Better hope you’ve got a little extra closet space. Sometime today, American industry will manufacture or import 250 lbs. of chemicals just for you. There will be another 250 lbs. tomorrow and another the day after that — every day, in fact, throughout the year. That’s a pretty big mountain of chemistry, but if we’re going to …
Business
Ray Anderson, the Green CEO Who Really Gets It
In this week’s Going Green column, I have a piece on Ray Anderson, the founder of the modular carpet manufacturer Interface and quite possibly the greenest CEO in America. Some of that reputation stems from what Anderson has done with Interface, setting the company on a path to total sustainability—meaning zero waste—by 2020. But to …
The Pocketbook Environmentalist
On this Monday Pulitzer afternoon (no Breaking News award? What gives?), I wanted to turn your attention to an interesting piece in the Huffington Post from Lynn Jurich, the president and co-founder of SunRun, a major home solar-energy installer. Jurich notes that at the very time when a sluggish economy, high unemployment and …
How the Ice in Your Drink is Imperiling the Planet
Want to save the Earth? Easy, just buy a couple of ice trays. To the long list of human inventions that are wrecking global climate—the internal combustion engine, the industrial era factory—add the automatic ice maker.
Climate modelers have long known that households are far bigger contributors to global warming than most …
Avoiding “Short-Termism” in Business
I’m on my way to Orange County, California, for the 2011 Fortune Brainstorm Green conference. I’ll be moderating panels on the scalability of green energy, and the fate of green capital. One my panelists for the later meeting will be Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a national network of investors, environmental organizations and …
A Green Chamber of Commerce Offers a New Voice for Business
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has—how to put this—not been a friend of environmental legislation or regulation. The Chamber—which represents more than 3 million U.S. businesses—spent millions to lead the successful fight against carbon cap-and-trade legislation, along with health care reform and most of President Obama’s other …
Washington Will at Last Regulate Fish Farms
Chances are pretty good that the last fish you ate never saw a river or the open ocean. That’s because the U.S. imports 84% of the 5 billion lbs. of seafood we consume each year and more than half of that is raised on fish farms and other aquaculture operations. The U.S., however, has not gotten invested in the aquaculture game as …
See-thru Solar Panels?
A neat press release popped into my inbox this week announcing the development of a solar power technology capable of generating electricity on see-thru glass.
Nature: A Major Company Puts a Value on the Environment
How much is nature worth? On one hand, the question seems absurd. Is it possible to put a price on the value of an endangered species? Or figure out the dollar worth of a clean river, or uncontaminated air. Environmentalism—at least its more romantic strain—has largely defined itself in opposition to the naked market, where …
Brits Ponder Fuel Rationing
The last time the British government instituted a substantial rationing program was 1940—the Nazis had spread out across Europe and the continent was mobilizing for all-out war. The rationing program, which lasted until 1954, had a profound effect on the collective consciousness of the British public, and is largely remembered not …