[HCCN] COA students win Maine sustainable business plan award

[Donna Gold]

photo available upon request

RELEASE
COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC STUDENTS WIN MAINE SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS AWARD
Gourmet Butanol business plan tops sustainability track at University
of Southern Maine competition
CONTACT: Donna Gold, Public Relations: 207-801-5623, 207-266-4470,
dgold at coa.edu 

BAR HARBOR, ME-Four College of the Atlantic students, working toward
establishing a business that converts organic waste into a
carbon-neutral replacement for gasoline and home heating oil, won the
sustainable business track of a statewide business plan competition at
the University of Southern Maine earlier this month.

Under the leadership of COA senior Nicholas Harris, students Lisa
Bjerke, Matthew McElwee and Cayla Moore have been working on creating
the venture Gourmet Butanol. Butanol is a fuel that can be used as
heating oil and in automobile gas tanks without modifying any systems,
and yet has little to no incremental carbon footprint, as it is
distilled from organic matter. 

Says Harris, who is originally from Carbondale, CO, “our fuel
[butanol] is made from an underutilized resource-mostly organic waste.
It is different from more commonly used biofuels such as ethanol, which
are often made from subsidized food crops such as corn-this drives up
food prices.” 

As a pilot project, Gourmet Butanol is working to produce fuel from
Mount Desert Island’s organic waste-food waste from hotels and
gardens, as well as the college’s own waste. The students are hoping
to find an institutional market on the island for the fuel it produces.
The net result will eliminate CO2 emissions while also strengthening the
local economy, reducing local landfills, and providing
soil-strengthening compost, since a byproduct of the butanol process is
compost, says Harris. 

The four have been working on the business plan and the project itself
through COA’s Sustainable Business Program, run by Jay Friedlander.
They’ve also been working closely with Don Cass, faculty member in
chemistry. The Gourmet Butanol team was recently granted a place in
COA’s Sustainable Enterprise Incubator, which accelerates student
ventures by providing up to $5,000 in start-up capital, mentoring, and
professional services for a year including post-graduation. 

USM’s 2011 Statewide Student Business Plan Competition was open to
any part-time or full-time, undergraduate or graduate student attending
any institution of higher education in Maine. Twenty-five teams from the
University of Southern Maine, the University of Maine at Orono, the
University of Maine at Farmington, College of the Atlantic, and Colby,
Thomas, and Southern Maine Community colleges registered for the
competition and 17 teams submitted business plans during the eight-month
process. As winners of the sustainable track, the Gourmet Butanol team
received a $2000 check from the university, along with professional
services. 

“Winning the USM competition is another brick in the road toward
creating this venture,” says Friedlander, who holds COA’s
Sharpe-McNally Chair in Green and Socially Responsible Business.
“Gourmet Butanol shows how sustainable business is synonymous with
innovation and value creation that enhances the environment and local
community. The student venture has the potential to replace fossil fuels
with a local carbon neutral fuel by using food waste as an input. This
builds the local economy, reduces carbon, solves a solid waste problem
and turns a waste product into valuable resources. This is exactly the
type of enterprise encouraged by College of the Atlantic’s Sustainable
Business Program.” 

For more information on Gourmet Butanol, contact Nick Harris at
nharris at coa.edu. For information on COA’s Sustainable Business
program, contact Jay Friedlander at jfriedlander at coa.edu, (207) 801-5716
or www.coa.edu 



Donna Gold
Director of Public Relations,
Editor, COA Magazine
College of the Atlantic
105 Eden Street
Bar Harbor, Maine 04609
207-801-5623, office
207-266-4470, cell
dgold at coa.edu
www.coa.edu