Center for Rural Sustainable Development

This looks promising.

Northern Maine soon will have a center to provide local communities and businesses with information they need to make better decisions about the future of the region.

The Center for Rural Sustainable Development in Fort Kent was approved Monday by the University of Maine System board of trustees. The center is a collaborative effort among university campuses at Fort Kent, Machias and Presque Isle.

>The common thread among the three is a rural environment and a strong commitment to their local regions.

“It’s an opportunity for students and faculty to be more directly engaged in collecting data that communities need to make decisions and local businesses need to make decisions,” UMFK President Richard Cost said at Monday’s trustees meeting.

- BangorNews

Why aren’t we manufacturing wind turbines?

With the State’s history of ship building, wind turbines seem to be a good fit.

China will leap to be the top wind turbine producer in 2009, transforming an already fast-growing renewable energy sector, a leading wind power industry official said.Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), said wind could supply 12 percent of world electricity needs by 2020 against just over one percent in 2007 in a shift that would help curb climate change.Sawyer said that installations of wind power consistently outstripped growth forecasts. “We’ve been projecting that the rate of growth will slow down to below 20 percent for some years now, but 2007 looks like being more than 25 percent,” he said.

Of the 2007 totals of 17-19 gigawatts new capacity, about four were installed in the United States, three in China and between eight and 10 in Europe. “It’s far and away the fastest growing part of the energy sector,” he said.

“We still haven’t cracked Latin America,” Sawyer said, adding that many countries have “tremendous wind resources”.

- Reuters

Ellsworth American spotlights Freshwater Stone

The Ellsworth American is highlighting local businesses that are propspering in the Downeast region.

In 1975, someone who saw the Gammelin family’s fireplace commissioned Jeff to build another. Word spread, and one became several.   In 1976, the Gammelins founded Freshwater Stone.

Coverage by Down East Magazine and TV news programs, and good reviews by architects and builders nudged the company into the spotlight and into the homes of customers, such as the Rockefellers.

“I was really inspired by the natural stone formations you see around here,” Gammelin said. “We tried to produce that in the work.”

Business grew from 15 employees in 1989 to 50 today.

Ruth’s reused supplies

Ruth’s Reusable Resources has moved into their new space. This is a great way to offer affordable school supplies, and keep things out of landfills.

The new 27,000-square-foot store is nearly four times the size of Ruth’s old Bessey School space in Scarborough.

At the old location, the organization had to lease 17 trailers for additional storage. Now the nonprofit has 20,000 square feet of storage, complete with three loading docks and three forklifts, said Tim Libby, husband of Ruth Libby, the founder of Ruth’s Reusable Resources.

- PressHerald

Growing tomatoes year-round

The Maine Democrat reports on Backyard Beauties‘ new greenhouses in Madison.  The company has already found success, and is planning on expanding.  It is a great example of the State working to bring sustainable business here.

The greenhouses will grow tomatoes in an environmentally friendly and atmospherically conditioned medium, pumping nutrients to the plants through plastic tubing. That enables the plants to reach up to 20 feet, to the roof, where workers will use hydraulic platforms to harvest year round. The roots will be set on heating pads, and the plants will have grow lights to aid the sun. The tomatoes will be grown without use of chemical pesticides.

It’s the first greenhouse complex of this scale in New England, as well as being the only one that can grow year round.

Last June, on the River Road site of the U.S. Functional Foods LLC (USFF) tomato greenhouse complex, Governor John E. Baldacci designated 200 acres as a Pine Tree Development Zone (PTZ), making the facility eligible for the tax incentive program.

Burt’s Bees story

The NY Times has piece on the recent purchase of Burt’s Bees by Clorox.  Apart from the complicated back story between the two founder’s of the company, it is worth pointing out they did start the company in Maine, only to move to North Carolina.  The company now has 380 employees, and an annual revenue of $164 million.

Could Maine have kept them here?  I don’t know, but we should be making sure companies like this don’t leave, and encouraging others to come.  While we may not be able to offer the lowest taxes, we should be making efforts to provide incentives.

One thing the State should be doing more of (as made clear in the Brookings Report) is selling it’s image as a ‘green’ place to live and work.  As the Times article makes clear is that Clorox purchased Burt’s Bees in part to get in on the growing “natural products” sector.

Mr. Shavitz was still active in the company in 1993, when they moved its base to North Carolina. Sales had reached $3 million a year, and they wanted to find a state with lower taxes and more workers to keep their business growing, Ms. Quimby says.