One of the most exciting and ongoing developments in the world of sustainability and the shift to green thinking is the recognition that this doesn’t have to be a burden. Firms can start to clean up their acts, while also finding new ways to profit from it. Just as
We missed this story earlier this week, but it’s good enough to still bring up. McDonalds is converting its UK delivery fleet to run on a form of biofuel made mostly from recycled vegetable oil from its 1,200 UK stores, combined with rapeseed oil. But the fumes won’
CHINA WATCH The Beijing government has ordered that air conditioning units in most public buildings should be set no cooler than 26 degrees Celsius, presumably as part of efforts to cut energy use, according to a report in Chinadaily. So does this policy work? To be honest, the air conditioning
An interesting story on the NY Times today talks about the challenge facing technology firms trying to cash in on the current surge of interest in green issues. It’s a tough problem. Some tech firms, of course, are making genuine technological breakthroughs, improving energy efficiency or dreaming up all
HSBC has hired Sir Nicholas Stern, former World Bank chief economist, to advise the firm on climate change. Stern wrote the famous report – the Economics of Climate Change, which suggested it would be more expensive to tackle global warming in the future than now, and that it could cut global
I’ve just recovered from a nasty spell of flu. Since then a ton of stuff has flown by and I’ve been helpless to do much about it. But here was one such an example. This chappy, Chris Mellor, despite seeming to hate Greenbang – whether you read the first
Large firms that act ethically are also the ones that tend to come top in their sectors. This links in with something we heard the other day – the most innovative and successful companies tend to be those who rank highest on the various sustainability indexes. The FT has this story,
Hot on the heels of the universal cell-phone charger plan, China is now setting a more ambitious goal to make a universal standard for cell-phone batteries by the end of 2007, according to sina.tech He Guili from the Ministry of Information Industry said the universal battery will be used
A fascinating piece in the New York Times today highlights the emergence of a new member of the C-suite: the Chief Sustainability Officer, or CSO. Interestingly, this role is only partly about making business more ‘sustainable’ – a function that will vary widely across industries and geographies – but more importantly about
Fu Chengyu, the executive of China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), told the press that offshore wind energy will be an increasingly important part of their energy industry, and plans have already been made to explore the wind business, according to Shanghai Securities News – a state-run news service. The potential
Former US vice president Al Gore and HRH the Prince of Wales gave out a few gongs last night for corporate social responsibility (or just corporate responsibility as I was told it should be this morning). The Business Awards for Excellence were presented at a Gala Dinner at the Royal
One of the problems emerging from the current buzz around green issues and sustainability is that it leaves the door open for companies to claim that something is more than it actually is. Of course, in many instances, this is perfectly acceptable: taking steps to cut carbon emissions, for example,
