Stonyfield Farm, purveyor of organic yogurt and milk, is concerned that some folks got the wrong idea about its business strategy from a recent Business Week article about the big-ification of organic, which I pointed to a couple of weeks ago. Stonyfield has now posted a response and clarification on its website, emphasizing its long-standing commitment to supporting organic family farms. It also points out that it hasn't yet bought one dash of powdered milk from New Zealand (and might never), and that powdered milk makes up less than 5 percent of milk used in its yogurt -- a small …

Morgan Stanley will invest $3 billion in carbon trading and offset projects Investment giant Morgan Stanley announced today that it will invest $3 billion in carbon trading and offset projects over the next five years. Expecting a rush to purchase offsets as the Kyoto Protocol's 2012 deadline approaches, the bank is playing the middleperson -- buying offsets from emissions-cutting projects now, with the plan to sell them to governments and industry later. Most of the industrialized countries signed on to the Kyoto Protocol are lagging on meeting their emissions targets and will need to either buy other countries' rights to …

Though it has a noble history and many smart, good-willed people among its ranks, the Republican party now suffers under leadership that has become utterly, irredeemably corrupt. Virtually no coherent public policy agenda remains; efforts to keep up the pretense of one have all but vanished. What's left is pandering to the base with symbolism, terrifying the middle with terrorism, and -- the linchpin around which the rest is organized -- serving the interests of corporate America with lax regulation and enforcement, industry-authored legislation, and boatloads of subsidies and pork. Corporate America knows this all too well. And with Republicans …

Newspaper and magazine companies seek to lessen environmental impact A handful of large publishers are beginning to think about the eco-impact of the paper they publish on. The paper industry is the fourth-largest source of carbon dioxide emissions among U.S. manufacturers. Paper production uses gobs of energy, and then there's the impact of chopping down trees at the front end and of recycling or burning old newspapers and magazines at the back. Time Inc. participated in a study published this year that determined that an average copy of Time magazine resulted in about 0.29 pound of greenhouse gas-emissions; in May, …

What a swell party it was. The first week of October saw a crowd of 1,150 people from 65 countries rubbing shoulders in the Netherlands, including royalty (in the form of HRH the Prince of Orange), politicians (including former Vice President Al Gore and Margot Wallström, VP of the European Commission), titans of industry (like Gerard Kleisterlee, CEO of Royal Philips Electronics, and Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chair of Anglo American), and the heads of multilateral agencies (among them Achim Steiner, the new United Nations Environment Program executive director). What brought this motley crew together? The launch of "G3," the latest …

Google to install more than 9,000 photovoltaic panels at its HQ Google Inc. is converting six buildings at its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay area to run on up to 30 percent solar power. The project, one of the largest solar endeavors undertaken by a U.S. company, will require installation of 9,212 solar panels, and should be operational by early 2007. "We hope corporate America is paying attention. We want to see a lot of copycats," says David Radcliffe, Google's vice president of real estate, who estimates that energy savings should allow the company to recoup costs within five …

Twiddling our thumbs on climate change could cost $20 trillion a year by 2100 Failure to fight global warming could cost $20 trillion a year by the end of the century, says a new study from Tufts University -- and that doesn't include costs of biodiversity loss or unpredictable events like the shutdown of the Gulf Stream. That enormous figure -- representing the cost of doing nothing while the global temperature rises about 7 degrees Fahrenheit -- is equal to about 6 to 8 percent of projected world economic output at century's end. But relatively moderate spending now of about …

A fine feature story in Business Week this week -- The Organic Myth, by Diane Brady. "As it goes mass market, the organic food business is failing to stay true to its ideals," the cover proclaims. When I first glanced at the mag, I expected rah-rah boosterism for corporate organics and spite for old-school purists, but the article actually struck me as a pretty fair assessment of the culture clash between the organic ethos and the Big Biz model -- the gist being that the two are remarkably ill-suited. Corporate enthusiasm for organics notwithstanding -- and there's plenty of enthusiasm …

DuPont unveils new sustainability program and predicts big profits Chemical giant DuPont announced a major sustainability program yesterday that it expects will put an extra $6 billion in its coffers by 2015. "We see sustainable growth as the biggest market opportunity on the horizon for the next two or three decades," said CEO Charles Holliday Jr. In the next decade, the company plans to double spending on R&D into eco-friendlier products and services, introducing at least 1,000 easier-on-the-earth alternatives such as synthetic fibers with biological instead of petrochemical components, less greenhouse-gassy refrigerants, and lower-toxin automotive finishes. The company also plans …

Jonathan Rosenthal. What work do you do? I am the top banana at Oké USA, a new fair-trade fruit company owned by farmers, fair-trade organizations, and nonprofits. What does your organization do? Oké USA is a new model of fair trade that links farmers, fair-trade organizations, and eaters. Farmers get a fair price, a fair share, and a fair say; eaters get a delicious banana at a fair price. We guarantee farmers a living wage, even when international prices are inhumanely low. Farmers own half of our main parent company, AgroFair, and get a share of profits. Oké bananas are …