“Go Green. Get Rich.” was the headline on the cover of a recent issue of Business 2.0. In an economy where consumers have an enormous amount of influence and impact on the products companies are producing, the people’s concern for a more sustainable future is fueling the fire of a rapidly growing industry.

Clean air vehicles, renewable energy, carbon offsetting, feeding starving children, solid waste management—not the sexiest of syllables, but the numbers are easy on the eyes.

Feeding starving children a nutritional meal doesn’t sound like a great business model. Last I checked, most starving children couldn’t afford healthy snacks. Nonetheless, Nutriset‘s sales last year topped 25 million with its major buyers including UNICEF.

PyroGenesis is hot shit…literally. The Montreal-based company has refined a process called plasma arc gasification, turning solid waste into marketable by-products. Using this technology, Carnival, the $11 billion cruise ship operator, reduces 5 tons per day of cabin and food waste on its vessels into a few pounds of harmless sand. In not too distant a future, wasteland might just be the land upon which we stand.

The world is filled with serious concerns. Those that can build an intelligent, creative solution will discover that there is profit to be found in doing good.

Who’s funding non-profit and sustainable companies?

Some of the richest men in the world have been pledging their fortunes to charitable foundations.

Warren buffet ($44 Billion net worth) recently announced he would be giving 85% of his Berkshire stock to five foundations.

In 2004 Pierre M. Omidyar (Worth around $10 Billion) and his wife Pam, converted their family foundation into the Omidyar Network to “help people tap into their own power.”

Bill Gates announced that in 2008 he will be quitting Microsoft to focus on his foundation work, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ted Turner of Turner Foundation, Inc. has given $1.25 Billion in global aid and founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative to ensure nukes are never launched again.

Gordon Moore, Intel’s cofounder, has been the world’s top contributor since 2001. His $7 billion total surpasses even Bill Gates’s. But he doesn’t just toss his money around; Moore’s known for funding solutions.

Foundations are required by the Internal Revenue Service to give out 5 percent of their assets each year, including money spent on offices and professionals to sift through grant applications.

5 percent may not seem like much, but when you’re talking about 5 percent of $30 Billion that equates to quite a significant number. ($1.5 billion for those mathematically challenged)

Socially conscious business development isn’t only a billionaire’s club. While their massive capital can make dramatic impact on a global scale, there are hundreds if not thousands of start-ups with micro-capital making gigantic gains.

For any young go getters interested in pursuing a socially conscious career, the time has never been better. The resources to build a business that contributes not only to your wallet are readily available and await your big ideas.

Links for more information:

Said Business School in Oxford - Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship

Stanford Social Innovation Review

Social entrepreneurship

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