ETG teamed up with local experts and the Sustainability Chief of the Mayor of Cleveland to analyze and develop a sustainable economic development strategy framework and action plan for Greater Cleveland. The SC2019 Resource and Action Guide.   It was a collaborative effort, informed by the direct inputs of hundreds of Clevelanders, and the indirect inputs of countless people who have been working hard to make Cleveland great for many years.  SC2019 not only developed new model for sustainable economic development in Cleveland, but, is serving as the roadmap for coordinating sustainability action by the government, private sector, and community.

ETG supported the design and development of West Coast Green since its premier event in 2005. ETG supported WCG in the overall design of the conference and has developed and facilitated the Action Hub—a central part of the conference that supports green building and clean-tech entrepreneurs to convert ideas into concrete actions, businesses, and networks. Over the past three years, the Action Hubs have resulted in dozens of new businesses—ranging from launching green building suppliers to the first green Habitat-for-Humanity model home. WCG Action Hub aims to make our tracks wider, and our carbon footprint lighter.  The Action Hub invites and supports creative energy conversion of thought to deed, inspiration to tangible next steps, and traction to accelerated action. At the 2008 WCG Action Hub, sustainable projects were screened by a panel of venture capitalists. www.westcoastgreen.org

ETG teamed with Local Power (www.local.org) in 2004 to support San Francisco implement its Energy Independence declaration and take action towards radically increasing its use of renewable energy in its overall electricity and energy portfolio. ETG designed and facilitated a series of renewable energy cluster meetings to support the development of local capacity to provide solar, wind, tidal, geothermal energy. Cluster meetings brought together energy industry leaders representing large electric service providers, renewable energy producers, solar installers, wind turbine developers along with municipal bond specialists and experts from the wireless industry—to join forces in developing the emerging market opportunity stemming from California’s cities movement toward Energy Independence and Community Choice Aggregation. At present, San Francisco is implementing its Community Choice Aggregation initiative to become energy independent. ETG’s involvement served to accelerate the strategic alignment, networking, collaboration, and competitiveness among energy companies in responding to these opportunities resulting in a variety of strategic alliance, attracting venture capital, and fostering innovation.

In a project for the Government of Turkey, funded by UNDP, ETG professionals worked with a team of international experts to design a vision, strategy and action plan for Southeast Anatolia region of Turkey—one of Turkey’s most important and challenging regions, bordering Syria and Iraq. The competitiveness agenda was designed as an effort to develop a framework for transforming the region’s economy. The Competitiveness Agenda charts a new sustainable economic direction for the region and develop a cohesive framework for its further elaboration and implementation. In particular, the project showed how the region can become a new, value-added economy—based on reengaging its identity as the “cradle of sustainable civilization”—thereby both renewing the Region’s cultural and economic distinctiveness and establishing the Region as a new role model for developing regions in Turkey and worldwide. The Agenda specifically charts a roadmap for the region to leverage its high concentration of renewable energy (hydro, solar, wind), organic agriculture and food procesing, organic cotton and textile production, and sustainable tourism to position the region as a center for sustainable development in the developing world. The consultant team conducted research, interviews, analysed sectors, markets, and developed a comprehensive economic vision, strategy and action plan for the region. The Competitiveness Agenda was presented and accepted by the Government of Turkey and resulted in budget allocations of over $12 billion over the next five years.

During the past seven years, in the small “spicy” state of Tabasco in Southeast Mexico, ETG has supported the development and evolution of rural clustering program to help poor rural women pull themselves out of poverty. ETG has joined forces with Dr. Armando Mejia to develop a model for economic entrepreneurship based on savings groups, entrepreneurship development and micro finance. The model first emerged in 1999 with the formation of a savings group of 10 women. By 2003, 34 groups had formed in the Costa Chica region, totaling some 800 women, each saving and earning on average $68 per year. In 2003, ETG helped to expand the women’s saving group model to two other poor rural regions in Tabasco. In 2005, the Governor of Tabasco invited ETG to expand the program to all 17 provinces in the state. In 2005, at the inaugural meetings of the Clinton Global Initiative, Governor Andrade and Dr. Hansen made a $9 million commitment expand the program and provide entrepreneurship support to 15,000 women. This commitment was implemented in 2005-2006 and was featured as one of the most successful rural development programs during President Clinton’s hour-long CNN program on Sustainable Economic Development. Today, the “Cajas” program has more than 12,500 women involved in savings circles and all together are organized into 12 cooperative organizations and are launching their own micro finance bank.

ETG staff were hired by the North American Development Bank (NADBank) to plan and facilitate a collaborative planning workshop for a major meeting of the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission (BECC), NADBank, the Commission Nacional de Agua, the International Boundary and Water Commission, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The conference brought together the executive leaders and staffs from each of these organizations. In this meeting, the key objective was to identify barriers to progress and reach consensus on an action plan for success. A secondary objective was to build a collaborative team of all groups and improve communications and trust. The three-day workshop, which involved simultaneous meetings for 50 participants of six different agencies as well as breakout groups, produced an action document that outlined consensus on goals, roles, and actions. An action plan was put together defining specific roles and responsibilities for collaboration among the different organizations in the upcoming year.

ETG staff were hired by the North American Development Bank (NADBank) to plan and facilitate a collaborative planning workshop for a major meeting of the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission (BECC), NADBank, the Commission Nacional de Agua, the International Boundary and Water Commission, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The conference brought together the executive leaders and staffs from each of these organizations. In this meeting, the key objective was to identify barriers to progress and reach consensus on an action plan for success. A secondary objective was to build a collaborative team of all groups and improve communications and trust. The three-day workshop, which involved simultaneous meetings for 50 participants of six different agencies as well as breakout groups, produced an action document that outlined consensus on goals, roles, and actions. An action plan was put together defining specific roles and responsibilities for collaboration among the different organizations in the upcoming year.

As part of the North Dakota’s New Economy Initiative—a statewide, action-oriented effort to mobilize North Dakotans around new ideas to grow the economy—ETG helped to invite North Dakota’s energy leaders (principally from the coal and oil industries) to expand their cluster to include a focus on wind energy and the environment. Leaders from North Dakota’s emerging wind became a driving force of this cluster and developed and implemented action initiatives ranging from the development of rural wind farms to new legislations promoting wind development, to proposals for expanding the state’s electricity transmission capacity.

During 2002-04, ETG helped to launch the cacao cluster and supported the development and implementation of the cacao cluster’s main initiative—the transition to organic cacao. By 2005, more than two-thirds of all cacao production in the state was certified as organic cacao.

ETG was instrumental in shifting the focus of Mendoza’s energy cluster to renewable energy and helped to formulate a number of action initiatives ranging from bio-diesel production, to rural wind power development, to solar research.