Climate Technology

So Long, San Pellegrino

Restaurants, schools tap into local water supplies You’ve heard of eating locally, but the latest fad may be drinking locally. Some restaurants and schools are starting to serve filtered tap water instead of bottled water, citing the eco-impacts of packaging and shipping a product that’s already available right thar in the kitchen. But it seems […]

Business is splitting from Republicans; the time is right for a tax

In Washington Monthly, Chris Hayes draws attention to the "revolt of the CEOs." Big Business is parting ways with the Republican Party, actively seeking greater government involvement in the realms of health care and climate change. Why? Two reasons. One, CEOs recognize that rising health care costs and global warming are real problems that will […]

Which companies are going beyond green

"Eco fashion" has definitely become the buzzword of the moment.

Within the last month alone, my office has received calls from over a half-dozen trade shows and runway organizers seeking to green their events. Apparel companies and clients feverishly searching for organic clothing sources are also becoming quite common. The press seems to be foaming at the mouth for new material too, which is always a good sign; but, in the U.S. at least, we have yet to graduate beyond the "green" theme. This week I'll be speaking to a U.K.-based women's glossy on "ethical fashion," a term I hear used far more frequently in Europe.

"Ethical" brings a more social-cultural perspective to the mix, one you don't always get when talking straight up "eco" speak. The term has its roots in the fair-trade movement. Fair trade got its start 50 years ago, well before the idea of "eco fashion" was ever embraced by popular culture. It started with international aid groups working with small-scale African farmers. It wasn't until the late 1980s that an international system of Fair Trade certification and labeling was introduced, but heck -- that was about 20 years ago!

Still, "fair trade" and "ethical" fashion have yet to find their footing in America's popular culture. They are terms that still remain too esoteric for the general public, particularly because fair trade is more often associated with foodstuffs and artsy-crafty products. There are a couple of reasons for this.

Not always, but green branding has potential to connect consumers to their ‘inner green’

In an undeniable rush, corporate giants are jumping on the "green" bandwagon: Wal-mart, Ford, Dow, General Electric, British Petroleum, Chevron, DuPont, to name only a few. "There's a tendency to put a green smiley face on everything," says Joel Makower, author of The Green Consumer. And smiley faces are rearing their heads all over the place. "We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers," claims a Shell Oil ad.

Right ...

But the concept isn't new. In 1999, "greenwash" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, where it is defined as: "Disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image." Naturally, green branding breeds even greener skeptics.

There are plenty of arguments for why this is inherently bad, especially if it's just lip service -- or worse, polishing up the public image of big polluters or convincing people that an environmental problem is being solved by industry when it isn't.

On the other hand, if huge corporate ad campaigns help cultivate a green-conscious public that doesn't stop at voting with their dollars but also votes its greenness at the ballot box, we have a better chance of moving sustainable policies forward. Greenwashing, for all the ire it raises among the truly green, might have long term political benefits.

Goals Gone Wild

GE’s green division makes money, makes plans General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt gushed about his company’s green successes at a second-anniversary celebration for the “ecomagination” unit yesterday, noting that it had sales of $12 billion last year, has back orders for $50 billion more, and will “blow away” the original goal of $20 billion by […]

BP pulls out of its one actual carbon sequestration project

Everyone seems to agree that carbon sequestration is going to save us from global warming. That’s why the Scottish government announced it would have a competition, awarding the creation of an actual carbon sequestration facility with a big fat financial reward. BP spent $50 million just preparing to build such a facility. But then the […]

The carpet company and its visionary CEO in the NYT

They’re a little old now, but I wanted to call attention to two great NYT articles on the environmental initiatives at carpet company Interface and its visionary CEO Ray Anderson: He challenged his colleagues to set a deadline for Interface to become a “restorative enterprise,” a sustainable operation that takes nothing out of the earth […]

A Nation columnist goes contrarian; GM goes the other way

Did lefty pundit Alexander Cockburn and corporate behemoth General Motors secretly agree to swap climate positions?

It looks that way. GM, swallowing hard, recently joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the elite enviro-business coalition pushing cap-and-trade -- a so-called "market-based system" for controlling carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the famously acidic Cockburn lacerated global warming orthodoxy in his column in the Nation magazine, deriding it as a "fearmongers' catechism [of] crackpot theories" ginned up by "grant-guzzling climate careerists" and opportunistic politicians looking to ride the greenhouse "threatosphere" all the way to the White House. (Whew!)

But there's less here than meets the eye. For as the inconvenient details of cap-and-trade schemes start to surface, USCAP is looking less and less like a CO2 control lobby and more like a corporate club seeking to cash in on the rising clamor against free carbon spewing. And Cockburn, it turns out, has been raining on the climate crisis parade for years.

This Sounds Like a Job For … Nobody

Workaholics, especially American ones, are ruining the planet Now here’s a theory we can get behind: workaholism is ruining the earth. “We are proudly breaking our backs to decrease the carrying capacity of the planet,” says Conrad Schmidt, proponent of the 32-hour work week, who declares that overwork leads to overconsumption, pollution, and less fulfilling […]

Is It Worm in Here?

Deep-water mining could be bad news for seafloor organisms, say experts Pop quiz: Would deep-water mining harm fragile ecosystems? An article in Science gives the shocking answer: Vancouver-based Nautilus Minerals’ pioneering plan to dig out gold, copper, silver, and zinc from hydrothermal vents in the South Pacific would likely create unpleasantness for the hardy organisms […]