Being green is becoming part of the key messaging toolkit for companies as diverse as Wal-mart and Apple. I’m all in favour of anything that helps, but just how green is green in corporate America? Green World Media has put together a scorecard based on 20 top indicators.

In this landmark report, Joel Makower and the editors of GreenBiz.com answer the question: How are U.S. businesses doing in their quest to be greener and more environmentally responsible? It introduces the GreenBiz Index, a set of 20 indicators of progress, tracking the resource use, emissions, and business practices of U.S. companies: carbon, materials, energy, and toxics intensity, clean-tech investments, e-waste recovery, paper use, employee commuting, and more. full report at StateofGreenBusiness.com

Also check this article in Wired.com on the GreenBiz index.

I did live in Ontario for a while, but I was completely unaware that hanging your clothes out to dry is actually illegal in a lot of places.

Not for long, according to this story at the GuelphMercury.com

The province is determined to lift the ban on clotheslines in Ontario communities in time for the summer sunshine, ending what many have called a “draconian” practice that discourages energy conservation, Energy Minister Gerry Phillips said yesterday.

Outdoor clotheslines are currently banned under some municipal bylaws and contracts with home builders. But Phillips said Ontario is looking at allowing clotheslines for anyone who lives in a freehold detached, semi-detached or row house….

It just makes sense to allow homeowners to use clotheslines, Phillips said.
Clothes dryers use about 900 kilowatt hours of electricity a year on average, or about six per cent of residential electricity consumption. By hanging one-quarter of their laundry loads out to dry, Phillips said consumers could save about $30 a year on their electricity bills while helping to reduce greenhouse gases.

We’re lucky enough to have a clothes line and there’s nothing quite like the smell of a shirt or sheet that’s been dried outdoors, and knowing you’re saving money and energy is sweet little bonus.

Companies are constantly evolving as we the consumer ask for more, and adopt new and different ways of doing things. Starbucks forever changed the coffee experience making a latte a lifestyle experience, not just a jolt in the morning that needed a lot of cream and sugar to go down.

So now one of the hottest food retail trend is for companies to win the “3rd place” race. Why aspire to finish 3rd? While the thinking goes, that after your home, and work, everyone needs another place.

So who will win the the “heavy weight” race to come 3rd? I liked the Hartman thinking below:

The latest heavy weight news, filed under the media-created headline “coffee wars” finds pundits pitting, in one corner, McDonald’s with $27 billion in sales, against, in the other corner, Starbucks with $9 billion in sales. Seated ringside sits Dunkin’ Donuts, bent on sparring with any coffee competitor as the company expands nationally from its Northeast kingdom.

…….
When you look at this debate from the consumer perspective, it boils down to this: “Do you really want to hang out at McDonald’s?” We’re trying to be sensitive here, because we may have been a little guilty ourselves of overstepping our enthusiasm for experience and not the product. On the other hand we don’t think the future is necessarily all about experience. This is not to say we are downplaying the importance of experience, because we’re not. Here’s the litmus test: The next time you’re going to meet with a colleague say, “Let’s meet at McDonald’s as opposed to Starbucks,” and see what they say.

Read the full Hartman Group article.

A round-up of links and stories from the news:

• Treehugger puts a green lens on the new thin laptop from Apple.
• BBC reports that hundreds of medicinal plants could face extinction.
• UK kids have trouble identifying vegetables. Government wants schools to bring back compulsory cooking classes.
• The British Heart Foundation wants a ban on junk food advertising in online games targeted at kids. Meanwhile, the world’s largest video game maker, Electronic Arts, announces big plans for online games funded by . . . online advertising.
• I love kites. At one point in my life I was a professional kite maker, as a skydiver I flew one, and I’ve got to help make my sailboat go fast. Now, a freighter partly powered by a giant kite is set to cross the Atlantic.
• Speaking of oceans . . . Mediterranean Sea levels are on the rise.
• Ottawa city councilor thinks 106 years is a bit too long for removing lead drinking water pipes.
• Hazardous levels of mercury found in New York sushi. Meanwhile, the Washington Post poses a consumer challenge: Making Head or Tail of Fish and Mercury.

Rising oil prices aren’t just a phenomena at the gas pumps. There’s a fascinating and distressing story in today’s International Heritage Tribune about food oil prices in developing countries…

Rising prices for cooking oil in India are forcing residents of Mumbai to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel for trucks sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material.

This is the other oil shock. Shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food. Full story at the International Herald Tribune

This is a reminder for all of us of how fragile our food system really is,  please have a read.