I chaired the partners meeting for the Sustainable City Awards on Friday. This year the key theme of the awards is going to be entrepreneurship, and I am re-purposing the SME category to deliver this. The new category will be split in two in order to recognise both social entrepreneurs and business entrepreneurs.

What I am looking for is individuals and companies who have identified a gap in the market, or an opportunity for an new service which either takes advantage of sustsiability principles or deliver sustainable outcomes.
I know there are some cracking examples out there-

For straight commercial nous it is hard to beat Green Tomato Cars, which was launched as London's first green private car hire service in March 2006 by

TomPakenham and Jonny Goldstone. Starting with only 4 cars from a small riverside office in west London, greentomatocars became the fastest growing company in the history of London's minicab industry.

The company positioned itself to take advantage of two sustainability issues- a rise in interest by corporates in reducing their carbon footprints and secondly a loophole in London's conjestion charge which exempted low emission vehicles. Buoyed by massive demand and reduced costs the company took off like a rocket- at one stage Green Tomato Cars were the largest importer of Toyota Priuses in Europe.

If you are looking for a serial social entrepreneur Judith Paris cetrainly fits the bill- I am particularly fond of Thrifty Couture who take unloved clothes, and, with good design and workmanship, they create covetable and affordable fashion. Working with the unemployed, retired residents and ex-offenders, Thrifty Couture, offers employment and inspiration which upcycles garments, weaning people off Fast Fashion towards Slow Couture, and creating a sustainable business from a commercial as well as environmental perspectives.

Environmental Audit Select Committee

I helped the Environmental Audit Select Committee hold a seminar on green finance at the Guildhall this morning.

The meeting marked the launch of a new enquiry into "green finance" and the low carbon economy, which will be lanching in the autumn. 

A great line up of speakers was on show - amongst them Shaun Kingsbury, CEO of the Green Investment Bank

There was pretty comprehensive agreement amongst the speakers that long tem policy stability was the key to driving investment, as well as some innovative ideas on how to provide this- such as index linked carbon bonds

Chills were provided by Mark Campanale's brief tour of the truly scary horror show that is the Carbon Tracker Initiative - Caroline Flint's question about the impact of Carbon Capture and Storage on the concept of unburnable carbon only served to prove that the light at the end of the tunnel was an on-coming train.   

All of which served to frame the timely development of the Financing Tomorrow's City programme which went live yesterday. Do visit the site if you are interested in the furture of urban infrastructure investment.