Green Options

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan’s largest bank, will inject 900 billion yen ($8.4 billion) into Morgan Stanley to help it transition to a bank holding company. Goldman Sach’s strategy is slightly different albeit with the same ultimate objective i.e. to become a commercial bank. According to Bloomberg, Goldman already has in excess of $20 billion in customer deposits in two subsidiaries and is creating a new one, GS Bank USA, that will have more than $150 billion of assets, [...]

Wall Street is in financial crisis. Individual investors are reeling. The world is watching. If ever there were a time to get serious about our world stewardship, it’s now.

While we’re used to thinking along broad, expansive lines such as international policy and national priorities, the fact is, there are changes you and I can make in our daily lives to make things better, including in the world of marketing. We don’t have to change the world. We just have to change our world.

That’s what “Greening Print Marketing” is about.

Along those lines, I got a press release from Xerox today. The company has released a new series of papers and tools to help companies reduce the environmental impact of printing in their organizations. This starts a comprehensive program of papers, resources, and Web tools to help customers identify the right paper, the right supplies, and the right way to print with the environment in mind.

In view of the current Wall Street crisis, America’s credibility as a bastion of free markets has come under the radar. The Fed’s recent bailout of AIG, Fannie and Freddie are perceived by many as a free market detour.

The government’s latest bailout news involves a plan to make the biggest intervention in the financial markets since the 1930s. Central to this plan would be a mechanism to bad assets off the balance sheets of financial companies or instead perhaps [...]

I can’t resist a plug for my alma mater, The Thunderbird School of Global Management. (Those of you who keep an eye on who went where to school where, should note that Josh Dorfman, The Lazy Environmentalist is a graduate too!)

For the second year, Thunderbird will be hosting the Annual Sustainable Innovation Summit, a global competition for business school students. Last year, the challenge attracted 118 teams from 59 universities and 15 countries.

Student teams are challenged with developing sustainable innovative business solutions for real-world companies and compete for a $20,000 prize and the title: Global Champions of Sustainable Innovation.

Reflective of the changing manner of education and working groups in the 21^st century teams can be made of students within a single school, within a single major or cross functional teams at different universities. As long as at least one member of the team is currently enrolled in an MBA program or has earned a graduate degree in business; you’re good to go.

In view of the current financial crisis, it is hard to grasp the fact that overnight investment banks once regarded the kings of Wall Street, are teetering on the edge of stability. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers has threatened the survival of Morgan Stanley in spite of the fact that it has just declared great earnings. All eyes are on Morgan and Goldman Sachs, the two big I-banks left standing. Will they go next? What will this mean for corporate [...]

 From Green Options’ The Inspired Economist

In view of the current financial crisis, it is hard to grasp the fact that overnight investment banks once regarded the kings of Wall Street, are teetering on the edge of stability. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers has threatened the survival of Morgan Stanley in spite of the fact that it has just declared great earnings. All eyes are on Morgan and Goldman [...]

This post is a follow-up to The Fight Over Radon in Granite Countertops Heats Up, which will provide some background information on the granite/radon issue.

With the legion of both deniers and alarmists out there attempting to monopolize the discussion over the safety of granite countertops, it is difficult to find unbiased information.  Peruse the comments in the above post and you can see the discussion has devolved into name calling.  The deniers, many of whom work in the granite industry, blast any insinuation that granite could be dangerous as “fear-mongering” and put down the current research as “junk science.”  The alarmists, many of whom sell competing countertops, argue that consumers shouldn’t take the risk that comes with granite.  The truth, as with most heated arguments, can be found somewhere in the middle.

It’s no secret: businesses who build durable internal systems breed long term and sustainable profits.

In fact, the rule on the street, and this applies to enterprising green businesses who are past their mainstream ‘breaking point’ and are now swimming with the rest of the so-called ’sharks’, is often ‘automate or perish’.

But automation (business speak for “doing it better and faster”) is hardly a Darwinian one-way street – eco-minded companies are benefiting more than just their own bottom line by developing or partnering to develop software that automates green decision making: they are greening entire industries.

And, the three who are doing it – Green Printer, Workforce Software and Sustainable Minds – have a lot to share on what it takes to get there.

The annual PLAY:stl music festival will expand this year to include InterPLAY, the first annual St. Louis Interactive Festival.  From the website:  “The Interactive festival is a way for the blogging, vlogging, podcasting, etc. community to connect with each other and with the general public by way of sessions, panels, workshops, and possible business opportunities. Similar to SXSW, InterPLAY will showcase its social media scene and educate [...]

A www.greenprinteronline.com dispatch | You cannot stop a negative habit without knowing how much and how often you are doing it. Enter the financial “carrot”: the online environmental calculator with a finance edge. True, we at Green Printer believe that public demand, employee engagement, shareholder interest and sustainability goals are the “pressure points” for companies to cut their consumption habits and curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But today, organizations like Xerox, RecycleBank and Creative Citizen are offering more than just a climate change reason to decrease consumption: money. And, they are doing it by showing your employees the financial figures generated in conjunction with their online, environmental calculators.

It’s important for growing companies to keep an eye on the overall market. While much of what makes entrepreneurs great is their ability to think out of the box, it’s what’s happening overall and how they fit into the general scheme of things that determines whether they succeed or fail.

So, I like to highlight some of the greater market trends in this blog. One of those of particular interest, one might say overwhelming interest, to green entrepreneurs is the looming scare of “eco fatigue”.

Is it real?

Will it impact green businesses?

Are you seeing it impact your business?

Here’s some tips from AdAge designed for large established companies but equally relevant for ecopreneurs. What do you think?