by Cathy Ellis

Jason Trout was in his senior year at the University of Iowa when he started his first company. Planet-save.com was a web-based e-mail service that had a larger intent than just shunting people’s emails in and out of the ethers. The premise was that you could take something you did every day, like send and receive e-mail, and turn it into a way to protect the planet. Like other email services such as Hotmail, the site featured advertising. But instead of regular banner advertising, Planet-save.com accepted only green advertising. The company then took a part of the advertising fees equivalent to the number of e-mails sent and received and used that to help fund organizations involved in saving the rain forests.

Planet-save.com contributed at least $5000 to rain forest efforts before Trout sold it to Red Jellyfish for $72,000. Although he eventually went to work with Red Jellyfish, this first venture taught Trout the basics: Good ideas for a win-win solution to the planet’s ills are just waiting to be implemented; green business is a great tool for effective change; you can start a business for under $100 (Trout started Planet-save.com with $27); you can do all this without leaving the comfort of your own office – or dorm room as it were.

“I've always been interested in business, so the idea of fusing business and social responsibility in helping make the world a better place was incredibly appealing for me,” says Trout. “I just sort of had this idea, launched it and it worked really well. It was very exciting for me to be able to make money doing it because I was a college student making six bucks an hour. But then to be able to say I made $1000 but we also saved 10 acres of rain forest - that was just … really cool.”

Trout graduated with a degree in political science and ended up getting a certificate in entrepreneurship, the equivalent of a minor in college. After working a few political campaigns he quickly realized the political scene didn’t hold anywhere near the potential for social change as business, so he went back to his former interests. After attending the three-day 2003 Green Business Conference in San Francisco, he came back home to Iowa, already lonely for the stimulation of like-minds. After looking around on the web and talking to other green business owners, he quickly found there was no online forum for green businesses globally. In February 2004 he launched GreenBusiness.net. A “side project” with a slow takeoff, Trout says that between Google ad words and word-of-mouth advertising the site has now grown to include almost 300 businesses.

So what does a green business forum do? It networks information that supports green businesses. Here’s an example of how it works.

Trout received an e-mail from David Taylor of OrganicWineCellar.com (not yet live), who works for an organic market in Florida. Over the years the market had built up quite an organic wine selection and was interested in selling their 200 plus labels online. David was researching the cost involved in building a site suitable to their needs. A design firm had given them an estimate of $20,000. David wrote to see if they were in the ballpark.

Several months earlier, Trout and Red Jellyfish had spent dozens of hours researching online stores and discovered a company that would create an excellent custom store for under $5,000. Trout referred David to them, and after checking out their online portfolio, he decided this company would be perfect for their needs. By spending just a few minutes communicating by e-mail with another green business professional, David was able to save his company $15,000.

Most recently, Trout launched www.theactionblog.com – which is the way The Global Intelligencer discovered his work. An effective site, theactionblog.com is geared for busy people who want to know about environmental and global issues of importance, and be able to take action quickly and easily, whether by signing an online petition, making a contribution or gathering more information via links.

For those interested in starting an online green business, Trout is very encouraging. He says he sees opportunities everyday for people to fill much needed niches in the marketplace. He advises the best way to launch a business it to “let it come to you.” Your own interests will naturally guide you to areas where you might see a problem that needs to be fixed, or a void that needs to be filled.

“I think we’re really entering a phase of capitalism where business is a good thing that can help bring people out of poverty and really be transformative,” says Trout. “In a way, business has always been that. But it's also had a lot of negative side-effects along with it. So if we can eliminate the side-effects and use business as a social tool, I think everybody will be better off. So that's where I'm hoping the world is headed.”

For more information check out www.greenbusiness.net and www.theaction.blog. Jason Trout has also written a free guide on how to start an e-business. It can be found online at www.theebusinessguide.com