Green Technology Alliance
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FAQ

  1. The Basics

    Q.1 What are green technologies?

    Green Technologies are those technologies that are built more efficiently. Green is about doing more with less-- less waste, less negative impact, less cost and so on. Some obvious examples would be technologies that are more energy efficient but it also includes those that reduce waste, improve operational efficiencies, reduce costs and also includes better processes.

    Technologies are more than widgets or devices. Fundamentally, technology is simply practical knowledge that leads to a capability. Our focus is high-leverage innovations and technologies that drive the infrastructure of the world’s economy.

    Q.2 Why an alliance?

    An alliance is an agreement between two or more parties, made in order to advance common goals and to secure common interests.

    The founding organizations of the GTA believe that an alliance is required to create value exchanges that support sustainable development. Remember green must equal green first... meaning it must have an identifiable business benefit for long term value and adoption-- especially when change is involved.

    Q.3 What kind of people and organizations are part of the GTA?

    Our alliance partners and members cover the entire stakeholder spectrum across all industries within the green, clean and sustainability arena. For more information review the Stakeholders Overview and Benefits section here....

    Q.3 What type of organization is the GTA?

    The GTA as an organization combines the best elements of an industry alliance and a professional organization. The GTA partners and members are our customers and as such we strive to provide a value exchange through the programs and initiatives of the GTA. See next section of FAQ or the Our Focus page for more information on our programs and initiatives.

  2. GTA Mission, Purpose and Focus

    The mission of the GTA is to accelerate the adoption of green, clean and sustainable business practices, technologies and solutions.

    Q.1 What is the specific purpose of the GTA?

    The Green Technology Alliance (GTA) is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations gain the necessary knowledge to understand the products, tools, methodologies and services that can help you better conserve resources, reduce costs, improve efficiencies and ultimately improve the bottom line.

    Q.2 What are the goals of the GTA?

    The GTA focuses on creating the infrastructure, venues, support and knowledge base to accelerate the adoption of both existing and emerging green technologies by working to accomplish four interrelated goals:

    1. Showcase and develop the green technologies of today and tomorrow.

    2. Create the strategies required to deploy real solutions that deliver an immediate business benefit to the companies that invest in Green Technologies; such as reduced costs, improved efficiency and greater productivity.

    3. Enable and accelerate the adoption of new technologies to create jobs and promote economic development in both the public and private sector.

    4. Develop a reproducible sustainable economies model (the STSE model) based on the principles of a true alliance that not only supports our economy and planet but sustains it.

    Q.3 What is the focus of the GTA?

    The GTA is focused on creating an industry driven, community leveraged alliance that provides programs of value across four key areas. These four key areas of focus will provide value across critical areas of high leverage and impact.

    Four Key Areas of Focus

      Green In Your Backyard: Green Technology Showcase (building awareness)

      Go Green Machine: Implementing Green Organization Management (GOM™) and Best Practices in Green Technology Assessment and Deployment (GTAD™) (implementing effectively)

      Turning Green into Green: The innovative power of the entrepreneur and the nitty gritty of how to effectively seed and commercialize technologies In the green space (evaluating and launching emerging technologies)

      Planting the Seed for Growth: The art and science of collaboration-- cultivating customers, industry partners and community resources as valued elements of an organizational alliance to accelerate time to market and adoption of green technologies. (green tech accelerator)

    Q.4 What is the ultimate outcome for the GTA?

    The ultimate outcome of the GTA would be to develop a truly reproducible sustainable economies model (the STSE model) based on the principles of a true alliance that not only supports our economy and planet but sustains it.

  3. GTA Programs and Initiatives

    The GTA is focused on creating an industry driven, community leveraged alliance that provides programs of value. See our Latest News Section for more information on recent programs and ongoing efforts.

    Q.1 Does the GTA offer development of best practices & thought leadership?

    The short answer is YES!!!

    The members of the GTA both seek and provide information that is used to help further the development of best practices and thought leadership. The GTA strives through multiple media channels and partnerships to educate the community as a whole, by relevant interest and need.

    We continuously work to develop the existing body of knowledge around proven methodologies and best practices for implementing, developing, and commercializing green technologies. The goal is to leverage that collective knowledge base and experience to develop new and innovative processes that maximize the success of green ventures and accelerate the adoption of green solutions and strategies.

    See Latest News and our Services pages for more information.

    Q.2 How important is technology transfer & commercialization?

    Technology Transfer and Commercialization is a cornerstone of the GTA from all perspectives and is demonstrated by how many of our stakeholders have needs for innovation in both these areas. The GTA currently provides a variety of resources designed to facilitate innovation and market expansion. See Latest News and our Services pages for more information.

    A specific emphasis will be the continued development of the programs we are currently engaged in with the National Science Foundation and other organizations for commercialization reviews, technology viability analysis as well as market segmentation and opportunity analysis.

    We are also seeking to expand and more fully develop our technology adoption program to include many more key industry partners, a first adopter customer database, funding resources and more.

    Q.3 Are international relationships important?

    No less key than the need for innovation. One of the key differentiating factors of our alliance is that we have put a heavy focus on developing international development channels. See Latest News and our Services pages for more information.

    All stakeholders in the GTA have prioritized international efforts and initiatives. We continue to work with groups such as the Portugal UTEN project and are currently seeking to expand into joint programs in Germany, Korea, India, Chile, U.K. and many more.

    The GTA's technology adoption program will continue to include development of international channels, support organizations, global innovation partners and agencies, effective technology transfer, and commercialization support.

    Q.4 Does the GTA offer training and education?

    The short answer is YES!!!

    See Latest News and our Going Green pages for more information.

    The GTA offers education and training based on a variety of of tools for organizations including start-ups to go green now! Programs focus on business development and process improvement.

    For business development, the GTA and our partners offer targeted start-up clinics on launching a business, accessing global markets available through various agencies, product development, market analysis, marketing in the global/internet age, partner/alliance development and so on.For process improvement, the GTA and our partners deliver world class training programs on green organization management, IT infrastructure and other areas for both individuals and organizations with a range of certification options.

    Q.5 Does the GTA host events?

    The GTA has and will continue to host and develop a variety of events to seed and grow the industry. Our events help build the alliance through focused sessions that offer value to stakeholders and stakeholder groups within the alliance and enable targeted networking.

    Previous and future events will include; Green IT forums/panels on best practices for implementing green technologies, a CIO focused one day symposium/conference highlighting best practices and methodologies for the green managed organization, CTO workshops on best practices in product development (use case scenarios etc.), Investment Community workshops/ symposiums on disruptive vs. sustaining technologies, analysis of green ventures and a business plan competition, and so on.

  4. Misc. Questions

    Q.1 Is the GTA For-Profit or Not-for-Profit?

    Both... because we desire to help educate and train all size organizations and individuals on how to build sustainable economies we believe the GTA should be a for-profit corporation to help demonstrate the business model as well as to keep OUR focus on the programs and initiatives that drive business success. We want the GTA to succeed in the market economy.

    However, some elements of what the GTA is doing; such as, supporting business development and the emerging countries work require a sister 501c3 GTA Foundation chartered to develop and create technology accelerators (different but similar model to an incubator) as well as programs that support SMB, minority and women owned business development. In addition, workforce development and education will become more and more important as this movement becomes standard practice so the 501c3 will also work with partners and existing channels of education to create workforce development programs that can be deployed in first world as well as in emerging counties

    Q.2 How do you differ from other similar green organizations?

    We focus our efforts on bridging the international market and creating an alliance that delivers value to individual members. People are the ones that make the decisions to change. Organizations are entities made up of people, whether it is a corporation, NPO, start-up, government agency or an educational institution. We focus on helping people make better choices, through knowledge and value exchange. We want going green, clean and sustainable to be about solutions. Solutions have to have value for the people adopting the change.

    Below we have highlighted the differences and complimentary initiatives as found in the two most common alliances people compare the GTA to. Note: There are other completely different and yet complementary programs like LEED or ISO 14000 but they focus on an area the GTA does not whereas, Green Grid and Climate Savers does.

    Green Grid is a development standards oriented group with a datacenter focus... from website. "The Green Grid is a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. In furtherance of its mission, The Green Grid is focused on the following: defining meaningful, user-centric models and metrics; developing standards, measurement methods, processes and new technologies to improve data center performance against the defined metrics; and promoting the adoption of energy efficient standards, processes, measurements and technologies."

    Climate Savers is an organization designed to get companies to reduce carbon emissions... from website. First the GTA is an affiliate partner of Climate Savers, our missions are complementary. "Started by Google and Intel in 2007, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative is a nonprofit group of eco-conscious consumers, businesses and conservation organizations. The Initiative was started in the spirit of WWF's Climate Savers program which has mobilized over a dozen companies since 1999 to cut carbon dioxide emissions, demonstrating that reducing emissions is good business. Our goal is to promote development, deployment and adoption of smart technologies that can both improve the efficiency of a computer's power delivery and reduce the energy consumed when the computer is in an inactive state. As participants in the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, computer and component manufacturers commit to producing products that meet specified power-efficiency targets, and corporate participants commit to purchasing power-efficient computing products." /p>

    Q.3 Is the GTA Texas based/focused or broader?

    While the GTA was launched in Austin, and we clearly have a broader exposure in Texas overall, the fact remains that there are many countries and regions represented by the GTA. See our Latest News Section for more information on recent regional and international programs as well as our ongoing efforts.

    Many requests have come in over the last year to expand the reach worldwide and across the US. We will be rolling out a chapter program through members over the next year. This will help to facilitate growth and knowledge sharing for the larger organization through local and regional chapters in other cities and countries.