If you have the entrepreneurial inclination and insight, now is the best time to invest or seek investment in a green or clean-tech business. There are many other small businesses that are getting the blessings from the VCs and yes despite the word recession looming large in every economy there is lots of money to be invested in the companies of the future.
Recently SolarCycle was the Social Venture Award winner with a low cost solution to solar cooking that can help many in Africa, well maybe everywhere in the world.

CNNMoney reports:

SolarCycle’s solution: Urban trash. The company’s co-founders have created a solar cooker and a water pasteurizer out of the aluminized interior of chip bags. Both products work by concentrating solar energy into cooking pots or water troughs. The products are low-cost: The solar cooker, which has a life expectancy of five years, can be manufactured for $3 and sold in Africa for $5.
Timeline: SolarCycle will take several dozen prototypes to Tanzania this summer, aiming to serve 80 people through a pilot project. They plan to open their first factory there later this year.

Another example from the same target is Green Oil:

Concept: Rural India is poised for explosive economic growth, but much of the country lacks access to electricity and affordable fuel.
Two students at a top business school in India have developed a plan to decentralize energy targets. Green Oil plans to establish local “bio-fuel centres” to grow plants, collect seeds and extract oil. The oil byproducts would be sold to local residents, helping the remote villages access electricity and become more energy independent.
The bottom line is if you can do something green, clean and low cost funding might not be far behind. It is time to reset your thinking caps and if you have a viable idea hidden somewhere in the back of your brain time to shake it out and get a good marketing plan around it. The rest of the decade could very well be focused towards a greener career and business solution, the time to reinvent and to recreate is now. Do good and good will come to you; find simple practical solutions to save the earth and the earthlings and there is every reason that your business will flourish.

Some retargets:
Amazon.com carries these relevant books; it is always worth a good research and reading before you step into any new or greener grounds:

  • Green Business: A Five-part Model for Creating an Environmentally Responsible Company by Amy K., Ph.D. Townsend
  • Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage by Daniel Esty
  • Harvard Business Review on Green Business Strategy (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series) by Hbsp