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Let me build on that by saying that there is even more good news than this. Did you notice that the Green Power Partners site also has Top 20 lists by category? These include college & university, local government, retail, on-site, and printers.

What’s interesting here is printers. This is a highly unglamorous category. Why would the EPA care about commercial printing and packaging companies? For the same reasons that anyone interested in environmental sustainability should care about them.

1. Printing is the third largest manufacturing industry in the country

2. Printing is a very aggressive with environmental sustainability, including its use of green power.

Put these together and you have the third largest manufacturing industry making a major move to sustainability. When not just individual companies but an entire industry embraces green technologies and processes, it makes a real difference. That’s exciting!

Yet, where’s all the buzz? E-media! With its 24-hour-a day, 7-days-a-week power usage, its ubiquitous energy-using devices from desktop computers to laptops to servers to cellphones, PDAs, and every other mobile device that now blanket the planet and drain the power grid. Meanwhile, because printing uses — dare I say the word — paper, it’s the bad guy?

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This column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

One way in which today’s corporation is becoming enlightened to the fact that green manufacturing CAN equal more profitable manufacturing is through a new concept called “lean manufacturing“.   In the 1980’s, JIT, or just-in-time techniques became all the rage in management circles as they shaved costs from production by eliminating the need for high levels of inventories by focusing on using just what was needed, when it was needed. More on this story here.

Economists are examining the argument for imposing special taxes on goods and services whose prices do not reflect the true social cost of their consumption, are now considering a tax on junk food. But while it might seem obvious and logical, some argue that a tax on junk food might even increase obesity, especially among the physically active. More on this story here.

Does Cause Marketing thwart social change? In the “The Hidden Costs of Cause Marketing” in the Summer issue of theStanford Social Innovation Review, Angela M. Eikenberry argues that cause marketing is “consumption philanthropy,” connecting shopping with a social good, whereas high-levels of consumption in the developed world could be hurting philanthropists’ efforts to save rain forests, fisheries, etc. And it may be counterproductive in increasing empathy for people in need and a sense of responsibility to help. More on this story here.

China’s economy grew nearly 8% in the second quarter of 2009, the government said, in a stunning turnaround for the Asian powerhouse that offered some hope for the rest of the world. Analysts said the rebound in China would offer a boost of confidence for the global economy as it struggles out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. To fight the downturn, the government had begun implementing an internal infrastructure stimulus package that invest heavily in renewable energy.  More on this story here.

Hollywood has unleashed a new wave of disaster films that focus on what will happen after the apocalypse. But even when they tackle serious issues, most of the new disaster movies and TV shows take pains to avoid moralizing, which can be toxic at the box office. Issue-oriented films, such as “In the Valley of Elah,” starring Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Cruise’s “Lions For Lambs,” have tended to fare poorly with audiences. More on this story here.

Much like California, Guangdong province in Southern China, is the incubator of a large, innovative and dynamic economy far from Beijing and Shanghai, China’s centres of political and financial power. With an official population of 95.4m, it leads the country in economic output and exports, though the latter have fallen about 20 per cent from pre-crisis levels. The Chinese Communist party’s leader, Wang Yang, uses this as an opportunity to carve a cleaner and greener Guangdong. More on this story here.

An interesting article in The Wall Street Journal, Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints, highlights the next trend in green marketing, calculating and promoting the supply chain carbon footprint.

Never mind that the average consumer isn’t actually aware or at least has a pretty fuzzy grasp of what exactly a carbon footprint is, manufacturers are busily calculating away. And, they are finding some fairly interesting facts.

Leather, milk and meat from cows pack a pretty big carbon footprint: The average dairy cow produces, every year, an amount of greenhouse gas equivalent to four tons of carbon dioxide, according to U.S. government figures. Most of that comes not from carbon dioxide, in fact, but from a more-potent greenhouse gas: methane.

The recipe for a low-carbon load of laundry: Use liquid detergent instead of powder.

… a six-pack’s carbon footprint was about seven pounds. The real surprise was where the bulk of that number came from: the refrigeration of the beer at stores.

I actually found some of these things pretty interesting too, but as a marketer, I have different questions. I’m wondering if this will be the next wave in green marketing. I’m wondering if we will really be able to educate consumers that much about the manufacturing process. I’m wondering if they will care.

At this point my gut feel is that this WILL become a trend. Consumers will react to carbon footprint information. Leather will be out. Mothers will switch to soy and rice milk (even more than they currently are). Powder detergent will become passé.

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