Brazil has already announced a few positive steps in this direction. For example, the country announced that deforestation in the Amazon has been slowed by 45 percent over the past four years. Over 50 percent of Brazil’s energy comes from renewable sources, according to a report by Forbes. And the government is proposing a new law that would give federal grants and other assistance to land owners that attempt to reintroduce native vegetation to their land.

The list, which reportedly took 18 months to compile, was created with the help of environmental research groups, including KLD Research & Analytics, Trucost and CorporateRegister.com.

The top 5 Companies on the Green Rankings are:

1. Hewlett-Packard
2. Dell
3. Johnson & Johnson
4. Intel
5. IBM

The Financial Times points out that the drop in stature may not be as much to do with the UK as it is with China:

Gordon Edge, director of economics and markets at the British Wind Energy Association, said the report was unfair on the UK: “I think this report says more about China than it does about the UK.”

The improvement in China’s score is partly down (sic) to the country’s renewable energy policy, which aims to generate 15 per cent of energy from non-carbon sources by 2020. The government’s focus on infrastructure had made China especially attractive for investors, Mr Edge said.

The United States tops off the list, though its future remains uncertain due in part to the upcoming election, according to the report.

This June, Boeing will be showing off its new 787 Dreamliner plane. The Dreamliner will be 20 percent more fuel efficient than the majority of airplanes, and is designed in part to increase the number of direct flights between mid-sized cities. The idea here is that reduced layovers will mean fewer take-offs and landings, both of which use more fuel than when the plane is airborne. Airbus has its own plane in the works, though that isn’t expected to be on the market until 2013, a full five years after Boeing’s rival model flies.

And with the rising cost of oil, using less jet fuel saves these two companies some serious green. Now if only the auto companies would follow suit…

For those unfamiliar with mulesing, it’s named after John Mules – the first to “accidentally” develop the practice – and involves cutting off pieces of wrinkle skin from around the rear of a sheep to prevent flystrike. Flystrike leads to infection and eventually death, however mulesing is extremely painful and often done with little or no painkillers for the sheep. Enter PETA.

PETA heavily fought the practice, commonplace in Australia, and reached a tentative cease-fire with the nation’s wool industry (AWI) last summer (the Australian Wool Industry agreed to stop mulesing, and PETA had to agree to “conduct itself within the law”). It appears that the AWI is now reneging on its promise, and PETA is again up in arms.

Many retailers have already stopped importing wool from Australia because of the practice. Sweden-based H&M is the latest of them, saying, “H&M does not accept mulesing. The company has decided to direct its buying towards other countries of origin and other suppliers in Australia that can guarantee mulesing-free merino wool.”

The company has also added a ‘CO2 Calculator‘ on its website to help customers analyze their own CO2 use. According to the site:

This calculator provides accurate figures based on verifiable data and the results are based on the actual operating data recorded on each flight:

* The type of aircraft operating the route (or frequency);
* The actual fuel consumed on the route concerned;
* The number of passengers carried;
* The weight of baggage and goods carried on board.

Green biz has a link to the actual calculator in their own report of the announcement.

Chevron will pay the money over three years to Global Fund-supported programs in countries where the company operates. A press release from the Fund says that because Chevron is a corporate champion, the company is now “required to demonstrate a long-term commitment to fighting these global health issues,” referring to AIDS, TB and malaria.

The timing of the announcement is no-doubt intended to coincide with the looming World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland. David J. O’Reilly, CEO of Chevron, is confirmed to be attending the conference, and will now have more to brag about at the high-powered lunch meetings the conference is notorious for (Forbes magazine goes so far as to label it a “who’s who gabfest” event).

Anyway, good on you, Chevron. It will be interesting to see if the Global Fund, which already has pledges currently at $18 billion, can attract any more large corporations to donate their money.

The decision to push forward the deadline came about after intense negotiations between the country’s center-left government and other leading political parties. In order to pay for the new, faster schedule, fuel tax will be raised by 10-øre (2 cents) per liter of diesel and by 5-øre per liter of petrol.

Sure, buying a hybrid vehicle is a small step toward preserving the environment, but the company’s motivation for doing so is a tad suspect. Adding a single new hybrid SUV to a fleet of cars is not enough to justify a press release bragging about how “green” your company is.

A quote from the release:

“Going green in our business seemed like the logical way to move with our fleet, given that the decision is based on ecologically sound data,” said Marc Shpilner, president and CEO, Limousine Eighteen. “If we are going to start the movement as consumers, then we owe it to the environment to think of more ways to make a difference at the work place. Recycling paper, soda cans, more efficient light bulbs, etc. are a great start, but we wanted to go farther. This year, we started discussing getting a hybrid SUV for our fleet.”

They spent a year discussing the pros and cons of buying one hybrid SUV before deciding?

Unfortunately Limousine Eighteen isn’t alone; green-washing is becoming more and more common as consumers really do consider environmental issues when choosing where to spend their money. While it’s laudable (and increasingly profitable) for businesses to take a bigger role in curbing carbon emissions and upping their eco-friendliness, it’s counterproductive to try and grab publicity from relatively insignificant claims.

Today the bar has been raised by companies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on everything from becoming carbon neutral to cracking down on suppliers for their wasteful habits. If Limousine Eighteen developed a plan to replace their entire fleet with hybrid equivalents by 2012, or discovered a way to run their vehicles on nothing but leftover chicken fat, then that would be something to brag about. These days, making a whole lot of noise about nothing just isn’t going to cut it.

Polyvinyl Chloride is an extremely profitable substance for the chemical industry. Although there are fears that PVC releases toxins like mercury and dioxins – far traveling chemicals that can lead to immune system disorders or cancer – PVC is still commonly used by the construction industry because of its low cost and high durability.

Several companies have already eliminated PVC from their products, or are in the process of phasing it out. Microsoft addressed the problem a couple years ago and Wal-Mart has recently eliminated PVC from its in house brand products as well.

While it is not known how much oil was spilled into the ocean, or where exactly the spill took place, it has been reported that at one point the ship’s captain turned the vessel into the wind in order to clean the sludge from the side of the ship. He justified his actions by claiming it was a “man overboard” drill. He was fired, along with the ship’s chief engineer.

The crew member who blew the whistle on the Polar Tanker crime received half of the $500,000 fine as a reward. Not a bad way to encourage more employees to speak up about corporate bad guys. Although, as a story yesterday in the New York Times reminded all would-be whistle blowers: No, you don’t get anything for reporting your own crime.

The second fine this week was a tad heftier: $373 million dollars. The U.S. Department of Justice came down with a vengeance on BP (formerly British Petroleum) for a multitude of oil-related offenses, including two spills in Alaska in 2006. These spills accounted for $20 million of the total fine. Prosecutors argued that BP neglected corroding pipelines that resulted in the spills. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will get $4 million from this settlement.

Many people, even after being helped, “could not select a climate change leader, and among those that could no winner emerged.” The study suggests this provides a unique opportunity to businesses as environmentally-minded consumers aren’t going anywhere, according to Simon Glynn, senior partner at Lippincott, which helped jointly conduct the survey.

Six categories of climate-change awareness are presented: Campaigners, Optimists, Followers, Confused, Unwilling and Rejecters.

A quick break-down of each group:

• Campaigners: Know the issue and are ready to make change but pessimistic about chances of success.
• Optimists: The same as campaigners, only optimistic about success.
• Followers: Ready to change, but their motivation is in looking good and fitting in.
• Confused: Open minded but not sure what to do.
• Unwilling: Accept the issue but are not personally prepared to make any changes.
• Rejecters: Reject the issue and are unprepared to make changes.

The study also suggests that market leaders are more often named by consumers for their climate-awareness (such as Tesco), as well as companies with a brand “halo” (such as Disney).

According to Sonoco’s website, the company’s sustainability program focuses on six areas: economics, community, environment, customers and products, workplace and government and ethics.

Myles Cohen, division vice president and general manager of Sonoco Recycling had this to say:

“The goal of S3 is to have zero landfill wastes coming from our customers’ facilities. Most manufacturing plants, distribution centers and retailers have active recycling programs, but they still have wastes going to landfills. Because of our extensive knowledge of the industrial and consumer packaging industry and our expertise in recycling, we have been able to find alternative recycling initiatives for wastes that were previously thought to be unrecyclable, such as plastic banding, bulk plastic liners and sacks, flexible packaging and other materials.”

The list, compiled from responses to a questionnaire CDP sent to over 2400 companies worldwide, compares FT 500 companies in each sector on how transparent they are on regarding their climate change practices.

Institutional investors worth over $41 trillion, known as “signatory investors”, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and HSBC put their name on CDP’s questionnaire. The 315 signatory investors will use the resulting information to “assess the potential risks and opportunities relating to climate change” from participants in order to better advise clients on how to invest.

Participation in the questionnaire was voluntary, and the results are “self-reported, largely non-verified responses,” according to today’s published report.

Companies that made the list include Hewlett-Packard, Citigroup and Coca-Cola.

The Carbon Disclosure Project was founded in 2000 by CEO Paul Dickinson. The CDP began publishing its Climate Disclosure Leadership Index in 2003.

Commentary: Seven of the 68 companies on the CDLI were also listed in Ethisphere’s 2007 World’s Most Ethical Companies Ranking:

• Baxter International
• Marks & Spencer
• Unilever
• Alcoa
• HSBC
• Suncor Energy
• Sun Microsystems

Fifteen signatory investors were on the list as well. Since they obviously weren’t excluded from participating, and taking into consideration the fact they helped develop the questionnaire, it’s worth asking: why didn’t ALL the signatory investors make the cut?

Martin Jenkins, the federal judge overseeing the case, said that the issue of global warming should be resolved through political means, not judicial. As he put it:

“The Court is left to make an initial decision as to what is unreasonable in the context of carbon dioxide emissions. Such an exercise would require the Court to create a quotient or standard in order to quantify any potential damages that flow from Defendants’ alleged act of contributing 30 percent of California’s carbon dioxide emissions. The balancing of those competing interests is the type of initial policy determination to be made by the political branches, and not this Court.”

Ken Alex, California’s supervising deputy attorney general, said his office is considering an appeal since, as he stated, “judges frequently decided reasonable standards in cases such as dumping of pollution into rivers.”

Read the complete story here.

Commentary: This was simply a pre-season game and none of the parties are going to be exhilarated with the outcome, including the car companies. Just like lawsuits that McDonald’s faced over obesity, the fight to assign legal liability for “public” damages that may occur from global warming will continue.

Improved areas included “the expansion of environmental elements into supplier factory audits to include waste identification, waste handling and disposal, wastewater treatment and discharge, and air emissions.” Factory management is now notified of environmental findings by auditors. The company also provides environmental training for all of its suppliers. Rajan Kamalanathan, vice president of Ethical Standards for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. had this to say about the report:

“Factories that are disapproved may close, and the impact on the factory workers can be devastating. To prevent this, we identify at-risk factories and invite factory management, along with the suppliers they do business with, to meet with members of the Wal-Mart Ethical Standards Team.”

Read the article as reported by CNN Money.

The company is still awaiting accredation of its suppliers’ Indonesian operations from an independent assessment body.

Woolworths sources some of its products from Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), the world’s largest pulp producer. Last year it was discovered by Indonesia’s Centre for International Forestry Research that APP relies on deforestation in Sumatra for 60 to 70 percent of its wood supply. An audit of the company in 2005 revealed a significant lack of environmental protection or conservation, and a follow-up in 2006 failed to detect any implementation of the required changes.

Commentary: This is very disturbing and we unfortunately suspect that it is far from unique. This sort of behavior undermines consumer confidence in the overall “ethical-consuming” trend. Since it is impossible to police all companies’ claims (apart from spot scrutiny by the government or analyses performed by NGOs), the market has to accept their assertions at their face value. Will a more rigorous independent auditing and verification process or regulatory body emerge? If shenanigans like this continue, the answer will certainly become “yes.”

David A. DeLorenzo, President and CEO of Dole champions the cause by saying:

“The environment is a concern for all of us. Companies, consumers, governments and non-governmental organizations should endeavor to promote and adopt new production and distribution methods and consumption behavior in order to reverse harmful trends to the environment.”

Read more here.

The company introduced a “corporate responsibility supplier questionnaire” last year with a goal of ensuring that Barclays “engages with the right suppliers and that they have suitable corporate responsibility policies in line with Barclays’ standards,” according to a company spokesman.

Much to the delight of London Barclay employees, the company has also raised the minimum wage paid to London employees to £7.50. The current minimum wage set by the Mayor of London is £7.20.

Commentary:When living in the second most expensive city in the world any raise is a welcome one. We’re talking about a place where a meal at McDonalds can cost you over £6 (nearly $12).

A team of Australian scientists from the Queensland University of Technology found that almost a third of all business laser printer models emit dangerous levels of toner particles into the ambient office air. In an open office environment, this resulted in a 5x increase in particulates in the air during office hours.

Read more about it over the BBC.

Commentary: We wonder if any lawyers are ‘starting their engines’ over this one.

The worldwide recall affects 967,000 Nickelodeon and Sesame Street toys, including such popular items the Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday, David Allmark, general manager of Fisher-Price, said the problem was detected by an internal investigation and self-reported to the consumer product safety commission (CPSC).

Under current U.S. regulations, children’s products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.

Commentary: Understandably, Fisher-Price spun the positives hard to this: an internal probe discovered the contamination and they were able to ‘quarantine’ two-thirds of the toys before they reached store shelves, and that the company would use the recall as an opportunity to put even better monitoring systems in place.

At the core of the development are Xerox’s technical achievements, which have increased the amount of a tree that can be used (doubling the yield per tree from 45% to 90%) and used less water and chemicals in production (resulting in reduced energy use and emissions by up to 75%). And finally, as the paper is materially lighter in weight, it costs less to transport (and uses less energy along the way).

The downside to the paper, however, is that it does not age as well as normal paper, turning yellow over time.

Commentary: This is an excellent example of aligning business innovation with environmental responsibility for greater profit (in keeping with Ethisphere’s slogan GOOD. SMART. BUSINESS. PROFIT.).

Due to the “yellowing” issue, however, there will be limits to how widely this paper will be used (do you really want all of your documents to turn yellow?). As Xerox itself points out, the core market for this yellower greener paper will be in paper printouts which are not intended to have a long shelf-life (such as invoices, statements, direct mail pieces, manuals, catalogs and brochures).

Xerox appears to be stepping up its sustainability and resource commitments across the board. Less than two weeks ago on July 19th, the company also announced that it was joining the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), increasing the total membership of the group to 31 corporations representing nearly $2 trillion in revenues.

By 2020, the confectionery company intends to slash half of its net absolute carbon emissions, with at least 30 percent a result of internal actions.

“We recognize that if we are serious about tackling climate change, we need to be ‘absolutely’ committed,” said Cadbury Schweppes CEO Todd Stitzer in a statement. “This means re-thinking the way we do business, embedding sustainability into every decision we take.”

Cadbury Schweppes also plans a 10 percent reduction in packaging per ton of product in addition to a gradual shift to using up to 60 percent biodegradable packaging.

Commentary: Many people in the U.S. are not familiar with the term “absolute net” when it comes to carbon offsetting (most are more focused simply on purchasing carbon offset credits, as opposed to actual reduction in carbon generation at the source). The Cadbury “absolute net” effort focuses first on minimizing energy use through efficiency improvements, switching to more environmentally energy forms, and then, only as as a last resort, purchasing offsets such as sponsoring the planting of carbon-neutralizing trees, etc.

What we particularly like about Cadbury’s environmental strategy is that they have given the initiative its own brand: “Purple Goes Green.” We have found that “branded” initiatives are easier to understand by employees, generally allow for greater buy-in and acceptance/participation, and also demonstrate greater commitment to the initiative by company leadership as well as the organization as a whole. Kudos to Cadbury!

One division in particular, Wal-Mart’s transportation department, has reported extensive improvements that should allow it to meet or even surpass its goals. The retailer’s 7,200 semis are already 15 percent more fuel efficient, and the company knows what needs to be changed in order to meet the goal of 25 percent by late next year. The carbon dioxide saved with the change will be equivalent to taking 67,744 cars off of the road.