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  • Former PepsiCo exec to take helm at Seventh Generation

    Entrepreneur Jeffrey Hollender launched a mail-order catalog business 20 years ago and nursed it for more than a decade before it became profitable. That company is now Seventh Generation, and there’s no more catalog, but there certainly is a ton of recycled toilet paper — and all-natural cleaning supplies and non-toxic personal-care products. It’s a […]

    Sarah van Schagen Technology

  • Brookings: Fears that cap and trade will hurt farmers are baseless

    Cross-posted from Wonk Room. A new economic study reveals that concerns a cap on global warming pollution could hurt American agriculture are unfounded. As the Waxman-Markey green economy legislation (H.R. 2454) moves toward passage in the House of Representatives, the farm lobby and rural officials have questioned the bill’s costs to farmers. Last week, Rep. […]

    Brad Johnson Technology

  • Congress introduces twin bills to control drilling and protect drinking water

    ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten reports: In a widely expected move that is sure to draw the ire of the oil and gas industry, Democratic members of Congress today introduced twin bills to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and give the Environmental Protection Agency authority over the controversial drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. The stand-alone bills […]

    ProPublica Technology

  • Clean technology innovation: reaping the rewards

    Business Week has a provocative article this week by Michael Mandel on innovation — or the collapse of it — in America. According to Mandel, many of our current woes stem from a failure to innovate over the last decade since the glory years of the late 1990s. While most Americans still take pride in our innovation, […]

    Michael Moynihan Technology

  • Slideshow: The plug-ins and electric vehicles of 2009

    Can’t wait until 2010 for the Chevy Volt (or Coda or Fisker Karma or Chrysler Circuit)? Check out these electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that are either on the market now or will be by the end of 2009. In slideshow order: Aptera 2e Th!nk City Subaru Stella Toyota Prius extended-range hybrid Mitsubishi i-MiEV smart […]

    Sara Barz Technology

  • A closer look at problems with the sectoral approach to carbon offsets

    Last month I went home to Barcelona to attend Carbon Expo, one of the major annual gatherings for professionals involved in the global carbon market. There were many interesting conversations and panel discussions over the course of the three-day conference, but one in particular focused on sectoral mechanisms as a way of sourcing international offsets […]

    Sonia Medina Technology

  • ‘Sweet Crude’ documents oil exploitation in the Niger River Delta

    Picture in your mind the Niger River Delta. What do you think of? Water, mangrove trees, fishing boats? Wrong. Try brown sludge-filled waterways flanked by constantly flaring gas stacks. Welcome to Oporoza, Nigeria — the place where 10 percent of U.S. oil imports originates. When filmmaker Sandy Cioffi traveled to Oporoza in 2006 to make […]

    Sara Barz Technology

  • Renewables industry protests weak RES proposals in Congress

    In January, Barack Obama stopped by the Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co. in Bedford Heights, Ohio, to promote his economic-stimulus plan. The company, which has manufactured parts for bridges and machinery since 1968, began three years ago to make giant nuts and bolts to hold together wind turbines. During his visit, Obama cited the factory […]

    Kate Sheppard Technology

  • Big Pharma: The case for corporate climate responsibility

    Today, Climate Counts is releasing our review of the pharmaceutical industry, and they’ve made for an interesting case: they are both extraordinarily profitable and have received the highest scores yet of any of the 14 industries on our Climate Counts Company Scorecard. But in spite of good scores on measurement and reporting, they’ve been weak […]

    Wood Turner Technology

  • The Climate Post: Waxman-Markey, Bonn, and carbon counting

    The U.S. Congress fast-tracks climate legislation, international negotiators hash through the first “negotiating text” for year-end global talks in Germany, and big businesses start counting their carbon. The pile of climate stories this week climbed faster than predicted New England sea levels. The American Clean Energy and Security Act — aka Waxman-Markey, aka ACES, aka […]

    Eric Roston Technology