web-sharing economy now
• Green IT Q1: Cleantech Breaking Out — and Bracing for Hard Times
• Green IT’s Q4 Winners: Wind Power, Solar Power, Smart Energy

Here are some more top cleantech stories of the week. Enjoy!

1. Straw bale homes are helping the UK to improve energy efficiency and address the economic struggles going on their.
2. Dr. Joe Romm picked apart a new report supposedly on “climate pragmatism” this week. The roadblocks put in front of true climate action and understanding are many. A big thanks to Joe for constantly being a watchdog on these topics.
3. Arctic drilling is the new gold rush for scrupulous oil companies. Many people have been concerned that oil companies would not be prepared to clean up or at all respond to an Arctic oil spill. The Coast Guard has now testified on the matter and said the same.
4. Interbrand just announced the “best global green brands” of 2011 (top 50). The top 5 of those are: 1) Toyota, 2) 3M, 3) Siemens, 4) Johnson&Johnson, 5) HP.
5. The Department of Energy had a piece this week on a tidal energy pilot project in Washington State’s Puget Sound. Interesting project using 2 tidal energy turbines on the floor of Admiralty Inlet that could create over 1 MW of electricity (enough to power about 700 American homes) at peak.
6. Poland is moving forward on plans to build its first two nuclear reactors. GE is one of the companies working with professionals there on this matter and “signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Warsaw-based engineering firm Energoprojekt Warszawa, S.A. (EW) to discuss the feasibility of partnering on future reactor projects.”
7. Climate Central, which normally writes about climate science, has been delving into clean energy a bit lately. One piece this week explained how the U.S. could produce 80% of its electricity from “clean energy sources” by 2035.
8. Ontario has delved into clean energy as much as just about anyplace on the planet with its Green Energy Act. And recent reports show that it’s got a ton of jobs to show for that. Reportedly, 20,000 green jobs have been created by renewable energy measures and 30,000 are expected to be generated by 2012.
9. The world’s largest wave energy project, a 4-MW project in Scotland, just lost a major backer, German utility RWE. Tidal energy seems to be the favored marine energy technology as wave energy technology is still very nascent according to experts.
10. The Energy Information Agency delayed a study on energy subsidies this week due to its ridiculous, politically-motivated assumptions and the EIA chief was apparently up in arms about the assumptions being requested by Republican lawmakers.

Countries with leaders that have been busy enacting strong domestic climate change policy frameworks with built-in TLC – transparency, longevity and certainty – “will attract more investment and will build new, clean industries, technologies and jobs faster than their policy lagging counterparts,” according to a just released study by Deutsche Bank’s DB Climate Change Advisors.

The countries who rank at the top of DBCCA’s list of countries that have enacted strong climate policy frameworks during 2010 and to date in 2011 are pretty much the same ones who ranked at the top in previous years’ studies.

Germany and China continue to develop strong policies that serve to drive down carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, with the UK increasingly doing so. Russia, the US, Spain and Canada, in contrast, either failed to initiate, or in some cases, reversed or threatened to reverse “crucial climate policy initiatives,” according to DBCCA’s July 2011, “Global Climate Change Policy Tracker: Winners and Losers.”

DBCCA believes that the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and the oil price shock that came about as a result of the “Arab Spring” movements in the Middle East have caused a sea change that is “likely to mark 2011 as a key inflection point in the global energy mix and as catalysts for a transition toward cleaner, sustainable and more secure energy supplies.”

Comprehensive in nature and by design, DBCCA has come up with a interlocking and self-supporting framework for evaluating the climate change policies of countries and states, the details of which are explained in the July report. This framework tracks the policy momentum of mandates, emissions and supporting policies in the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) countries and key US states that account for approximately 80% of global GHG emissions.

DBCCA monitored 390 climate change policies that are “binding or accountable,” 104 of which are new to the database from March, 2010, when its previous report was published, up to April, 2011.

Evaluating the results, DBCCA found that “policy momentum is still positive, but shows signs of slowing down in recent months as many economies have by now developed and implemented their domestic policies.” Research analysts also noted some “negative revisions and fine-tuning of policies, particularly in FiT (feed-in tariff) markets, largely driven by budget concerns over the recent financial crisis, as well as cost reductions in renewable energy technologies as they achieve greater scale (particularly solar).”

Building TLC into climate change policy frameworks is essential to their success, according to DBCCA, and explains the failure of some countries to realize resulting benefits. Navigating what amounts to uncharted economic development waters, also crucial to success is to “identify the winning policy structures which reduce uncertainty,” DBCCA finds.

Germany and China have emerged as global leaders when it comes to investing in low carbon technologies and creating strong domestic policy frameworks that support this. “In stark contrast, a politically divided US Congress and vast budget deficit has resulted in very little significant regulation at the Federal level, with substantial implications for emerging clean technology industries in the US.’

More on DBCCA’s July 2011 report to come…

Related Reading:

1. Forget Carbon Capture & Storage; Think Carbon Capture & Utilization
2. Clean Tech (& Dirty Tech) Policy & Politics News
3. Australia’s Climate Legislation Meets Surprise Success