Sponsored Projects

POET is a privately held corporation that is the world�s largest ethanol producer. Founded in South Dakota in 1987, the company operates 27 plants across 7 states, producing nearly 2 billion gallons of ethanol annually. In 2014, the company opened its first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant which converts agricultural waste (cobs, leaves, husk, and stalk) into renewable fuel. POET is seeking to develop natural, renewable food sources and alternatives to petrochemicals. The company is focused on reducing the reliance of the United States on foreign energy, revitalizing global agriculture, and providing a cleaner, affordable alternative to fossil fuels.

Project: POET was seeking to expand its biorefining expertise from producing renewable biofuel from corn and stover to the production of biochemicals using corn and biomass as feedstocks. The conversion of ethanol and corn sugars into chemicals via biological pathways and chemical catalysis was a new area of discovery and innovation led by a handful of high tech players primarily on the West Coast. The SGE Immersion team identified the size and nature of these opportunities, and determined business models for partnering with those companies to produce the scale of output that would be needed to make bio-based chemicals and bio-based chemical catalysis technologies economically viable. The team identified which companies could produce green chemicals viably with POET and what scale and scope these markets may present for the biochemical industry with a partner like POET to build sufficient scales of production to make this technology marketable to end customers and OEM’s who sought to replace petrochemical based products to make a cleaner, safer, and greener world.

NEXUS-NY is a clean energy seed accelerator chartered with catalyzing the commercialization of technologies discovered by New York researchers. NEXUS-NY is funded largely by the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) and is meant to increase the number of scalable, clean energy start-up companies within the region. NEXUS-NY is succeeding in its mission by providing financial, educational, and business support to early-stage technology teams (most typically at the pre-venture stage). The program is administered by High Tech Rochester (HTR) and has worked with six different Cornell technologies/teams during its first two years. HTR retains no financial interest in any of the startups launched through its program.

Project: NEXUS-NY was running a pilot program with two Cornell technologies: a hybrid organic/inorganic nanofluid with the combined functions of CO2 capture and photocatalytic CO2 reduction, and microalgae photobioreactors for biofuel production. The SGE Immersion team evaluated the potential market commercialization of the technologies, both individually and as a set.

MOVE Systems develops safe, environmentally sound, and attractive food vending units manufactured in America.

Project: While MOVE was establishing itself in New York City, the company was already eyeing geographic expansion. The SGE Immersion team evaluated domestic market expansion opportunities and prioritized which business model and product mix would best serve a particular geography’s market.

Made in Nature is a Boulder, CO-based business specializing in organic foods which contain no added sugar, sulfur-dioxide, artificial colors, additives, fertilizers or pesticides, or GMOs.

Project: A significant challenge facing the organic food industry was the need for increased supply of organic inputs because of the time it took for a farmer to transition a conventional farm into certified organic production. The SGE Immersion team evaluated how Made in Nature could most effectively generate revenue from pre-organic production sources in a way that could encourage and support farmers’ transition to organic production and increase the company’s access to raw materials over time.

Land O’Lakes, Inc. is a Fortune 200, farmer-owned food and agricultural cooperative consisting of three business divisions: Land O’Lakes® (dairy products), Purina® (pet food), and WinField® (agriculture).

Project: The company’s CEO had directly mandated that the company shift from simply recognizing the importance of sustainability to actively pursuing projects that align with a strategy and that drive financial performance. Each of the business divisions were working on different initiatives that demonstrated this commitment. The challenge for the organization, however, was figuring out how to unite the array of initiatives that existed within it in a way that would yield a cohesive strategy that could guide the company forward and align its mission, purpose, and capabilities related to feeding people, crops, and animals on an ever-changing planet. Focusing attention on the WinField business division, the SGE Immersion team recommended how the company could best evaluate programs and activities against a sustainability approach to achieve strong operational and financial performance.

GE is a global manufacturer of a wide range of products for the home and business, including Appliances, Consumer Electronics, Home Comfort and Safety, Lighting, Automotive, Aviation, Commercial, Energy, Healthcare, Retail, Security, and Transportation.

Project: GE had recently launched a new company — Current, Powered by GE (http://currentbyge.com/) — with a focus on distributed energy resources (DERs) and the Commercial & Industrial market. A part of Current’s long-term strategy was to bring DERs to wholesale power markets (capacity and ancillary services). The SGE Immersion team worked to identify the barriers that existed to bringing DERs to wholesale markets (e.g., minimum capacity thresholds, geographic concentration, variable cost of entry, etc.); the enablement factors that were available and the impact DERs would have on the market (and by when) (e.g., NY Rev, California Energy Storage mandate, etc.); the technical barriers present (e.g., what types of resources (storage, gas, demand, etc.) could bid); and which markets and resources were most economically attractive for Current going forward.

Emerson is a leading global industrial firm comprised of five business segments: Process Management, Industrial Automation, Network Power, Climate Technologies, and Commercial & Residential Solutions.

Project: As the impetus for waste-to-energy solutions continued to grow, Emerson was looking to better understand how food waste was handled in large chain, fast casual and convenience stores (C-stores) with regard to diverting food waste from landfills by leveraging InSinkErator’s food disposer technology to turn food waste into renewable energy. These facilities continued to add more freshly-prepared food as demanded by customers, but they needed strategies to handle the increased waste. The SGE Immersion team analyzed food waste management practices and the equipment being used, as well as volume of waste produced and types of waste produced at those facilities. The team also analyzed the practices and trends that were pertinent to the creation and transportation of these food products. The team evaluated the U.S. market, what exists for current solutions and competitors, the barriers or opportunities that exist, and what the strategic implications of these different aspects would be for InSinkErator’s future growth.

Emerson is a leading global industrial firm comprised of five business segments: Process Management, Industrial Automation, Network Power, Climate Technologies, and Commercial & Residential Solutions.

Project: Emerson’s Grind2Energy™ project was taking steps to help divert food waste from landfills by leveraging InSinkErator’s food disposer technology to turn food waste into renewable energy through anaerobic digestion (AD). As the project gained momentum, Emerson was looking to better understand the current anaerobic digestion infrastructure in the U.S., including build-out plans and capabilities to accept food waste as co-digestion feedstock to boost biogas production. The SGE Immersion team analyzed the current status of anaerobic digestion in the U.S., including private, stand-alone farm digesters. The team identified trends with regard to co-digestion of food waste to boost biogas production, biogas use, the values/costs of these different uses, and the factors that contribute to those valuations or costs. The team reported on the state of the industry, including profiling of the major companies with recommendations for how Emerson should approach business growth in the market.

ECOM Agroindustrial Corp. Ltd is a leading global commodity merchant and sustainable supply chain management company.

Project: ECOM was taking a close look at how its operations, particularly its Sustainable Management Services (SMS) division, could further align with other stakeholders to find innovative value chain solutions that would help farmers adapt to climate change. This included renovation programs for coffee and cocoa and also new ways to fund forest and landscape restoration (FLR) programs. Within that context, ECOM management had been directly involved in getting the Government of Nicaragua to commit to the World Resources Institute’s (WRI) 20×20 Initiative and had also supported the recent investment of the Moringa Partnership Impact Fund in NicaFrance Outgrowers in hopes that these efforts would provide the insight to develop other similar programs locally, regionally, and globally, and would complement other efforts in development by ECOM with more traditional development partners like IFC, IABD and others. The SGE Immersion team assessed the readiness of the NicaFrance Outgrowers project as a platform on which other private and institutional stakeholders (e.g., SNV, CI, etc.) could build upon to reach the landscape scale, integrating other components (private reserves, conservation easements, insetting programs, etc.) into the core value chain. The team also evaluated the state of forest and restoration financing mechanisms to determine whether a global player like ECOM had additional roles to play in the marketplace for project finance and implementation to further accelerate the involvement of the international private sector in FLR programs. Finally, the team examined whether scaling up carbon insetting programs in ECOM supply chains could be used as a sustainable financing tool for FLR to meet the goals of programs such as WRI’s 20×20 Initiative, the Bonn Challenge, the New York Declaration of Forests, and SDG 15.3 on Land Degradation Neutrality. The team made recommendations for budgeting and the roll out of ECOM’s 2.7 million restoration commitment in Nicaragua.

Distributed Sun LLC is a Washington, DC-based renewable energy asset developer and investor that owns and operates assets in 9 US states.

Project: Changes in the energy market were allowing customers to own (or finance) their energy generation capability with an incentive to save on their utility bills, add resilience to their personal and business needs, and contribute to a greener environment. For example, a customer could invest in geothermal and ground source heat pumps for heating and air-conditioning (i.e., converting one kWh of electricity into one BTU of heat); Combined Heat and Power, or CHP, (i.e., converting one BTU of heat into one kWh of electricity); and battery or other chemical forms of storage, energy efficiency and peak-shaving or peak-shifting load management (i.e., converting one kWh of electricity at one value into one kWh of electricity at a different value). The cumulative effect of these changes could allow commercial and residential customers to use the arbitrage between prices of energy sources to evaluate an investment in customer-sited generation and storage assets. The investments were impacted by market and non-market forces: • Market Driven: Energy markets, states or regions that currently offer an arbitrage spread between price trends of natural gas, heating oil and electricity without government incentives and allow prospective customers the ability to switch their current energy sourcing practices to save on their utility bills. • Government Driven: States that currently offer subsidies or incentivize customer-sited generation or load management practices and offer prospective customers the ability to switch to different energy sources (higher technological risk and or lower savings potential). The SGE Immersion team analyzed the extent to which this was possible in select markets by evaluating the constraints and opportunities available and recommended the best investment landscape for Distributed Sun to pursue.