Ed Morrison · Holly Harlan: Seeing around the corner

June 25th, 2008

Four or five years ago, when I was at Case, Holly Harlan suggested REI help develop some promising opportunities for NEO: regional food systems and regional energy systems. She also started exploring the idea of using the Cuyahoga Valley as a platform to develop integrated systems of clean tech (which she referred to as “regeneration strategies”).

Well, regional food systems are taking off across the country. Here’s an example from Iowa.

Regional energy systems are starting to do the same, as energy supplies develop around more distributed, renewable sources. Example: The growth of wind power. (Read the Cuyahoga wind power here.)

Now I read that Singapore has launched a major clean tech initiative that includes developing a park that will be “a sizeable parcel of land dedicated to creating a clean tech community over the next two decades…A set of ’smart regulations’ governing the distribution of energy, waste and water would also be experimented with at the park….The park will put notions of “industrial ecology” into practice, where one company’s waste stream becomes another company’s input…”

As one member of the Singapore International Advisory Panel on Clean Energy noted: ““There are lots of places in the world that want to be hubs or clusters of clean tech. The race is on.”
Read more: Clean tech park to be set up here, to test such an ecosystem.

You can read more about the Advisory panel’s recommendations here. You can get more quotes from the Advisory Panel here.

(If you do not think this is significant, think again. The Xinhua news agency in China picked up the story. Read more.)

This strategy is exactly what Holly was working on with the Rocky Mountain Institute in the Cuyahoga Valley. (BTW, RMI is working on new energy systems as part of the Indiana Energy Systems Network.)

You can download the Cuyahoga Valley report here.

If you want to be on the leading edge of regional economic development (not just here in NEO), E4S is the place to be.

In my travels across the U.S., I’ve not seen any organization quite like it. My advice to funders: Place some significant bets on E4S.

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Category: Economic Development
1 Comment »

One Response to “Holly Harlan: Seeing around the corner”

  1. Holly Says:
    July 20th, 2008 at 2:19 am

    Ed… Just read your post tonight. Thanks for remembering our work together! In Late June I was at an international leadership conference with 270 leadership development experts from 26 countries. Everyone I shared the E4S story with thought we had a leading edge organization design. Very exciting!
    Over the next 6 months we will continue to strength our regional programs as we explore the opportunities to share our model with other regions.
    Just the other day as I was talking to a local funder I mentioned that E4S skates where the puck is going. Green building is more main stream. Advanced energy is in the news. Local food is coming on stage with huge potentials. Other emerging industries – deconstruction, solar thermal, and food waste composting.
    Cheers to the possibilities!