This week Green for All, one of my favorite organizations, released five free guides for green businesses and start-ups.  The one I found most interesting was 10 Green Business Ideas for New Entrepreneurs (PDF).  Much like a slimmed-down version of 75 Green Business Ideas (but shorter, and cheaper), the guide divides green businesses into ten sectors, and provides numerous examples of business ideas within each sector, and points towards businesses that are already trying out those ideas.  The ten sectors are:

1. The Healthy, Local Food Movement
2. Renewable Energy Alternatives, Green Collar Job Training, and Green Business Incubators
3. Green Transportation
4. Green Product Innovation and Consumer Goods Retail
5. Green Home- and Offce-Cleaning Services
6. Become Part of the ReUse Revolution!
7. Energy-Effcient Homes and Green Home Retrofts
8. Green Landscaping and Green Plumbing
9. Green Information Technology (IT)
10. Green, Grassroots Community Lending and Microfinancing

Hopefully, this report will encourage entrepreneurs to pick up the shovel (figuratively or literally) and get to work on creating high-quality green-collar jobs!

Tip of the hat to Green VC for highlighting these excellent resources.

Today I'm excited to announce the launch of Green Lights! Green Lights is our new blog about green ideas, which will focus on ideas for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other solutions to environmental problems.

Global warming, threats to the food supply, water shortages and other environmental problems are daunting and fundamental problems. They will require the cooperation and concerted efforts from all corners of the globe, and I hope that our blog will be Lightbulb First's own unique contribution to the solution.

I have been a dedicated environmentalist for many years. On a personal level I've sought to reduce my own environmental footprint by bicycling and taking public transportation; not eating meat; participating in my local CSA; purchasing recycled products; and, whenever possible, making environmentally responsible decisions. I've also sought to be active in community organizations focused on structural environmental change, ranging from Students for Environmental Concerns at University of Illinois, while in graduate school, to Green Decade Cambridge, more recently.

There's more than I can do, though, and that's what this blog is about. I deeply believe in the power of ideas to spark action and change - indeed, that's why I founded Lightbulb First. With this blog, I hope to spark discussion and action around ideas that will help create renewable energy, reduce demand for energy and electricity, and solve other environmental problems.

I've spent the last several months thumbing through books, following key blogs, attending local meetings, and otherwise trying to learn as much as I can about solutions to global warming and other environmental problems. It turns out that many of the most important solutions are already near at hand. We've known how to weatherize a home, install renewable energy, provide low-impact transportation, and farm sustainably for a long time. What's needed is a new approach to delivering these goods and services, so that they can replace their old, environmentally damaging counterparts.

Those are the kinds of ideas I'll explore on this blog, and the kind of actions I hope to incite. Stay tuned for more!