A High Chess IQ? Implementing Biofuel and Biodiesel Sustainably

Problem solving includes looking forward, employing what we at GRIPS call “Chess IQ.” Chess IQ is a person’s ability to think ahead. A person who acts by thinking only one step ahead has a low chess IQ. A person who acts, thinking of possible outcomes and consequences three steps ahead has a relatively higher Chess IQ.


Building a business is challenging but building a sustainable business with consideration of your business impact on the environment, social strata, and longevity requires a significant investment in commitment, thinking, research, planning, and metrics. A sustainable business plan is not written and placed in an investor binder, never to be consulted again. Instead, it must be referred to continuously as the benchmark for all business decisions. Thus, the commitment, thinking, research, planning, and metrics chain is a constant loop serving as a guide for daily business operations and strategy.

The Corn-Soy biofuel experiment is a recent example of a strategy that gained significant investment, commitment, and publicity but the overall plan demonstrated a low Chess IQ. In retrospect, we see that stop-gaps were not put into place and little consideration seemed to be given to basic economic principles such as supply and demand in the food-fuel cycle, and land use displacement, or what the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) refers to as Indirect Land Use Change – (ILUC).

IUCN’s well produced, animated video leads the viewer along a high Chess IQ path, using the bio food-fuel model as a demonstration. The video takes into consideration efficiency, land use displacement, and distribution – all three considerations are normal business supply-chain considerations. This video is an excellent teaching tool to help people begin to think about development a sustainable approach to biofuel energy solutions.

Allison Frederick is an Intellectual Property Educator and Innovation Marketing Consultant for GRIPS - GReen Idea Protection and Sales. She offers risk management assessments for renewable energy and green energy technology companies and her company also provides technology companies effective, affordable marketing strategies to produce attractive requests for proposals, investor materials, product manuals, and product promotion materials.