Green Options

I’ve heard a lot about a green economy’s potential and the boost it could promise for the job market. Living on Earth and others have reported on the topic recently. It’s big news if the promises come through: blue collar jobs for millions of Americans, upward social mobility, and an international industry for the U.S.A. to dominate. Let’s not forget the icing on the cake, the wide-spread benefits for society and the environment. It sounds like a [...]

Do you know where your pension coming from? For some US teachers, it’s Chinese coal.

The Chinese coal industry is known for its lucrative returns: the China Shenhua Energy Co. gained 65% from July to September, and many investors claim they can’t afford not to be in China. In fact, 20% of Shenhua’s stock is held by U.S. investors — one of whom is the Teachers Retirement System of Texas.

But China’s coal

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In nearly every post I describe the reasons business should go green. I tell you about social responsibility, about the fact that potential employees find sustainability attractive and the assurance that you may save some money in the long run. What if I told you that going green could give you a significant edge over other businesses in the same sector? Well, its true. Recently, the Carbon Beta Equity Performance Study came to the conclusion that there

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Makena Brown, grade 8, has a plan to help keep the planet healthy and make money, too. Makena collects all of her family’s recyclables and stores them in the back yard. About once a month, she and her family load up the car with the many bags of bottles and cans and take them to the local recycling center. Because it’s her project, Makena gets to keep the money paid by the recycling center

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In business, even the most effective environmental program can be held back by employees who "don’t buy into it," or who refuse to put forth the effort required to participate. While educating current employees about the measures they will have to take to help implement the program exists as step one to making the greening of a business successful, step two is just as important. When looking for new employees, it is

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For those of you who do not live in Michigan, or keep up on its politics, it may come as a surprise to find out that our economy is pretty much in the gutter. Our unemployment rate is the highest it has been in nearly six months, and it seems the bad news keeps rolling in. With large cuts in the automotive industry, coupled with the dissapearence of jobs from such powerhouses

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With more and more people graduating from college every year, the pool of potential employees is growing at a breakneck pace. Not surprisingly, these new additions to the workforce have very different values than those that arrived on the scene some 20 years ago. More and more, potential employees are looking to work for companies whose views are aligned with their own.

Given that environmental issues top the list of concerns for generation

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With the growth in green technology comes a growth in the green business sector. While this is great news, it begs the question ‘who will lead the business community in the green revolution?’ Oftentimes, business owners are far too busy to brush up on their sustainability knowledge and managers have so much on their plate, that the whole process may just seem overwhelming.

More and more, small and mid-size business are turning to ‘green

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Editor’s note: Interested in being as green at work as you are at home? Lighter Footstep’s Chris Baskind provides some great tips for practicing environmental stewardship in the office. This post was originally published earlier today (August 16, 2007).

In business, going green is more than a marketing slogan: it’s the new way of doing things. It’s an edge — a method by which you can improve your company’s bottom line

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A recent study found that the clean energy industry is the fastest-growing sector in Massachusetts, easily beating out behemoths like financial services, healthcare, and communications.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Census was published by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a quasi-public agency that runs a renewable energy trust fund of green power projects. The study found that clean energy industry had a 26 percent increase in jobs and now accounts for more than 14,000 jobs in

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Editor’s note: As you’ll figure out from reading Christan’s posts, she watches the markets for clean technology and alternative fuels very closely. At the same time, though, she’s not a licensed financial advisor, so nothing in her posts should be taken as advice to buy, sell, or otherwise take action in the markets. She’s not trying to push anything here — just offering her observations.

Maybe you don’t read the NY Times religiously,

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