A look at our sustainable future

2012 will be the milestone year that the US economy demonstrates sustained economic growth through adoption of 21st century’s sustainable solutions. Earth 2017's economic model estimates that sustainable product solutions have now achieved the breakthrough trillion dollars per year in global annual revenues level and is on the path toward achieving $10 trillion of annual global revenues by 2017.

Here are the five megatrend drivers behind 2012’s sustainable economic growth:

1. Energy efficiency is #1 in ROI. The Return On Investment (ROI) on US 10 year bonds is 2 percent and the 2011 Standard and Poor 500 stock index closed the year with zero appreciation. Energy efficiency investments now offer 10-50 percent ROIs making them the superior investment available today in the United States.

Two fuel price trends are driving these superior returns for energy efficiency investments. The first is that 2011 marked the first time in US history that the average price of gasoline did not fall below $3 per gallon and diesel prices did not fall below $4 per gallon. The second major fuel trend is the continuing rise in electricity prices. Electricity rates continue their long-term upward path driven by higher coal prices and the increased cost of pollution controls on coal fired power plants. In addition, the aging of the electrical grid and pressure to adopt smart technologies mean utilities are cash strapped and must request for higher rates to fund investments.

In response to electricity price inflation 52 percent of US companies report targeting a 25 percent reduction of their electricity consumption by 2014. The pain at the pump is now energizing the US automobile industry to act with new new models like the Chevrolet Cruze, Hyundai Elantra and Ford Focus. These vehicles with MPG over 35 mpg are succeeding in the market with sales up over 40 percent. The most telling trend-indicator of all maybe the successful IPO of Zipcar, a car sharing program.

2. Green supply chain is driving global economic growth. Corporations, not governments, are now driving the push toward sustainability as they harvest increasingly significant profit growth through design and process innovations that cut production, delivery, packaging and disposal costs while also reducing a company’s/product’s environmental footprint. This is a global trend led by international companies like Walmart, GE and Coca Cola. Its commercial impact is now evident in the increasing scale of Request For Proposal bid questions on sustainability metrics and performance results documentation.