Today’s New York Times features a special green business section, highlighting a number of companies and biz leaders who are getting hip to environmentalism.
"Friend of Nature? Let’s See Those Shoes" looks at the greening of consumer goods from yogurt to Timbs and gets at the notion that greening makes environmental and economic sense. It’s overall positive on the possibilities, but also pragmatic. An excerpt:
But will the information change buying behavior? Studies by Cone/Roper and other researchers suggest that price and quality being equal, consumers prefer ecologically and socially responsible products and companies. But a bad environmental rating may not override a desire for a pair of must-have shoes any more than nutrition labels stop people from eating junk food.
As Dave mentioned, there’s also a good article on the green job market, the main thesis of which is, "Hey, hippies like capitalism, too! And they even wear suits!"
Another piece features past InterActivist Alisa Gravitz of Co-op America and explains how greens are using the power of the internets to get their message out. Sounds like a good idea to us.
Oh, and more on the power of the internets!
Then we have a dig at Denmark’s green cred in "Across the Atlantic, Slowing Breezes," which I stopped reading because there was a huge splinter in my eye. They may have a point, though.
But my favorite of all the pieces is one on an enterprising trucker who’s taking on idling trucks (the devil’s handiwork, you know). Some interesting stats:
Every day in the United States, almost half a million long-haul trucks are on the road, and most spend part of each day idling. Long-haul trucks idle 500 to 3,500 hours a year, burning a half gallon to one and a half gallons of diesel fuel an hour. According to the Department of Energy, this consumes up to a billion gallons of diesel fuel a year. The Environmental Protection Agency calculates that idling also spews 11 million tons of carbon dioxide, 200,000 tons of oxides of nitrogen and 5,000 tons of particulate matter into the air annually.
