In the past, it was easy. Corporations made money. Nonprofits helped the world. If a corporation wanted to help the world, it would donate to a nonprofit, or set up its own foundation.

That model is changing. Social ventures, a new kind of for- and nonprofit hybrid, are easing their way into the business world. From Good Capital, a socially responsible investment firm, to Google.org, which dedicates resources to helping urgent world problems, social ventures are proliferating throughout the country.

According to Andrew Greenblatt, NYU professor and Director of Products and Innovation at Criterion Ventures, the current generation of graduating college students will ensure that this trend becomes a fundamental part of our economy. To help today’s entrepreneurs navigate the confusing world of establishing a social enterprise, Greenblatt helps run Criterion’s Structure Labs, the country’s only one-day workshop on launching a social venture.

Business Pundit caught up with Greenblatt to discuss setting up hybrid ventures, where the movement is going, and how it will change the economy.

BP: Can you tell me more about the history behind Structure Labs? How did you guys come up with the idea?

AG: Criterion Ventures is a consultancy that launches social ventures, specifically with an eye towards things that have broader social impact. We also launch our own ideas. We identify some kind of need in society, find a sustainable way to address that need, and then launch a venture around it. We’re social entrepreneurs for hire.

Through this work, we’ve found out more about the problems faced by social entrepreneurs. Legal structures are an issue that came up over and over again. You’re either a for-profit, and your goal is to maximize profit. Or you’re a nonprofit charity, and your goal is to maximize making a better world.

Now we have all these blended, multiple bottom-line ventures coming together. Legal structures haven’t kept up. If you just want to maximize profit, there’s one structure. If you want to go out and have people give you money and use that money to do good in the world, there’s a different structure.

When you want to start blending your purposes, it becomes harder. So we created this 5-hour workshop that helps people understand what their options are, and what the advantages and disadvantages of all the options are. It’s fun and engaging. People can take their own projects to the workshop and work with their own real-life We got a grant from the Packard foundation, and that helped us create this, and now we are going around the country and offering the workshop, and that is really cool.

BP: What is a multiple bottom line?

AG: A single bottom line is profit. A second bottom line takes into account other stakeholders in the company. That could be the workers, so people could say that Costco cares about its workers, gives them health benefits, etc.

It could be their community, it could be their suppliers. For example, Ben and Jerry’s would hit cream crises (an oversupply of cream made prices collapse). When one of those cycles hit, and the price of cream went below the cost of maintaining the farms, then Ben & Jerry’s continued to pay the previous year’s to support the family famers.

The third bottom line is the environment. For example, is our carbon footprint growing or shrinking? Are we putting more toxic waste into the world, or less? That kind of stuff.

One beautiful thing about free-market capitalism is that there’s a really simple universal measure of success, and that’s profitability. When you start to add these other things–What does it mean to take good care of your workers? What does it mean to take good care of the environment and the community?–everything becomes squishier.

BP: If I want to launch a social venture, what are three of the most important things I should know, from a legal structure perspective, before I start?

AG: It depends on the social structure. If you want to start a foundation, because your Aunt Tilly died and left you $20 million to give away to save the pelicans, those 3 things you’re worried about are very different than if you’re trying to sell bednets in Africa. So the casual phrase of “social ventures” makes it hard for me to answer that question.

I can give you a broader answer, however. There are probably the three pieces of advice I would give to anyone.

Most people think, so this is my mission, that’s my job, and it’s my lawyer’s job to think about the structure. There are two problems with that strategy. The first is that unfortunately, some lawyers are better than others. The second is that people limit their own vision before they ever meet with their lawyer, because of their false assumptions.

And they go meet with their lawyer with their now-limited vision, and the lawyer says “yeah, I can do that.” Now, if they had a broader vision, then the lawyer would still say “yeah, I can do that.” But they’ve already clipped their own wings (when they limit their vision).

The second thing is that the legal structures have ramifications through different phases of your organization’s life. What your legal structure is will matter when you raise money, so lots of people start there, deciding on a legal structure based on whether they want donations or venture capital.

Some people go a little further. They think of their revenue streams, they think “how am I going to sustain this?” That might influence whether they’re going to be a for- or nonprofit. That’s usually as far as people tend to think.

The next thing that’s going to matter is how are you going to grow? You can franchise your operation, you can license out your intellectual property, or you can just grow. What your legal structure is will impact what options are available to you.

Then, there are issues about how you interact with your market. Being a nonprofit sends a certain message to your customers and your vendors. Being a for-profit sends a different message and allows you to interact with them in different ways.

The last thing that people don’t think about–that we have as the second thing you need to think about in our workshop–is your exit strategy. Someday you will exit this venture. If it means that God comes and takes you to heaven, I assure you, someday you will leave this venture.

Thinking through how you want that exit to be is crucial to how you set up your venture. If you think look, if this is wildly successful, and can sell someday, and I want to capture some of that money and retire, ok…well if you start a nonprofit, you can’t sell it.

So if you’re thinking 20 years from now, you’re retiring and selling this baby off, and you’re starting a nonprofit, we have some talking to do. Things like that.

BP: Let’s look at social ventures as an emerging economic movement. Where would you say we are right now on the timeline of that movement? Where are we going?

AG: Infancy. Elements of this have been around for a while. The idea that you can have sustainable ventures that encourage justice in the world is not new. You know, the YMCA’s been around for a long time. But as a movement, as people identifying it as a unique strategy and getting it moving, that’s pretty new.

It’s hard to choose a moment when this began. We didn’t have a Stonewall (Ed.: or any other major event to mark when this began). But it’s not more than 50 years ago that people started talking about being social entrepreneurs. It’s new.

When I was in law school, nobody knew about this. The fact that a few of us were graduating and wanted to go out and make a difference in the world was viewed as weird. This was 1990-3.

I went back to school to speak at Harvard about a year ago. Someone came from the business school to watch me speak, and we went out for drinks afterwards. He said that the largest student club at the Harvard business school today is the private equity club. The second largest club is the social venture club.

The world has changed rapidly, and it’s picking up speed. Students today are way ahead of where we were as students. That’s going to impact this world bigger, faster, stronger for a long while to come.

If you’re a recruiter for the mainstream economy, and you go to the business school today, you’ll be confronted with the fact that one of the biggest groups is the social entrepreneurs group. If you’re Rape and Pillage Inc., you’re going to have trouble recruiting talent.

I’ll give you one other example. There is a new corporate form out there. It’s called L3C, the low-profit limited liability company. It’s kind of an LLC, but also a new corporate form.

It was created in Vermont less than two years ago. It’s now available in 5-6 states. Just that there is a new corporate form says something, and the fact that it’s being picked up by other states so quickly is saying there’s a real hunger for this.

I think that this is a very young movement, and it is rapidly gaining speed. Economic forces will continue to push that. I think it will snowball faster and faster.

BP: How do you see this movement of social ventures changing the economy?

AG: In response to this? That’s a really complicated question. I’ll give it a shot.

I think more and more of the entrepreneurial energy will move in this direction. Most entrepreneurs start in their twenties. They usually really hit their stride in their forties, but they start in their twenties. And entrepreneurs in their 20s are doing this.

So, 20 years from now, this is what entrepreneurship is going to be. Currently, venture money is moving in this direction. Later on, expansion money is going to have to follow. As so many ventures mature, buyout money will move in this direction, too.

That’s already happening with certain consumer brands. Odwalla was bought. Danone yogurt bought Stonyfield Farms because that’s the part of the yogurt market that’s growing. You can still by Dannon yogurt, but it’s the part of the company that’s shrinking. You’re already seeing it begin to happen. It will happen more and more.

The dominant view now is a shareholder ROI economy. Things that can make money for investors get done. If you look at the trillions of dollars of investments that happen in America every year, the majority are driven by ROI for the investor. They fuel the bottom line.

That’s going to shift slowly to the multiple bottom lines. Ultimately, it will be more profitable to do that. Companies that don’t give a crap about anyone else will become less profitable. People won’t want to work there, won’t want to shop there. It will hurt your bottom line to be that company.

Today that’s not true, but you could make the argument that we’re starting to see it. For example, you can look at Costco versus Wal-Mart, and their stock price over the last 10 years or so. The recession may have changed this, but over last 10 years or so, Costco’s perfomrance has continuously been better than Wal-Mart in terms of P/E ratios. That’s partially because people view Wal-Mart’s relentless strategy of single bottom line as a detriment to them. Costco, which treats their workers better, cares about other stakeholders, etc., is viewed as the smarter long-term play.

If you look at who’s graduating from the top business schools today, that’s the talent pool that’s going to answer that question. But I don’t really know what’s going to happen.

We’re still trying to figure all that out.

BP: Anything else you’d like to share?

AG: Some people think that some of these ideas are good business, and they would have survived anyway, and that by painting it with some sort of social gloss is just decoration.

For example, Wal-Mart is way ahead of every other large retailer on the environmental front. They’re pushing their vendors, for example, to reduce packaging.

Pushing is the wrong word. They’re saying if you want to be on our shelves, you have to get rid of that excess packaging. It’s that simple. If you want to be in their stores—20% of the market or whatever—you’ve got to reduce packaging.

Some people are looking at that and thinking well, great, they’re protecting the environment. From Wal-Mart’s perspective, not doing it means more packaging in their trucks and less shelf space.

Yes, it’s good for the environment, but it’s good for the bottom line. They’re doing all kinds of cutting-edge energy management. They use very high-efficient lighting, and it’s off when it should be off, and all kinds of stuff. Again, why waste money?

Some people will say to the extent that any of this matters in business, only the stuff that goes to the first bottom line anyway gets picked up. So Costco will say we give good health benefits, train our workers better, and pay higher wages because it’s cheaper than having high turnover, and because our customers, when they ask where something is in the store, expect the right answer. Having someone who just started yesterday isn’t going to help that.

Some of that stuff that gets shed, is just stuff that costs money. It will help that first bottom line. That’s what some people will say who are watching all of this happen. Because clearly things are happening. You’re watching all this and can’t pretend that this is nothing. They’ll think that’s what’s happening.

I think they’re half right. The things that help the first bottom line are the things that will be picked up fastest and go quickest into the market.

But I think that the mindset of the public is changing generationally. That will have deeper impacts over time that we’re just starting to see. For example, if you want to hire the best and the brightest out of the best schools, you have to offer them more than just a high salary. There will be a generational shift that will go deeper than just “it makes sense to turn the lights out when nobody’s in the store.”

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Andrew Greenblatt is the Director of Products and Innovation at Criterion Ventures. He is an entrepreneur, lawyer, professor, and social venture expert. Find out more about Andrew and Criterion here.

Images: Steffen’s blog, Harvard Social Enterprise Club, Yarek Waszul

We emphasize value-added activities that will increase perception of your company and help marketing efforts. Use these tips in conjunction with energy-saving efforts that lower operating costs.

1. Go renewable–and let everyone know

Renewable energy bolsters public perception of a company. It marks you as a responsible, conscientious, caring organization. Harness this perception to attract more customers and increase your market share.

Whole Foods, for example, has established a “Green Mission” that includes offsetting all of its energy consumption with wind energy credits. As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency named Whole Foods its Green Power Partner of the Year in 2006 and 2007. A slew of good publicity followed.

Other large corporations, including FedEx, Wal-Mart, Costco, and Safeway also have renewable energy programs.

2. Market to guilt

Image: Stuff Young Jewish Adults Like

Humans, specifically Americans, generate most of the CO2 emissions that contribute to global warming. This sordid fact weighs on the public conscience, compelling consumers to seek out products and services green enough to assuage their guilt. Offering ways to mitigate enviro-guilt draws more customers to your company, which ultimately can boost your bottom line.

For example, the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) recently became the first airport in the country to offer carbon offset kiosks. With a simple swipe of a credit card, customers contribute to reforestation and biofuels, assuaging their sense of guilt about boarding a fuel-hungry, CO2-emitting jet. The program certainly differentiates SFO from other nearby airports, potentially boosting perception to the point of attracting more fliers.

Oil- and gas company BP is another example. It touts itself as one of the first oil companies to “take precautionary action to address climate change.”

Company officials emphasize that BP has made efforts to reduce emissions at its extraction operations, innovated a new type of gas that emits fewer toxins, and invested in clean technology research.

Does that absolve BP from the fact that it makes money by mining oil? No, but by emphasizing its efforts to mitigate the damage, BP is tacitly admitting that although it’s a bad guy, it wants to do good by the environment. In other words, it is appealing to consumer guilt.

Note: Some might label BP’s efforts as greenwashing. Regardless, it is using the tried-and-true tactic of addressing consumer guilt to clean its image.

3. Green your logo

Speaking of greenwashing, we make this point with a caveat: If you green your logo, please do something to back it up. Run your organization off renewable energy. Weatherize your building. Donate to eco-wise nonprofits. Sell green products. Otherwise, you risk being seen as a greenwasher.

Back to whipping boy BP. It’s an oil company, but its logo–a green flower-like symbol–evokes feelings of green. Does BP’s green logo and website design make the oil company look more environmentally friendly? On a subconscious level, it does.

If I didn’t know what BP was, and saw its logo for the first time, my first impression would be of a pretty green flower. Logo-wise, it looks much greener than, say, Chevron, whose red-and-blue logo evokes more patriotic feelings on first impression. Design counts.

4. Donate to Earthy causes

Reserve a portion of your profits for a nonprofit that works to restore the planet, like 1% For the Planet. Or make monthly/annual donations to an organization that preserves and restores nature. Making a financial commitment will show the general public that you put your money where your mouth is. Make sure that you publicize your donations well.

5. Sell eco-minded products

Image: Zazzle/Eco Girl

Nobody was buying canvas bags in the 1980s. Now, almost every grocery store sells lines of reusable shopping bags at the checkout counter.

People want to go green–and they’ll spend money to do it. Address that need with new products and services. They can complement your current offerings, or represent a deviation from your traditional wares. If you’re a service, develop a new brand that addresses the needs of people in the burgeoning green industry. Or market to people who want to feel more green.

Read up on what other bloggers have to say at BlogActionDay.org.

Two weeks was all it took. Once it set in, the culture shock numbed me to the media. It turned bathrooms, cars, and roads into outrageous luxuries. It even robbed me of my short-term memory for a while.

I’d experienced severe culture shock once before, after months in Africa. This time, I hadn’t even left the US Southwest. And I’d only been gone for 16 days.

It almost wasn’t fair. Except that I came out of my Grand Canyon river trip a wiser person. Moving at the speed of the Colorado River, living a life devoid of crowds, traffic, electricity, and noise, I learned a few lessons about sustainability.

I’d like to share three of them with you. They have altered how I think about sustainability. I hope that you find them useful, too.

Lesson #1: Excess is Normal
Taught by: The Groover

Good Lord. That’s a lot of water.

This was my first through upon entering the bathroom stall at the Hualapai Lodge lobby in Peach Springs, Arizona. Inside, there was a toilet. In that toilet, two gallons of clear, placid water anticipated my waste.

After 16 days of rafting down the Grand Canyon, I hardly remembered what a toilet looked like.

The trip toilet had consisted of army surplus ammo cans. Known as “groovers,” these metal boxes served as our 16-person group’s only waste repositories. Approximately every four days, one of the cans would fill up. At this point, we clamped it shut, loaded it on a boat, and dragged out a new empty one. We literally sat on the can every time we had to do our business.

All that water…for a single bowel movement?

Back in the Canyon, we hand-fetched and filtered our drinking water from the Colorado River. Two gallons of water was precious.

Using water to rinse our waste away simply wasn’t done. It was too much work to fetch and filter it. We also wanted to keep the river clean. It was our home.

Here in civilization, each bowel movement is honored with its own two gallons of water. Pull the flush lever, and the waste swirls into a hole and disappears. It’s wasteful, but it is standard. We consider it normal.

Lesson #2: Adapting Nature is Work. Adapting to Nature is Easy.
Taught by: Canyon Campgrounds

I continued to marvel at the toilet. The white porcelain bowl sat on impeccably scrubbed tile, laid for the sole purpose of making visitors’ bathroom experience more pleasant. An wall-mounted electric machine dried hands at the push of a button. Faucets with sensors decided the amount and temperature of the sink’s water. Wide walkways, high ceilings, inoffensive artwork, and air conditioning optimized the sense of comfort.

Just a day earlier, our group had been paddling down the Grand Canyon’s scorching innards. The Canyon didn’t care how comfortable we felt. In its world, we were inconceivably small, flesh floating on the coattails of a millisecond.

Despite the heat, bugs, and work of setting up a new camp every day, our ancient playground offered abundant amenities. At every camp, we found flat surfaces on which to set up our tents. A chilly Colorado River offered bathing, drinking, and cooling off. Trees secured our rafts. A wild panorama of stars replaced evening TV shows.

We hadn’t altered the environment to suit ourselves. Yet the Grand Canyon was complete. Our primitive setting felt in place, with everything perfectly arranged. Our duty was to adjust to it. And that took surprisingly little effort. Don a coat in the rain. Put up a wind shield to protect cooking food from gales. Clean sand out of stuff.

After indulging in the wilderness, coming back to climate-controlled, polished-floor, double-wide-sidewalk America felt like a taser shock. Despite all the mining, building, and paving required to make an environment comfortable for humans, being back felt incomplete.

Since coming back, I feel more comfortable, but only marginally. Cool air from vents feels nice in summer. My mattress beats my Therm-a-Rest. Yet modern amenities haven’t improved my quality of life that much at all.

Lesson #3: Think About Origin
Taught by: The Colorado River

When we traveled the river, our necessities came from rafts. Each raft was rigged to the hilt with supplies. The river provided transportation, baths, and water, but everything else—food, shelter, kitchen, toilet, trash—stayed on the raft during the day.

At night, we would lug everything up to camp, where we set up our kitchen, tents, and other necessities. The next morning, we packed it all up again and reloaded the rafts. The 16 of us easily lived from those four rafts.

Instead of being insulated from my surroundings by cars, thick walls, and a computer screen, we lived in and on the Earth. Whenever I altered the environment, I saw the effects of my actions. I watched my feet trample plants, my tent pad level wind-sculpted sand, my garbage feed fire ants.

I also noticed how little propane we needed to cook our daily meals. I reveled in stars, and didn’t miss electricity at all.

Fast forward to home. It’s a hot summer morning. My air conditioner, powered at its origin by coal, keeps my bedroom cool. A reservoir, running through a system of pipes, hydrates my shower. The wastewater goes to a treatment facility. My trash goes into a container, which then goes onto a truck, which in turn dumps it into a landfill. It’s much more complicated than living off a raft.

Now, as I rumble around in my car, recharge my laptop batteries, and crank the air conditioner, I think about where things comes from. I still feel connected to the Earth, despite the layers of concrete noise that separate us. I wonder how I am impacting it.

I think about how I, like all my resources, came from the Earth, and will one day return to it. Maybe humans and toilet water aren’t that different, after all.

The 2009 Scoot Coupe is hitting streets this summer. As its name suggests, the Scoot Coupe is a 50- or 150cc scooter designed to resemble a sports coupe. The 3-wheeler goes up to 45 mph and gets up to 80mpg. And you can’t beat the fun factor of zipping around in something that resembles a Playskool toy.

Starting at $6,300 a pop, the Scoot Coupe isn’t ideal as a primary vehicle. But it suits urban touring or beach cruising just fine. Its moped-like gas mileage, combined with its protective design, makes it a safe, fun alternative to a traditional scooter.

Where Does the Scoot Coupe Fit In?
The Scoot Coupe is emblematic of the massive new wave of microcars and EVs hitting the market in the next 1-3 years. Manufacturers are hopping on the EV/microcar bandwagon like lemmings, but nobody knows which kinds of cars will actually gain traction with the public. Currently, range is a huge issue with both kinds of cars–you won’t be able to take a Great American Road Trip in a Scoot Coupe or Nissan LEAF.

The genres’ successes, at least in early production years, will be limited by technology and infrastructure. Select urban buyers and second-car holders will revel in their EVs and microcars, but anyone who only wants one practical car will have to wait for something with a more appealing price and range.

Still, the sheer number of new players entering the EV/microcar arena means that early adopters an exhilarating range of options to explore. Are modified mopeds the next “it” thing? What about EVs and their many subtypes? Which types of vehicles only have temporary appeal? Which will endure? It’s too early to tell. But it will be fun to see an increasingly hybridized auto landscape in coming years. Heck, the Scoot Coupe might even become a classic someday.

Nissan unveiled its new electric hatchback, the LEAF, yesterday. The LA Times has more:

The LEAF (is) a five-seat compact, all-electric hatchback with lithium-ion batteries (24 kWh energy storage and max output of 90kW), giving the car a top speed of 90 mph and nominal range of 100 miles – a magic number, Nisan figures, in Americans’ driving psychology. The car’s electric motor generates 80 kW (107 horsepower). Depending on how you define your terms, the LEAF will be the first mass-market EV sold in the U.S. since the 1920s.

As for the LEAF, the biggest unknown yet is cost. Nissan officials have quietly hinted at a price less than $30,000 retail (that’s before any tax credits), the goal being to make the EV a no-cost option. That would be the LEAF’s greatest trick.

BusinessWeek reports that the LEAF’s batteries costs $10,000 per car. Nissan plans to absorb the high cost by leasing the batteries to LEAF owners. Although Nissan can take advantage of government incentives to keep EVs profitable during initial rounds of production, the question of how they’ll do it once governments scale back subsidies remains.

An EU-wide ban on incandescent (traditional) light bulbs is causing consumers to hoard the soon-to-be unlawful products. Manufacturers are enjoying massive sales as a result. Spiegel has more:

As the Sept. 1 deadline for the implementation of the first phase of the EU’s ban on incandescent light bulbs approaches, shoppers, retailers and even museums are hoarding the precious wares — and helping the manufacturers make a bundle.

Hardware stores and home-improvement chains in Germany are seeing massive increases in the sales of the traditional bulbs. Obi reports a 27 percent growth in sales over the same period a year ago. Hornbach has seen its frosted-glass light bulb sales increase by 40-112 percent. When it comes to 100-watt bulbs, Max Bahr has seen an 80 percent jump in sales, while the figure has been 150 percent for its competitor Praktiker.

(More)

Apparently, one reason for hoarding the old bulbs is that the aesthetics associated with the light they emit far outweigh CFLs, which have an “artificial” quality. As a result, art museums are buying them by the thousands, hoping to keep them in operation for years. The EU law prohibits producing and selling the bulbs, but not possessing them–so people are trying to compile long-term supplies.

I thought Cash for Clunkers was a regulatory headache, but it pales in comparison to the light bulb law. The EU could at least have chosen to profit off its restrictions by, as one article source suggests, “slapp(ing) a €5 surcharge on every incandescent bulb, (which would) make people think a bit more before buying them.” Besides, who is going to regulate light bulbs? Interpol? An armed energy task force? This is too big-brotherish.

Swiss company Algordanza memorializes deceased loved ones by turning their ashes into a ‘memorial diamond’. Why didn’t I think of that? 

In what they’re calling a ’unique way for the bereaved to remember those who meant so much to them’, Algordanza has developed a process whereby the ashes or hair from a deceased loved one are turned into ‘genuine human diamonds’ that will last forever.

“Recently, a woman in Austin, Texas had a diamond made from her father’s remains,” Jared Parrish, director of sales and marketing for Algordanza, says. “The diamond was set in her engagement ring so her father could still walk with her down the aisle.”

How sweet. I’d sort of like a pendant made out of my dog when he passes so that I’ll be taking him for a walk as long as I live.

“What sets us apart from other companies that offer this service, is that our diamonds are genuine,” Jared Parrish, director of sales and marketing for Algordanza, says. “We do not use any chemical additives which makes these natural, not synthetic diamonds.”

Algordanza chemically draws carbon out from the ashes or hair and compresses it into graphite in a high pressure, high temperature-growth environment. The graphite undergoes the same process leading to rough crystallized diamonds which are then cut and polished.

The company states that while the memorial diamonds are primarily white, they may vary in color depending on the quantity of the element boron within the carbon. Just as no two human beings are alike, no two stones are identical.

If the deceases has a blue aura, will the diamond turn out blue? It’s something to consider if you’re going to be wearing the thing forever.

Add another C to color, cut, clarity, and carat. Now we have Creepy as well. But as for the Capitalism of it all, you have to hand it to them – they’ve got the emotional angle covered in what might be the ultimate in recycling. These will probably sell quite well, don’t you think?

Image Credit: Stephend9, Flickr

Daimler today bought an almost 10% stake in US electric car company Tesla Motors. The LA Times has more:

In January, Daimler selected Tesla to provide batteries and chargers for the German company’s Smart EV electric car. The investment in Tesla “enables the partners to collaborate even more closely on the development of battery systems, electric drive systems and in individual vehicle projects,” the companies said in a press release.

Tesla was recently unable to complete a $100-million round of venture funding and had turned to low-cost federal loans as an option for financing.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that Daimler’s “engineering production and supply chain expertise” will “accelerate bringing (the) Tesla Model S to production,” according to the LAT. Daimler, in turn, will be able to use Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries for its new batch of battery-powered Mercedes, due for release in 2010. Daimler VP Herbert Kohler will also join Tesla’s board of directors.

The Daimler partnership will help Tesla, which sells battery packs, powertrains, and solar charges as well as cars, to insulate its business. Ideally, it will be able to leverage those divisions to continue working towards its goal of supplying affordable EVs. The Daimler partnership will help Tesla cars gain a foothold in the market beyond the niche supplied by first-mover advantages. Tesla cars will also be stronger when big car manufacturers start taking interest in affordable EVs.

Daimler, meanwhile, gets its hands on good batteries for its electric Mercedes, as well as a say on the board. For now, the partnership looks like a win-win situation.

Good Morning America today mentioned a site called Cell for Cash. The site allows you to either recycle your used cell phone for free or sell it for between $5-175 (that latter number is for an iPhone). Note that they will only offer cash for certain models.

The website, CellforCash.com, explains more in its About section:

According to Inform Inc., a non profit independent research organization, about 130 million cell phones are retired each year in the US. Other organizations estimate that there may be as many as 500 million cell phones lying idle in the desks and closets of America.

The CellForCash.com web site was created to address those facts – to return real cash value to people who still own their old out-of-service cell phones, and to address the issue of safe and responsible recycling on old cell phones.

Parent company RMS Communications started as a garage-based walkie talkie repair shop. They then moved into the pager repair business, then to refurbishing cell phones. The cell phone recycling business followed; RMS launched CellforCash.com in 2002.

What do they do with your used phones? From the RMS about section:

…we extract precious metals from some phones, we provide working phones to shelters, police departments and other worthy users, and we also simply dismantle and discard some old phones in a responsible, non-polluting fashion.

RMS claims to be doing about $20 million in annual sales. CellforCash.com offers affiliates a slice of that success through $5 referral pay, individual affiliate sites, and related programs. The CellforCash affiliate program might be worth a look if you’re interested in something a little different (disclaimer: I haven’t done the market research to verify the costs/benefits of the opportunity).

Warren Buffet may have announced a dismal quarter, but Berkshire Hathaway-owned Clayton Homes just released a PR hit. Fast Company has more on the iHouse, a prefabricated home pimped out with energy-saving features:

Clayton Homes, the largest manufacturer of modular homes in the U.S., officially introduced its i-house this past weekend at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting. Popular Mechanics says the i-house “looks like a house you’d order from IKEA, sounds like something designed by Apple and consists of amenities–solar panels, tankless water heaters and rainwater collectors–that one would expect to come from an offbeat green company out of California selling to a high-end market.” But the much-anticipated house, which Clayton claims is at least 30% more energy-efficient than traditional homes, is perhaps the most affordable option for a low-carbon lifestyle, with monthly energy costs of under $70.

Clayton’s i-house will likely be attractive to first-time home buyers due to its low price, but the modular home could also appeal to anyone searching for a cheap, energy-efficient vacation home. The company, which has sold 1.5 million homes since its start in 1934, expects to sell 2,000 i-houses per year within 18 months of its launch.

The iHouse’s design making it appealing for uses beyond the trailer park, eg. as a vacation home. It’s not cheap, especially when you factor in land purchase, but a worthy jab at mainstreaming green homes. It would be nice to see a smaller, cheaper version. As it is, I don’t see any reason to buy an iHouse over a deeply discounted McMansion.

PR-wise, however, it’s a hit. The trailer is progressive, attractive to a niche market, and eco-friendly. It borders on being hip–not bad for old Warren Buffet. And the amount of attention the iHouse is garnering can only help BRK’s reputation.

Now, if they would only update their Berkshire Hathaway activewear collection.