The drive towards sustainability has been increasing in velocity in recent years and has achieved the status of an aspirational objective. Ever-increasing levels of sustainable systems requires local, national and international partners.
- Innovate Arkansas
- EquityNet
- Green Valley Network
- Arkansas Research and Technology Park
- University of Arkansas
- Northwest Arkansas Community College
- John Brown University
- Arkansas World Trade Center
- Scandinavian American Economic Development Alliance (SAEDA)
- Global Cleantech Cluster Association (GCCA)
Innovate Arkansas provides resources to new and startup technology-oriented companies, helping them commercialize products and technologies. Innovate Arkansas will assess the product, business plan and market, as well as help with startup, production and growth. These steps often require the development of capital for validation and growth, and Innovate Arkansas can help new companies achieve the best position to obtain that capital from sources both inside and outside Arkansas.
EquityNet helps entrepreneurs grow businesses and investors find and analyze businesses. EquityNet is a patented web-based system where entrepreneurs can organize, analyze, optimize, and share a customized business plan with investors and business supporters. EquityNet investors and business supporters are empowered by a patented streamlined process that enables them to quickly absorb the entrepreneur’s plan, giving the entrepreneur a better chance of getting their message across and getting funding. The 10-step guided process was designed with investors, so it’s focused on the details and information that investors care most about; therefore entrepreneurs learn what they need to know in order to raise money.
Green Valley Network
The Green Valley Network is a non-profit coalition that fosters collaboration and commercialization of sustainability technology. The network helps sustainability’s innovators move ideas from ‘mind to market’ faster. Additionally, innovators with sustainability intellectual property and companies that want to find the latest technology find each other at Green Valley Network. Innovators can describe their technology, so companies can find what they are looking for, and companies that need specific technology can source their needs at the Technology Exchange Center.
Arkansas Research and Technology Park
The Arkansas Research and Technology Park (ARTP) presents an exciting array of opportunities for firms operating in a broad spectrum of technology innovation and applications in addition to the current areas of electronics, photonics, materials research, transportation and logistics, chemistry/biochemistry, food safety, poultry science and geosciences. A core of highly successful, vibrant technology firms is already in residence at the park.
The GENESIS Technology Incubator serves as the entry point for the newest, fledgling technology-based firms under development in the research park. Firms that meet the criteria for entry into GENESIS benefit from a number of support services, such as reduced rent during the crucial start-up period, access to shared front-office services, and assistance with the development of industrial partnerships. GENESIS management also maintains ties to the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority, the Arkansas Department of Economic Development, Arkansas Capital Corporation, the Small Business Administration, and the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District. With the broad-based support provided by the professional management team, incubator clients survive the challenging first two to three years of operation at a rate that is roughly three times that of the average new company in the open economy.
Adjacent to GENESIS is the Innovation Center, the first LEED-certified building in Arkansas with very forward-thinking environmental design. The Innovation Center is an ideal location for companies that wish to forge research and development partnerships with the University of Arkansas, other companies, government entities, and local and regional economic development groups. ARTP management is particularly interested in tailoring the offerings at the Innovation Center to meet the needs of (a) companies that are ready to “graduate” from GENESIS, (b) support-related firms such as capital formation companies and (c) other technology-intensive firms that desire to locate all or part of their operations in Northwest Arkansas.
The Enterprise Center at ARTP provides a LEED-certified, two story, laboratory-enabled building. Through thoughtful design, the Enterprise Center is ideally suited to accommodate technology companies specializing in power electronics, biotechnology, information technology and even assembly manufacturing. Companies housed in this collaborative community gain access to faculty and students, specialized research resources, University libraries and other affiliate amenities.
The National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission (NCREPT) lab is capable of testing power systems up to 6.5 megawatts. The center is involved in five areas of research that impact the realization of power electronics solutions including power electronic design and modeling, control algorithms for power electronics, power electronics packaging, power electronics testing, and mixed-signal integrated circuit design for the drive and control of power electronic interfaces. NCREPT is available to private firms using a non-disclosure protocol.
A number of the University of Arkansas’ Research Centers reside at the ARTP including the Engineering Research Center and the High Density Electronics Center. Additionally, ARTP houses a number of businesses that were generated from research at the UA, such as Space Photonics, Inc. as well as a number of companies that developed from Virtual Incubation Company. Virtual Incubation Company serves two separate, but mutually supportive clientele: their portfolio companies and members of their investor network. Therefore they have two distinct missions: For their portfolio companies, the mission is to maximize the probability of portfolio company success by reducing risk, implementing excellent business practices, and facilitating essential capitalization. For investors in their portfolio companies, the mission is to provide the investor network with high return investment opportunities in thoroughly screened and assessed, well-conceived and managed, technology-based companies with excellent growth potential.
In addition to their primary function as the flagship public university in Arkansas, the University of Arkansas has partnered with local businesses, governments and not-for-profits to address the issue of sustainability in a variety of ways. The University of Arkansas recently received a STARS Silver rating in recognition of its sustainability achievements from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System) is a new program that measures and encourages sustainability in all aspects of higher education. The UA also announced a new undergraduate minor in sustainability to “provide foundational knowledge and skills related to the emerging discipline of sustainability.” The minor is organized around four thematic areas reflecting strength in scholarship of University of Arkansas academic colleges: sustainability of social systems, sustainability of natural systems, sustainability of built systems, and sustainability of managed systems. The required coursework is broadly interdisciplinary and accessible to virtually every University of Arkansas student, regardless of major, with a capstone course in foundations of sustainability.
Additional UA projects specifically focused on sustainability include:
Applied Sustainability Center: To achieve their mission of leading retail and consumer goods organizations toward sustainable practices, the Applied Sustainability Center assembled a cross-disciplinary team of academic researchers with expertise in life cycle analysis and environmental footprint assessment. Teams of faculty researchers are available to assist clients in solving complex problems, providing expert guidance, and brokering problems and solutions. Drawing from the colleges of engineering, business, arts & sciences, and agriculture, these teams can be customized to address specific needs. Areas of expertise include ecological engineering, energy audits, industrial LCA, carbon footprint measurement, mathematical modeling, uncertainty analysis, agricultural economics, agricultural law and policy, logistics and supply chain management, and geospatial technologies.
The Sustainability Consortium: To achieve their mission of developing standards and tools to measure and report on the sustainability of products, and to also improve product decision-making utilizing sustainability science, the Sustainability Consortium utilizes a collaborative process to understand and address the environmental, social, and economic implications of products. Specific goals include developing and maintaining global standards for the measurement and reporting of product sustainability across the life cycle, partnering with software and data sharing companies to create the tools to facilitate measurement and reporting of product sustainability and partnering with auditing and certification firms to create assurance standards. The Sustainability Consortium is administered by both Arizona State University and the University of Arkansas.
Campus Sustainability: The UA is a leader in campus sustainability efforts, in large part due to its commitment and dedicated resources to reduce its environmental impact and neutralize its carbon footprint. Specifically, the university will lessen its environmental impact:
- through education of students and citizens about environmental stewardship and sustainability
- through research to develop knowledge and technologies that facilitate sustainability and improved environmental stewardship
- by committing to become a carbon neutral institution as soon as it is practical
- by committing to become a zero-waste institution as soon as it is practical
- by serving as an exemplar of environmental stewardship for our community, Arkansas, and the world
UA Green Globes: Green Globes is an innovative green building guidance and assessment program that was adapted from a system that is widely used in Canada. Arkansas was the first state to officially recognize the Green Globes system, which has since been officially recognized in many other states as well as by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of the Interior.
Northwest Arkansas Community College
The new Stribling Sustainability Institute at Northwest Arkansas Community College (NWACC) was designed to encourage, model, and teach whole-systems thinking, transparency, conservation, foresight, and agility. This approach will provide employees with practical training that will help them bring efficiencies and sustainable solutions to their workplace. NWACC intends to inspire students and connect divisions within the organization by offering experiential learning opportunities and courses designed to illustrate the collaboration and systemic thinking required to generate and implement sustainable solutions in the 21st century.
John Brown University developed a Bachelor of Science major for renewable energy. Students are required to choose one of three emphasis areas: design, management or international development. The design emphasis has a math and engineering focus; students are trained to design and integrate the systems used to create renewable energy. The management emphasis is essentially business courses combined with renewable energy. These students may go into sales, marketing or management—areas of the business that involve renewable energy beyond the technical aspects. The international development emphasis combines renewable energy courses with courses in intercultural studies. Students interested in international development may want to help impoverished communities develop better, safer water or find energy sources that will not harm their communities.
The mission of the Arkansas World Trade Center (ARWTC) is to connect Arkansas to the world by providing international trade services to companies and individuals and by educating students in global commerce. The ARWTC brings together businesses and governmental agencies involved in foreign trade to further the economic outlook for the state as a whole and encourage stability, peace and world trade development on the global level. The goal is to build a “one-stop” trade information hub with services for Arkansas’ businesses and international companies.
Scandinavian American Economic Development Alliance
The primary mission of the Scandinavian-American Economic Development Alliance (SAEDA) is to enhance and promote trade, commerce and investment between all of Scandinavia and six southern states of the United States: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The success of the Alliance’s economic development initiatives should lead to the creation of new jobs and increased profits for all participatory businesses and communities.