Toymaker Mattel Inc. says it will stop using packaging from a Singapore-based company accused of clear-cutting swaths of Indonesian rainforest.

Mattel’s action follows a campaign by Greenpeace that targeted, among other products, the packaging used in Mattel’s popular Barbie doll. (more…)

In 1896 Charles Dow created the Dow Jones Industrial Average to track the nation’s leading nine companies. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average or Dow 30 is made up of 30 leading US companies. It is the world’s best known stock index and everyone has heard of it. (more…)

Southwest Baking, supplier of dough to Subway stores in Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and Southern California will be adding a 300 kilowatt solar energy system at its facility in Tolleson, Arizona.

According to the Phoenix Business Journal, the solar energy system will be a ground mounted system and (more…)

On April 18, 2011, Molycorp, a U.S. based producer of rare earth metals and owner of the largest rare earth mine outside of China, announced that it has acquired a processing facility to manufacture rare earth magnets. According to CNET, Molycorp paid $17.5 million to Japan-based Santoku for its U.S. (more…)

In 2009 China became a net-importer of coal. In 2006 the New York Times reported that China was already using “more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined.” Today the amount of coal demanded in China is greater than ever. The coast of China is 7,000 miles (11,265 km) from the (more…)

The Obama Administration has taken another step to reduce the Federal Government's environmental footprint and to advance clean energy opportunities.  On Tuesday morning, I joined General Services Administration Administrator Martha Johnson in Chicago, Illinois, at the first-ever GreenGov Supply Chain Summit to announce a voluntary collaboration between the Federal Government and vendors and suppliers to create a greener and more efficient supply chain.

The Federal Government purchases $500 billion in goods and services annually, so you could say the Federal supply chain represents an enormous opportunity to support a clean energy economy.  Through our new GreenGov Supply Chain Partnership, Federal suppliers can agree to voluntarily measure, reduce, and report their greenhouse gas emissions to help GSA design an incentive-based approach to developing contracting advantages for companies that share our sustainability goals.  We've already partnered with 60 small businesses for a pilot program that will explore the benefits and challenges of measuring greenhouse gas emissions for small business participants.

More than 150 companies – large and small – joined us at the summit.  Companies shared their corporate sustainability priorities and their experiences greening their own supply chains.  Two themes emerged in the conversation.  First, we have an extraordinary opportunity to foster innovation and entrepreneurship through the Federal Government's commitment to sustainability and the GreenGov Supply Chain Partnership.  Second, to fulfill that opportunity, we've got to develop straightforward incentives that make it easy for small and emerging businesses to work with us.

The Federal Government has a responsibility to lead by example to cut energy use, reduce pollution and save taxpayer dollars.  Yesterday's announcement is another step in the right direction.

Article by Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality

Which companies are committed to reducing the causes of climate change? The Carbon Disclosure Project recently released its 2010 reports on companies in both the Global 500 and S &P 500. The reports chronicle companies’ efforts to be more transparent about their carbon emissions and their efforts to reduce them. (more…)

It’s Friday. Before you pack your bags and head out to the Hamptons for the weekend, check out what is new in the Green Business Blog Carnival this week. Your portfolio might thank you for it! Thanks to our friends at sustainablog and Triple Pundit for coming up with the carnival. Next week, check out the carnival at Green Marketing TV. (more…)

Watching baseball’s first quadruple play was strange. Seeing Wal-Mart go green is stranger still.

First the baseball: The scene was a game of T-Ball, where everyone bats every inning, regardless of the number of outs.

The bases were loaded when a line drive ended up in the glove of the pitcher. While he wondered how it got there, all the runners took off without tagging up. The pitcher ran to third, then second, then first.

We kept counting the number of outs and they did not add up. First in our heads: That doesn’t make sense. Then on our hand: That’s crazy. Then our other hand: It kept adding up to four outs.

It took us a while to believe what we saw right in front of us.

And now Wal-Mart, the original Black Hat, is going green. Or better said, sustainable. Let that sink in because it is true. Big time.

So much so that Treehugger.com says It “could end up being one of the biggest motivators to make truly ‘green’ products ever.”

As in history of the world.

Wal-Mart has made believers out of not just the biggest environmental organizations in the world — like the Environmental Defense Fund and the World Wildlife Federation — but also Wal-Mart’s suppliers.

(more…)

Wind turbine technology has become a fully commercial venture, but the recent rapid growth of the wind industry has strained its supply chain to meet demand in a timely manner. Furthermore, unexpected component failures, especially electronic controls, gearboxes, generators, and rotor blades, have driven up operations and maintenance costs.

During the course of the research for a new report just published by Wind Energy Update, it ultimately became clear that reliable and verifiable data on wind industry operations and maintenance cost trends is quite rare. In fact, there are no current widely available data sets illustrating these wind industry costs.

Proprietary research, reviews of scarce secondary sources and anecdotal evidence obtained through confidential interviews with wind industry owners and operators and component suppliers suggest that operations and maintenance expenses are double or even triple what was originally projected, particularly with the latest class of multi-megawatt machines now permeating the global wind market. (more…)