So much environmental progress unfolds behind the scenes that it’s easy to miss. An example: Environmental Defense Fund’s work with FedEx, Eaton and others to develop a hybrid-electric truck industry. (Recently, I interviewed Eaton’s CEO about hybrid trucks here.) We notice Priuses on the highway. But have you ever noticed a hybrid truck?
I’m am admirer of EDF’s work, and not an unbiased one because the NGO has hired me to help with writing projects. We also work together on FORTUNE’s Brainstorm: Green conference. With those disclosures out of the way, I thought you might enjoy seeing EDF’s new video about its work with FedEx, Eaton, Wal-Mart, KKR and others. A key line comes at the end: EDF notes that it does not accept donations from its corporate partners “which enables the organization to maintain its independence and credibility.”
Stopping by the supermarket today, I discovered something unusual: an environmentally-preferable product that costs less and performs as well as its competitors.
Marcal Small Steps paper towels are not only made entirely from recycled paper. They sell for less – in some instances quite a bit less – than paper towels made mostly from trees by the industry giants.
Greener and cheaper
Here’s how the consumer’s choices look, measured from cheapest to most expensive, in terms of dollars per 100 paper towels: [click to continue…]
Today’s guest post comes from Daniel Hall, director of the market solutions program at Forest Ethics, and as you can see it’s all about paper. It’s easy enough for most consumers to buy recycled paper. Just about every retailer sells it. What’s just as important, if not more so, are the broader policies and practices of retailers when it comes to environmental protection and particularly forests, since we use so much paper. In its annual report card on the office supply industry (an approach known as “rank ‘em and spank ‘em” in NGO lingo), Forest Ethics and its partner, the Dogwood Alliance, identify industry leaders and laggards. You can read Daniel’s analysis below the chart.
This year’s Green Grades Office Supply Report Card evaluates more companies than ever on a more comprehensive set of criteria than ever. With that in mind, it’s especially encouraging to see more companies actually making the grade, and joining sector leaders to use their purchasing power to benefit the environment. Others, of course, lag way behind and continue to create a market for forest destruction. We look forward to working with these companies to help them stop sourcing paper that harms Endangered Forests, wildlife, and the climate, and to increase their use of the good stuff, i.e., recycled and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper. [click to continue…]
Crazy but true: A California-based electric car company that wants to make inflatable cars, using pressure membrane technology developed by the aerospace industry, is indignant because the government won’t give it money to do so.
This is what our Bailout Nation is coming to: XP Vehicles, whose website won’t say who is running the company because “it is too easy for our competitors to poach them,” is calling upon supporters to write to Congress because the U.S. Department of Energy rejected its application form for an Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan.
The DOE reviewers, mostly from “Detroit”, have turned down XP’s loan application in favor of “Detroit” players. Are we a national where innovation and great ideas win support or where great influence buyers win the support? If you want an XP Vehicle, call Congress now and ask for action!
Now it’s true that Ford ($5.9 billion), Nissan ($1.6 billion) and Tesla ($465 million) were awarded loans under the $25-billion federal program in June. They’ll use the money to build or rebuild plants in Michigan, Tennessee and California, the interest rate is a very low 5% and they’ve got 25 years to pay the money back. If you don’t think politics comes into play when that kind of money is doled out, you’ve not spent much time in Washington.
First, the good news: A vast majority of Americans–as many 90%, depending on how you phrase the question–think the U.S. should act to curb global warming. Most expect the benefits of a national response to outweigh the costs.
Now, the bad news: Very few have acted on those beliefs. Only about 10 to 12% have contacted government officials, given money or volunteered with an organization working to reduce global warming.
So we’re concerned, but apathetic.
Those are among the findings of an exceptionally detailed public opinion study called Global Warming’s Six Americas 2009: An Audience Segmentation Analysis. The 132-page study breaks down the populace into six groups, which it calls Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful and Dismissive, and analyzes each of their views. It was conducted by the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, which is led by Ed Maibach.
For decades, shareholder activists have filed dozens, if not hundreds, of resolutions with public companies asking them to improve their environmental policies and practices. Not one passed—until this year.
The breakthrough vote came in May at IdaCorp., a $988-million a year utility company and independent power producer based in Boise, Idaho. Despite the usual opposition from management, the owners of 51.2 percent of IdaCorp.’s shares voted to ask the company to adopt greenhouse gas reduction goals.
Hardly anyone noticed at the time because, well, it was Idaho and not even the shareholder activists expected a victory. “I expected a vote of about 25%,” said Michael Passoff of As You Sow, a nonprofit group that organized the investor vote.
Since then, the company responded. Legally, it didn’t have to act because, as you may know, most shareholder votes are “precatory,” a fancy legal term meaning that management can ignore even a majority of the company’s owners. In any event, IdaCorp. agreed to adopt goals for curbing the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming, issued its first request for a proposal for a wind farm and submitted a “smart grid” proposal, hoping to tap into the federal government’s stimulus money to upgrade the grid. [click to continue…]
…we need weapons to prevent humanitarian disasters like the Darfur genocide.
…Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts are making the world better.
…A cold beer at a summer ballgame is a wonderful thing.
Reasonable people will differ about those assertions (except, perhaps, for the one about beer, which is inarguable). But until recently, most socially responsible mutual funds—funds designed to appeal to people who want their portfolio to reflect their mostly liberal values—screened out companies that provided nuclear energy, manufactured weapons or brewed beer. As for Wal-Mart, forget about it.
That’s changing, and it’s about time. Calvert Investments, a leader in social responsibility investing (SRI), has introduced new funds that—are you sitting down?—own shares in oil and mining companies, in a utility that sells nuclear power and in Wal-Mart. [click to continue…]
Brainstorm Green, FORTUNE’s conference on business and the environment, will be back next spring. I’ll be back, too, as co-chair with FORTUNE environmental editor and international editor Brian Dumaine (who edited my very first FORTUNE story back in 1996). We’ll return to the spectacular Ritz Carlton Hotel in Laguna Niguel, California, from April 12 to 14.
The theme, once again, will be: How can business profitably help solve the world’s biggest environmental problems?
Last year’s Brainstorm Green was a hit, by all accounts. We brought together corporate executives, environmentalists, entrepreneurs, investors, government officials and thinkers. Too many to list here, but they included Bill Clinton, Bill Ford, Paul Hawken, Van Jones, Fisk Johnson, Jim Rogers, David Crane, Mike Morris, Fred Krupp, Peter Darbee, Janine Benyus, Ray Anderson and Bill Gross, as well as senior execs from Wal-Mart, GE, Microsoft, Dell and HP. Really a diverse group, and a well-informed and lively audience that woke up early and stayed out late to get to know one another and talk about important stuff. The one-and-only Chuck Leavell, keyboardist (with the Rolling Stones!), award-winning tree farmer and entrepreneur, entertained us, and we ate fabulous organic food. [click to continue…]
Okay, now we all know what to do with old gas guzzlers. But even before cash for clunkers came along, no one drove a jalopy into a landfill. In fact, nearly half of new car purchases involve trade-ins.
Why can’t electronics—computers, cell phones, digital cameras and MP3 players—work the same way?
That’s what Israel Ganot and Rousseau Aurelien want to know. It’s the reason they started a Boston-based company called Gazelle, which takes back all those outmoded devices that, if you’re like me, you’ve got cluttering your office and attic.
“Our vision is nothing short of redefining consumption, changing the way people buy, sell and recycle electronics,” Ganot, who is president and CEO of Gazelle, told me recently by phone. “We own too many products that we don’t use. We always buy the latest and greatest. They end up tucked away in your attic. Some get thrown in the garbage. Or recycled improperly.” [click to continue…]
This blog has been quiet for a few days because my father, Edgar Gunther, died last Saturday morning. My dad was 88 years old. He’d suffered since last fall from an irreversible heart ailment that left him increasingly frail; his death was peaceful and not unexpected. But you are never quite prepared for the loss of a parent. I’m writing about him today because, despite an often-difficult relationship, his experiences inevitably helped shape my thinking on a number of topics relevant to this blog…immigration, globalization and religion, among them.
Immigration: My dad had lived in Greenwich Village since the late 1990s. This week, as I’ve wandered around New York, making funeral arrangements, seeing family and thinking about his life. I couldn’t help noticing: The waiters, the cab drivers, the doormen—they’re all immigrants. So were the health care workers who cared for my dad during the last six months, in particular a wonderful Filipino woman who lived with him for the past month or so and offered her love and care.
My dad’s is a classic immigrant story. A Jew born in the Saar region of Germany in 1921, he escaped to New York with his family as a teenager in the late 1930s, fleeing Nazi persecution. Powered by his ambition, energy and intelligence, he created a rich and [click to continue…]
