Climate Technology
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Jonathan Rosenthal, fair-trade fruit purveyor, answers questions
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 […]
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How Local Can You Go?
Triple-bottom-line strategy working for small biz Small, local businesses are increasingly embracing social responsibility and promoting environmental health — and making a profit in the process. “When people come to me, I’m their first choice, a locally owned business that can produce at value,” says Guy Bazzani, whose small Michigan firm restores old buildings using […]
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That’s All Wells and Good
Wells Fargo becomes biggest corporate buyer of clean energy Banking giant Wells Fargo announced yesterday that it has bought renewable-energy certificates to offset 40 percent of its current electricity usage over the next three years. Amounting to 550 million kilowatt hours of wind power a year, it is the largest-ever corporate purchase of renewable energy […]
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It’s the Environment, Stupid
China’s first-of-its-kind “Green GDP” report finds pollution hampering economy The Chinese government is exploring an innovative way to assess economic growth with a new “green GDP” report, released last month. The report found that air and water pollution cost the nation $64 billion in 2004, equivalent to 3 percent of gross domestic product; it suggests […]
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Virgin founder’s $3 billion climate pledge heralds new era in philanthropy
Richard Branson, founder and chair of the British conglomerate Virgin Group, has racked up more than his share of high-profile high jinks over the years. Among them, signing the notorious Sex Pistols to his young record label, dangling nearly nude over Times Square, and botching numerous transoceanic hot-air balloon expeditions, necessitating rescue by helicopter. But […]
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Can’t See the Forest for the Bling
Northern forests worth up to $250 billion a year, research says You thought they were just standing there, but forests in Russia, Canada, and other northern nations provide services worth up to $250 billion a year, say Canadian researchers. Water filtration, erosion control, habitat provision, greenhouse-gas absorption, and tourist attraction are highly lucrative pursuits that […]
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Sustainability visionaries see room for hope in our worry-filled world
Who’s afraid of the big, bad future? Al Gore, clearly — and pretty much anyone who has seen An Inconvenient Truth. While Gore’s dissenters may argue that he cries wolf too often, no one who knows and understands the statistics used in the film can doubt that the Big Bad Wolf of climate change is […]
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Box Populi
Wal-Mart will push suppliers to reduce packaging by 5 percent In its latest effort to woo enviros (and, of course, save some dough), Wal-Mart has unveiled a five-year plan that it believes will reduce packaging on the products it sells by 5 percent. Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting on Friday, Wal-Mart CEO Lee […]
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Biz Bang
Big business increasingly acting to fight climate change More and more big companies are waking up and smelling the climate change, recognizing that it could have a notable impact on their bottom lines, according to the fourth annual survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project. The CDP, backed by large institutional investors, got responses from 360 […]
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Alisa Gravitz, director of Co-op America, answers questions
Alisa Gravitz. What work do you do? I have the great pleasure of serving as Co-op America’s executive director. What does your organization do? Co-op America uses the power of the marketplace to solve social and environmental problems. Our name itself stands for the idea of people in their economic roles (as consumers, workers, investors, […]
