The numbers are important for traders on the European Climate Exchange, who take guidance from the level of actual carbon emissions to gauge what demand for offsets is likely to be.

The data indicate there’s been a 1.1% rise in CO2 emissions according to Oslo-based Point Carbon. The release of the data marks the start of the second phase of the European Trading Scheme, a market-based cap-and-trade system which has been going for three years already.

ETS members can buy and sell EU Allowances (EUAs), permits to emit carbon dioxide. During the first phase of the program the carbon offsets price collapsed in mid 2006 and it has yet to recover. The current “spot” or immediate market prices one ton of CO2 at little more than zero cents, but market participants expect the situation to improve as the market is re-launched as the second phase (2008-2012) of the ETS begins in the next few months.

The EUA price collapsed because emissions data suggested there was a vast oversupply of permits. The ETS also drew heavy criticism because EU’s caps had been set way too high, leading to emissions increases.

Carbon prices are set to improve over the next months as the October 2007 10% cut in emission allowances goes into effect. The cut was decided on by the European Commission, which aims to make clean technologies an attractive investment. Analysts say the price of one tonne of carbon should rise to around €23 to €35 between 2008-2012. This report by Deutsche Bank is especially bullish. Factors that are expected to influence the carbon price are supply and demand, as well as economic growth in the EU.

Criticism voiced by environmentalists is that emissions haven’t dropped to levels that would suggest the scheme actually helps the EU to reach Kyoto Protocol levels. The EU’s Kyoto mandate is to reduce CO2 emissions 8% by 2012. Greenpeace asserted that the data implied the scheme was failing. “From the numbers, it looks like emissions are going up and that proves that the ETS does not work, it means we are not protecting the climate,” a Greenpeace spokeswoman told Reuters.

The environmentalists contradict the market participants who are sure that carbon trading will ultimately be incremental in helping the EU reach its goal of slashing emissions.

Point Carbon said that the 2007 data released showed that only a few countries exceeded their national emissions allocations. Industries involved on the ETS include power generators, iron, steel, glass cement and aluminum, who if they fail to reduce CO2 levels are mandated to buy permits to emit carbon on the open market. Plans are to include the aviation sector in 2011. The industries which caused excessive CO2 emissions were power generators in the UK, Italy and Spain.

All participants to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme ought to have submitted crucial data on their 2007 greenhouse gas emissions levels by 31 March. The greenhouse gas data would be sourced by around 10,500 companies involved in carbon trading and is an important factor influencing the market price of traded carbon.

But many of the parties failed to meet the deadline, which is why the EU authorities in charge of the information said they will release the data to the public at a later date.

Emissions data is of vital importance for market traders because it shows the level of demand for the instruments they trade. The data is seen as a benchmark number setting the appropriate carbon price.

EU rules for energy-intensive industry mandate the submission of one emissions permit for every ton of carbon dioxide emissions. The permits, called EU Allowances (EUAs) can be “offset” by trading them on the exchange. Volumes as well as the prices on the European Climate Exchange have seen a steady rise since the exchange was created in 2005. During March close to 120 million tons EUAs were traded, an average volume of futures and options of 6.3 million. This marked an increase of 61% compared to March 2007.

Reuters quotes a Deutsche Bank analyst Mark Lewis who said that he expects 2007 carbon dioxide emissions are likely between 2,180-2,220 million tons. 2007 levels were between 2,100-2,140 million tons. Lewis added that his prognosis was made assuming unchanged economic demand, weather and commodity prices.

This is good news for carbon traders, because the 2008 permit supply stands at 2,083 million tons, so there’s a shortage of supply. That should drive up EUA prices in the second phase of the carbon trading scheme. Lewis said the price is likely to go up to 35 euros per ton during 2008-12 (the second phase).

This is a drastic turnaround from the first phase of the carbon market (2005-2007), which saw an oversupply of permits, causing a carbon price to fall. Last Friday, benchmark EUA contracts for 2008 delivery were trading down 14 cents at 22.12 euros ($34.87).

The 27 national governments which together make up the European Union enter the permissions data in a central Community Independent Transaction Log (CITL), which is a real time tool accessible to the public. It lists all the individual participants by name, company name, phone number and email address.

The authorities in charge of CITL reported that not enough data had been submitted for them to release it. At least 80% of the data entered for the 2006 emissions needs to have been reported before the numbers will be released. This is so the markets don’t trade on false information.

CITL announced that it won’t “give public access to installation-level verified emissions data today [April 1].” Instead, the data will be released as soon as enough submissions have been registered to make the 80% grade.

The UK has independently published estimates of 2007 greenhouse gas emissions levels. Government officials put out provisional figures indicating UK emission levels reached 639.4 million tons. This was 2 percent lower than the 2006 figure of 652.3 million tons.

The FSA says that the integrity of the carbon trading market is under threat. The information that carbon emissions traders relay to clients often has a truth content that’s lower than you’d expect. In many cases there’s also no clarity over the regulations involved, a lack of credible data. Investors are also frequently offered climate change related products that are totally unsuitable for their goals.

What’s more, some authorised firms brand themselves as “carbon neutral.” “This marketing must be credible, sustained and accurate to avoid jeopardising the firms’ and the market’s reputation,” the FSA stresses. Although the watchdog is not mandated to directly regulate the carbon trading market, the report indicated that “the emissions markets justifiably demand the FSA’s continued attention. […] This type of behaviour undermines confidence in the market.”

The FSA warns that the mismanagement on the carbon emissions trading market could pose a risk to other commodities markets. For an extensive official UK government guide on individual carbon trading rules, click here.

The main criticism centers on what’s left out of the equation. Companies embarking on greening up their business practices are faced with a daunting task and most go about it the “easy way” at first. There’s the option to simply offset carbons on the Chicago Climate Exchange, the European Climate Exchange or on the newly established NYMEX venture, the Green Exchange. Businesses have access to these exchanges if they wish to reduce their overall greenhouse gas emissions by as little as 1%.

Another easy start is to go green at corporate level. Carbon calculator designers themselves say that they’ve calibrated the tools to deliberately not include the most thorny issues. That is so that they do not scare off company bosses. “Instead it’s to raise awareness about the scale of the impact or quickly produce figures for a carbon offset,” according to a report on ClimateChangeCorp.com.

That is not to say that the real deal for people wanting to progress on from that level doesn’t exist. Once companies have developed the right mindset, having learned that relatively simple energy reduction tricks can create cost savings of 20% which in many cases equals increased sales of around 5%, they’re likely to want more. And the good news is that there’s a plethora of very detailed guidelines on offset standards. Companies seriously wanting to make a real difference only have to find them.

Last year alone, some 20 tools were released, most free of charge. To create order in this chaos, the WWF has published a 105-page guide to and comparison of the ten standards most widely in use by companies voluntarily offsetting carbons. The document is entitled “Making Sense of the Voluntary Carbon Market: A Comparison of Carbon Offset Standards” Ecosystemmarketplace.com recommends the guide wholeheartedly, saying it’s “a good primer for beginners and an adequate refresher for veterans.” EcoSystemMarketplace’s own beginners’guide is aimed at getting a quick insight into the core issues.

The better calculators are based on the publicly available guidelines such as the definitions in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (drawn up by the World Resources Institute). The UK´s Carbon Trust calculator is based on these guidelines and also takes into account the UK’s environmental regulator Defra’s new Environmental Reporting Guidelines, the UK Emissions Trading Scheme and Climate Change Levy agreements. The Carbon Trust offers four in depth calculators: an accurate co2 measuring tool, an “environmental reporting” tool, a tool to account for weather factors and a highly detailed energy calculator. ClimateChange.corp criticizes the effort saying that the Carbon Trust’s tools leave out emissions generated by a company’s supply chain.

The Carbon Trust targets large and small companies. The small companies have free access to a carbon baseline tool for businesses without process emissions. Carbon Trust also offers cheap loans for small companies investing in eco-friendly operation procedures.

Companies can also devise programs with outside help. The effort will pay off because once you’ve got a program installed, the thing will virtually run itself. Companies that include “environmental reporting” in their daily operations that set new benchmarks in the industry include Air France KLM. The airline sought assistance from Enablon, a Netherlands based carbon software design company which works with large companies. Another example of an outside consultancy is the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management which has carried out assignments for companies ranging from General Electric, BP and TetraPak UK, which offsets carbons by investing in Ugandan tree projects.

The Green Exchange is part of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). During its first week, the equivalent of 1.59 million tons of carbon was traded. That volume makes the Green Exchange “the most successful launch of exchange-traded carbon contracts,” according to a report in the SunHerald.

Contracts traded included European Union carbon allowances futures (EUAs), of which one contract equals 1,000 tons of CO2. Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), also equaling 1,000 tons of CO2, are also traded. Other contracts traded include SO2 (sulfur dioxide) allowances and NOx (nitrogen oxide) allowances.

The Green Exchange aims to compete mainly with the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCE). Created in 2003, the CCE trades carbon on behalf of 300 companies, including American Electric Power, Ford Motor Co., International Paper, Manitoba Hydro Corp., Motorola Inc., STMicroelectronics.

The Green Exchange’s products are not new inventions but have been traded in Europe and on the Chicago Climate Exchange and its climate spin off, the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE) for a number of years already.

The institutions involved in the Green Exchange’s launch are the most likely ones to have participated in last week’s trading. They are Evolution Markets, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Tudor Investment, Constellation Energy, Vitol SA and RNK Capital.

On an international level, Europeans are far in the lead in terms of environmental exchange based trading. Last year, $62 billion (E40 billion) worth of carbon credits were traded in on the European Climate Exchange (launched in 2005 by CCX), which was a massive hike of 80% compared to the year before. The ECX operates in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme.

Carbon trading is a vast market but all the participating companies are doing so voluntarily. If you want to get a good insight into who is doing what, check out this EcoSystemMarketplace study into the voluntary carbon trading market place.

Green collar jobs have a magic lure to them. Not only because the people involved in the sector are supposedly making a conscious effort to salvage what’s left of the earth’s natural resources, but also because they’re hoping to drag the ailing economy out of its current quagmire.

The environmentalist visionary Van Jones, who heads up the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, is drawing massive crowds across the country to his speeches about the green sector. He has helped initiate a green jobs program in Oakland and it is in part due to his work that the Presidential candidates have included green collar jobs in their programs.

The Presidential candidates hope to use green collar jobs to fuel the economy in the future with millions of workers weatherizing homes, installing solar panels, concocting improved recipes for biofuel, adopting hybrid cars and of course building scores of wind turbines.

Hillary Clinton says she plans on creating 5 million green collar jobs and Barack Obama has also made the green business sector central to his energy plan. Former candidate John Edwards was talking about “one America in the new energy economy with green-collar jobs.”

Despite the political interest, it’s still too early to determine what the Green Collar job sector really amounts to. The first contours of a legislative framework are visible. Congress passed a $125 million green-collar jobs program last December, with at least 20 percent targeted at reducing poverty. And a total of 28 states have legislation in place that mandates 10 to 25 percent of energy to be sourced from renewables over the next 10 or 20 years. Oakland, California, launched the the Oil Independent Oakland By 2020 Task Force at the end of 2006 and was also the first to sign the OilDepletionProtocol, an non-government organized protocol which guides communities and private persons reducing their oil dependency.

Official statistics on worker numbers don’t exist yet. People involved in the regulatory issues complain that there is a lack of guidance on the part of the policy makers at the Federal level on sustainable energy policy issues. For the moment, the green sector is mainly driven by businesses, industry and individual home owners keen to promote energy conservation.

Establishing credibility is a challenge for green businesses. Hopes are high, but with no track record, fear of unrealistic optimism is inevitable. Because of the economic dimensions associated with the green collar job sector, naysayers are already questioning its “staying power.” The danger here is that if the nation’s job market as a whole doesn’t improve as a result of going green, the magic might wear off. The “having your cake and eating it too” attitude which demands that green growth will save not only the planet but the entire US economy could smother the concept of sound living. Let’s hope that a sense of realism sinks in before the green job sector really takes off. There’s still time, because there’s no convergence of opinion of what actually makes a job green.

Check out the widely varying opinions on this issue among green job advocates quoted in the New York Times;

Blue Green Alliance (the Minnesota partnership between the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club): There’s little difference between blue collar and green collar jobs. It depends on the product that’s made. Cars obviously don’t make a green product, but wind turbines do.

American Solar Energy Society: there are 8.5 million jobs in renewable energy or energy efficient industries.

Apollo Alliance (A coalition of environmental groups, labor unions and politicians to guide the US economy into a renewable energy based economy): A green-collar job is, in essence, a blue-collar job that has been upgraded to address environmental challenges. Believes there will be 3 to 5 million more green jobs by 2018.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute: Argues that green jobs often don’t create jobs on a net basis because green jobs created will lead to vanishing jobs in another sector. CEI opposes official legislation promoting renewable energy.

Plextronics (a company that makes polymer ink parts for solar panels): Green jobs are vastly different from blue collar jobs because many people involved in green work are highly trained.

The term Green Collar Jobs was first coined by Alan Durning in his 1999 book Green Collar Jobs. The book described the changes in the post logging rural towns of the Pacific Northwest, from economic dependence on resource extraction from timber to green collar jobs such as sustainable forestry, ecosystem restoration and tourism.

The term came into widespread use in 2006 when San Francisco State University Urban Studies professor Raquel Pinderhughes first defined green collar jobs. She said they are “manual-labor jobs in businesses (or other enterprises) whose products and services directly improve environmental quality.” Pinderhughes, who is associated with the Ella Baker Center and Green for All, wrote a landmark study commissioned by the City of Berkeley’s Office of Energy and Sustainable Development. She identified 22 economic sectors in which green jobs are located including green building, energy retrofits and sustainable food production.

An interim summit held in Japan mid March convened representatives of the world’s top 20 greenhouse gas emitting countries responsible for 80% of the world’s pollution. It appeared that little progress was made. But all countries including the US agreed in Bali that they’d participate in the negotiations to the Kyoto’s successor and that promise was upheld two weeks ago. What was termed a “principle of common but differentiated responsibility” was accepted as a framework for negotiations. In other words, the new pact will bind all countries to various actions.

The Bangkok meeting aims to eke out a work program for the next year and a half.

These are the opinions of the main countries involved:

-China: developed countries should live up to a guideline they agreed on in Bali; 2020 cuts of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels.

-Developing countries: insist they should be subject to less stringent targets as G8 countries. Are very skeptical towards Japan’s proposal to tackle the problems industry by industry.

-United States: agreed to take part in the successor to the Kyoto Protocol which it bailed out of. Two environmental advisors to President Bush, James Connaughton and Daniel Price told a recent press conference in Paris that the US is “prepared to enter into binding international obligations to reduce greenhouse gases as part of a global agreement in which all major economies similarly undertake binding international obligations.”

-European Union: Broad binding targets for each nation. In Bali, European negotiators were pushing for a binding target to cut rich nation emissions by between 25 to 40 percent by 2020 compared with their 1990 levels, but American negotiators pressurized them not to include numbers.

-Japan: lobbies for a sector-based, rather than a country-based approach. Setting energy efficiency goals for each industry.

-South Africa: is strongly against the Japanese industry based approach and voiced this during the last Japanese meeting.

The two research houses put the LOHAS market size down at $209 billion. This number includes services as well as tangible products. LOHAS are determined by NMI and Nielsen as people who “have a meaningful sense of environmental and social responsibility and incorporates those values into their purchase decisions.”

Apart from participating in the consumer research, last year the NMI collaborated with financial consultants on the launch of what’s known as the LOHAS index. The index comprises the top fifty “most ethical companies” as rated by both consumers and investment analysts.

Surprisingly, Microsoft corporation tops the list. McDonald’s is in the ranking as well. But mind you, the financial analysts involved in constructing the index said that they themselves had been in for a surprise too. They had included consumer opinions in their decisions and found consumers to be way less tolerant of companies’ social behavior than the financial analysts themselves. That’s quite poignant.

It underscores the importance of getting an independent body to verify that what’s being marketed as ethical, actually lives up to the term.

Ahimbisibwe owns a little plot of land on which she grows some of the trees involved in TetraPak’s contract to produce fresh air for all the pollution caused by its production processes. A case study of the carbon sequestration project on EcoSystemMarketplace.com reveals interesting insights into the practices of an emissions offsetting program.

The study reveals that when TetraPak UK started to scour around for options to trade carbons in 2003, the company didn’t get far all by itself. It found outside help at the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management (ECCM). The first elemental step in the carbon footprint reduction effort which ECCM consulted TetraPak on was the devision of a computer program calculating the actual damage done. TetraPak’s annual carbon footprint is now monitored, based on real data.

In 2004, TetraPak UK began to actively reduce carbon emissions, which had been determined at 11,780 tons for 2001. This is where Uganda comes in sight. A total of 80%, of TetraPak UK’s carbon program “materializes” from Ugandan projects. The remaining 20% comes from bio-mass and solar energy projects in India and Sri Lanka.

The program was successful. In 2004, a 13% reduction was achieved from the company’s 2001 footprint. There are no legal requirements guiding companies here, so TetraPak’s regime is more or less self-imposed. TetraPak said it would try for a 15% reduction target in 2005.

Ahimbisibwe was approached by ECOTRUST, a Ugandan NGO, to sign a carbon sequestration contract. She was not using one hectare of land that she owns and was interested in planting native species of trees on it for the benefit of the environment. The contract she signed provides her with an amount of $8 per ton of sequestered carbon. She’s expected to generate 57 tons over ten years. Ahimbisibwe is quite happy with this, also because she hasn’t signed away too lenghy a time span. She’s allowed to prune and sell the wood after 15 years.

The community is called the Lammas and the members will build four detached dwellings and a row of five attached houses on a plot of 76 acres. They’re going to live off-grid and collect their water from a spring that’s existing on site as well as from rain water captured on the turf-made roofs of their houses.

The Lammas will live a low impact lifestyle and intend to be 75% self sustainable. A major factor in this is their use of renewable energy from a water turbine system. The families are also going to depend on bio gas captured from organic waste and compost toilets and wormeries. Their low-impact life style is furthermore supported by the way they use transport; the Lammas will create fuel from coppiced willow and elephant grass grown in their mini village.

“We plan to be largely self-sufficient, growing most of our food. We will keep cows, geese, chickens, ducks and bees,” the village’s co-founder Paul Wimbush was quoted as saying in a Welsh newspaper. He added that the community members intend to supplement their income by working one day a week. The community’s plans are outlined on their website, ’so that people can see what we are talking about,’ Wimbush told NewBuilder.co.uk.

The community will largely be dependent on income from the production of flax-made linen shawls, the sale of compost worms, fruits and vegetables marketed in the community itself and in local shops.

The Lammas are the first community that has obtained official approval from UK local authorities. So far, only two local authorities have legislation in place that allows for similar projects. The Lammas did not achieve their goal without a struggle because their first plans were rejected due to lack of detail. The local authorities involved were skeptical about some of the building materials the Lammas were planning to use. It took the families five months to draw up the plans that received approval.

Contestants participate in “Big Ideas For A Small Planet,” which is presented by Lexus Hybrid Living. What do you have to do to participate? Submit a one-minute short film or photo essay featuring your “Big Idea” to sundancechannel.com/bigideascontest before May 20.

Viewing of the top 25 entries selected by the program takes place between May 27 and June 24. After that, the five proposals ranked by the number of votes are reviewed by a panel of environmental experts who will pick the winner. Bear in mind that the jury judges submissions on creativity, overall theme, feasibility and presentation. The winner will be announced the week of July 7th and is awarded a cash prize of $10,000 to fund the idea.

Theoretically the agreement whereby airlines from the US and Europe are allowed to land in any airport on the two continents, should lower flight costs, open up airlines to foreign ownership and the create new flight routes between Europe and the US. But it ain’t happening. All of these targets are obscured in heavy clouds.

Virgin Atlantic, which inaugurated the world’s first biofuel flight a few weeks back, told a recent New York news conference that it doesn’t foresee any progress on Open Skies in the near future. The company hasn’t even chosen any destinations for new flight routes and says this is not in the cards for at least another two years.

So what the hell is up? The Europeans blame it all on top US officials including President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Jacques Barrot, the EU’s top airline official recently told the Guardian that the US is deliberately hampering progress by demanding European cooperation on nitty gritty rules to guarantee security. EU airlines flying to the US are requested to hand over passenger lists, even of people that do not land on US soil. This smells like a deliberate attempt to sabotage the Open Skies deal.

The Europeans have threatened US airlines with a ban if they don’t start carbon trading plans. Airline industry officials say that all hopes are pinned now on a new US administration. “[ …] attitudes are changing. Particularly with Bush and Cheney gone, there is a real hope of things moving on. The new administration will be under pressure to take new measures,” Barrot was quoted as saying by the Guardian newspaper.

The aviation industry’s financiers seem to be convinced carbon trading is going to take off come what may. Financial analysts are dissecting the airline industry to assess new risks; those related to public perception on pollution. Ratings agency Moody’s is compiling models to attach fair pollution offsetting criteria to its ratings.

George Godlin, a Moody’s analyst, believes that the airline industry is set to become a model for cleaning up polluting industries and attaching financial imperatives.

Europeans thus far are alone in having passed legislation mandating airlines participate in carbon emissions trading. The deadline is set for 2011/2012. The European trading scheme might well become an international platform, especially if the credit rating agencies incorporate them in their criteria for risk assessments. That will also put more pressure on the politicians.

An important part of the Palestinian economy consists of organic cotton manufacturing but the conflict in the Middle East has badly impacted the industry. Neiman signed a deal with the organic cotton manufacturing company in Bethlehem after it had been forced to ax 30% of its workers. Many of the laid off workers returned to the Bethlehem factory after he stepped in. The deal included the creation of a trade union.

“We’ve found a rare piece of common ground — more good jobs for Palestinians on the West Bank will help,” the Boston entrepreneur was quoted as saying in a recent interview. “Economic development is no substitute for a diplomatic settlement but no settlement can survive without a sustainable Palestinian economy,” Neiman added.

The press attention for Neiman itself alone underscores that he’s achieving something; both Al Jezeera and the Jewish Advocate are raving about the initiative.

The company manufactures organically made, wholesale, teeshirts, shoes and trousers which are shipped out and marketed to the US, Canada and Israel. And NoSweatApparel.com is seeking distributors in Europe and Japan.

Neiman’s business is a runner up winner of this month’s Ideablob.com, a crowdsourcing site which awards $10,000 funding each month to a top voted business idea. Neiman says he’s intent on using the money to purchase a batch of wholesale t-shirts from Bethlehem, “so our burgeoning network of high school distributors have a competitively priced product to sell to camps this summer and schools in the fall.”

Konarka, a Lowell, MS, company pioneering the technology, says it’s ready to market the products in which the solar dye has been implemented after the summer. The technology has a light to energy conversion rate of of 7.2 percent. This compares to 16 to 20 percent of regular, photovoltaic, solar technology.

The advantages of dye solar technology include flexible implementation options. Dye-based solar technology also converts low light and light rays at obscure angles. Plus the electricity generated can be applied to specific current wavelengths.

Konarka already markets an inkjet printing based solar dye product.

The technology was discovered by the Swiss professor Michael Gratzel, who claims his invention is more robust than photovoltaic solar panels. Gratzel recently described his work in an article in Inderscience’s Angewandte Chemie.

The way it works is as follows: dye cells, composed of titanium oxide nanocrystals, absorb light. An electrolyte solution then releases electrons which create “holes:” positive charges as a result of lost electrons. The titanium dioxide transfers the resulting electricity to a power circuit.

The report, entitled Green Living, researches the factors involved in environmentally friendly purchasing decisions and establishes a firm connection between health concerns and green food products. Green food sales are experiencing massive growth, Mintel says. The research house predicts the natural food and drink products market to be worth $19.6 billion this year, compared to $11.9 billion last year.

One factor in the growth is the ever increasing sophistication by producers who go to great lengths to innovate product development procedures. In the next few years, the alcoholic beverages branch might be one to watch. Mintel singles this area out as a new growth sector. A clear example of an alcohol company “going green” is McCormick Distillery’s recent launch of a new luxurious brand called 360 Vodka.

The new vodka is marketed for being organic and the campaign is so effective you’d think you were buying milk. McCormick distills the vodka in a newly established outlet called Earth Friendly Distilling Co. Distillation facilities have been built to meet EPA air and water quality standards. Sulfur dioxide emissions have been virtually eliminated; they’re down by 99%. Fossil fuel energy saved is 250%. The bottles of vodka themselves are packaged in eco-friendly materials which even don water-based, rather than oil based inks. Beat that.

The rationale behind McCormick’s decision to go green is compelling. The Mintel report indicates that there’s no end in sight for the growth prospects of organic food and drink food. The market has been growing rapidly for a few years already but the growth trend stays upwards.

Apart from spirits, locally produced wine will win the hearts (probably not the minds) of consumers in years to come because the industry is making a convincing effort to be as eco friendly as possible. Wine is increasingly packaged in eco-friendly glass and local wine producers claim they’re reducing the impact on the environment also by eliminating producer-consumer distances.

In other green product branches such as toiletries, cosmetics or cleaning products, health associations are not as prevalent as in the food and drink sector.