green business

Science fiction writers and fear-mongering pundits have long railed against the “rise of the machines” — a point at which large swaths of daily life would take place without human intervention, with machines interacting with other machines. That future has played out in many ways, though it’s invisible to most of us and lacks the sci-fi drama many envisioned. And it is emerging as a key enabler for radical efficiency and corporate sustainability efforts.

The latest Green Rankings from Newsweek are out today, and while there aren’t any show-stopping changes from last year, at least at the top of the list, this year’s rankings represent the first meaningful, apples-to-apples comparison of company performance in the rankings’ four-year history.

Corporate social responsibility is entering its third decade as a mainstream business movement, at least as measured by the history of BSR, the organization formed in 1992 as Business for Social Responsibility, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. It's a good time to take stock — of the organization, the movement, and the trends shaping its future.

Facebook today revealed for the first time information about its carbon footprint, citing the "power of openness." The data, covering the energy use for its data centers and global offices, reflects both the company's efforts to reduce energy use and increase renewable energy consumption, as well as the challenges it faces to steadily improve those efforts.

A couple years ago, at a meeting of the GreenBiz Executive Network — my company's membership-based learning forum for chief sustainability executives — we began the meeting by asking each attendee to present “one great idea” from their company. It was an ice-breaker of sorts, a way for everyone to weigh in on something they were doing that was exciting, different, making a difference.

Today, we publish our fourth State of Green Business report, GreenBiz.com's annual effort to take the pulse of what and how the world of sustainable business is doing.

There's a lot to be said for viewing the year just passed through the rear-view window.

Toyota's hybrids hit the wall, so to speak, in terms of being seen as a paragon of safety. BP spouted all too vividly the perils of the petro-based economy. The bigger peril, climate change (or global warming, or whatever it's called) became, somehow, a non-issue, politically speaking. Indeed, the political climate in the United States turned against pretty much all things environmental. Meanwhile, toxic substances and gender-bending chemicals found their way into everything from mattresses to baby bottles. I could go on.

Today, Newsweek releases its 2010 Green Rankings, its second annual effort to rate and rank the largest companies in the U.S. and the world. Dell and HP switched places for #1 and #2, and after that, who really cares?

The other 498 companies, that’s who.

Okay, I'll admit: The headline above is a bit of a come-on. I couldn't possibly do justice to the past 10 years' worth of green business activity — at least not in the following 1,500 or so words. But as we view the whatever-it's-called decade in the rearview mirror, it's tempting to assess what's transpired since the good old days of Y2K to see how far we've come — and how far we haven't. So, let's do that.

by: Michael Hoexter

One of the limitations of carbon pricing is that, as a support for renewable energy or other clean generation technologies, it is a roundabout and scattered means of “leveling the playing field”. Energy markets that still enjoy the climate-altering bonanza of fossil fuels are generally less excited from a narrow utilitarian perspective about renewable energy without heavy policy support, excepting in some areas large onshore wind projects.