Green Options

When WalMart finally unveiled their new Sustainability Index, I found the 15 questions a bit underwhelming. Especially, after all the press and fuss (you can download the questions from the WalMart web site).

For example, the first question, “Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas emissions?” is so simplistic, that a yes answer could mean many things. Scope 1? Scope 2? Have they taken on the challenge of addressing the full supply chain?

GreenBiz.com offers some advice for getting the most out of the questions, if you are a Walmart supplier that is just beginning to think about environmental issues.

By Mindy S. Lubber, president of Ceres, a leading U.S. coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public interest organizations working with companies to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change. Originally published at SolveClimate.

Tom Benson, owner of the World’s Largest Laundromat in Berwyn, Ill., is tired of listening to conservative industry groups’ bluster that climate change legislation is bad for business.

That’s because clean energy saved his.

When Benson bought his business a decade ago, all that hot water helping scrub everything from Speedos to sheets ate up a staggering 25 percent of total monthly revenues. With 153 washers using thousands of gallons of hot water daily, you can only imagine the energy costs. And that’s before factoring in the 148 dryers.

So to cut his natural gas costs, Benson installed a solar hot water system on his roof. Three dozen 10-by-4-foot solar panels now produce more than 2,400 gallons of hot water daily, saving him some $25,000 a year.

“Our energy bills could have sunk this business,” says Benson. “Now, they’re a source of pride.”

Five leading companies joined Ceres today to announce a business coalition demanding stronger U.S. climate and energy legislation as early as 2009.

Ceres, Inc. supports the prediction that we could grow more than 30% of US transportation fuel with dedicated energy crops. This is no pipe dream: planting starts next spring.

Ceres, Inc., the self-described “energy crop company,” is engineering plants that could play a big role in the future of sustainable biofuels. In stark contrast to food crops, what Ceres is in the business of creating are “dedicated energy crops”—like switchgrass, sorghum, and miscanthus—that are ideally suited for fuel production.

While the global “food vs. fuel” debate rages on, a few companies like Ceres are quietly moving forward with next generation technology that challenges many of the current assumptions about growing fuel. In their view, it’s time to move the conversation on from corn-based controversy to second-generation, non-food based sources of ethanol.

Tomorrow, General Motors is hosting a backgrounder on cellulosic ethanol feedstocks at the Thousand Oak (CA) based laboratories of Ceres, Inc.

Coverage of non-food based ethanol tends to focus on fuel production technologies, but Ceres works one step further up the supply chain: they’re using genetic technology to engineer plants optimally suited for conversion into something you’d want to put in your gas tank.

I’ve already had the chance to speak with Richard Hamilton, President and CFO of Ceres, about the potential to produce super-strains of perennial grasses like sweet sorghum and switchgrass, and I’m looking forward to hearing more details tomorrow.

Findings from a new report examining insurance companies’ responses to climate change were released at the International Association of Insurance Supervisors last week. The study found that an increasing number of companies are implementing initiatives to reduce the risk of climate change’s impacts and reduce the emissions that cause the problem.

"From Risk to Opportunity 2007: Insurer Responses to Climate Change" was commissioned by Ceres, a U.S. group of investors and clean

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Eco-surveys abound as think tanks and organizations across the globe are all trying to gauge how people are feeling about green these days.

The latest survey, Advancing Sustainable Prosperity, comes from Ceres, an environmental investment group.

What is sustainable prosperity? From what I gather from Ceres (pronounced series) sustainable prosperity incorporates environmental and social issues into business strategy and economic markets.

Since the survey was administered

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