Green Options

In today’s rapidly changing sustainable business landscape, it’s becoming increasingly important to be aware of what’s happening, emerging, and yet to be created where you could fill a need. How best to do that?

What do CarrotMobs and sugar cubes have in common? Other than finding their way into your Easter basket, they are the campaigns created by Virgance to create change through consumer organizing.

Editor’s note: This post was written by Rachel Barge, and originally published on Tuesday, March 31, at SolveClimate.

We all know young people have a handle on the Internet like no other demographic. My generation grew up playing computer games, had PC literacy classes in elementary school, and secretly hijacked the internet for music pirating before we were teens. We have an intuitive sense of the web – its uses, its limitations, and its future.

The nation’s young people are now harnessing that power for climate action, and we’re beating coal’s dirty PR in ways that have industry front groups shaking.

The coal industry’s American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity has poured millions of dollars into online advertising to convince Americans that “clean coal” is the solution to global warming, and it’s planning a $20 million online push this year. But type “clean coal” into Google, and up pop progressive climate blogs, spoofs and news articles.

In my own search for “clean coal,” eight out of the top 10 organic results were web sites that completely debunked the idea – only Wikipedia and an AP news article held both “sides” up. Not a single site in the top 10 was a pro-clean-coal industry page. Industry front group have had to buy their way onto Google’s front page, thanks in large part to young bloggers.

Yesterday’s Post-Dispatch had a story on the front page of the Business section that immediately caught my eye: St. Louis-based agribiz giant Monsanto has started blogging (and Twittering and YouTube-ing).

That’s right: Monsanto, the company many of us in the sustainability sphere love to hate, has entered the conversation.

That, on the surface, is a good thing.

Of course, the devil’s in the details.  As occasional contributor Max Gladwell pointed out in “10 Ways that Social Media and Sustainability Line Up,” social media can provide a high return on investment for a business… provided its efforts are grounded in transparency. I’d add that such efforts must also be based in a genuine desire to interact: social media is conversation, and all parties have to both talk and listen. Without these elements, a corporate blog will strike its intended audience as just another effort at message control.

Monsanto’s blog also seems to validate another of Max’s points: much of the content so far has consisted of responses to grassroots criticisms of the company ventures into biotechnology, particularly genetic engineering of crop seeds. As blogger and public affairs manager John Combest told the P-D, “”There was this big conversation going on (on the Internet), and we weren’t a part of it.”

So, how’s the company doing in its initial forray into the blogosphere?

At this point, I’d argue they still have a lot to learn.

Ah, the magic of Twitter. I’ve been on there for the past year and during that time have become a green business hub of sorts. Every day, 10-20 new people “follow” me (choose to have what I say be tracked by them) One particularly interesting one was EnergyCircle.

In a miraculously concise statement of purpose, they say, “Our singular goal as a company is to take the complexity out of home energy.”

How do they do that?

Through telling their own stories. Exploring [...]

Do you have a passion for green living?

Does writing about natural parenting, environmental issues for families, or the latest in green home products appeal to you?

Have you ever considered blogging for us?

We’re searching for new writers for 2009 to help us grow this blog into its full potential as a resource for parents (and parents-to-be), teens, and kids.

Eco Child’s Play is now hiring writers to cover topics and issues related to the [...]

There was no shortage of fodder for thoughtful political discussion in 2008. Not surprisingly, the majority of the posts receiving the most comments were directly related to the presidential election. We’ve compiled the nine most-discussed posts of 2008 so you can take a little walk down memory lane at Red, Green, and Blue.

New Orleans-based activist group, Levees.org has learned that harassing comments being left at their blog were coming from computers registered to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Just when you thought it was safe to hang out at Eco Child’s Play they through a new writer like me into the pool. Hello everyone, I’m Summer, a new face that you will hopefully see a lot more of. I’m joining the team to share my love of parenting and the planet here.

OK, a little about me. I’m a stay at home mom of [...]

Are you an avid follower of the latest developments in green car technology? Does biofuel news get you all fired up? Want to write about it?

Gas 2.0 is now hiring writers to cover these topics. We’re looking for bloggers who can commit to a daily posting schedule and who are willing to adopt our editorial best practices. If you can knock out a solid three paragraphs on the [...]

Over the past few months, my own blogging output has dropped dramatically as I’ve focused on “behind the scenes” efforts for the larger GO Media network. While that was a necessary step, and one that’s contributed to the network’s dramatic growth over the past few months, I’ve also really missed blogging.  Building a company is exciting and rewarding, but through every strategy session and conference call and networking event, I’ve always known that, at heart, I’m a writer. And I wanted to get back to that…

So, as of September 30, I’ll be stepping down from my role as Senior Editor of Green Options Media in order to do the work I most love doing: writing. I’ve been thrilled with the way sustainablog’s developed as a group blog, and will focus my time and effort on posting here regularly, and leading our team of regular contributors. Managing Editor Clayton Cornell will take over leading the network; this decision came easier once I knew that GO Media’s editorial direction would be in such capable hands.