Wanna be green? Who doesn’t? But the reality of acting green sometimes runs into a hard economic wall. Projects that on the surface make perfect sense get stalled when the accountants get involved.

Case in point: alternative fuel vehicles. UPS would love to have 100% alternative fuel vehicles in our fleet of package cars. But the reality is that the math doesn’t work. Most alt fuel choices cost 30-100% more than traditional diesel. The fuel savings usually doesn’t equal the extra costs, even over a decade. Read the rest of this entry »

Retailers have long made “the customer is always right” words to live by at the checkout counter. And now some stores are putting a price on how right they think their customers are about efforts to protect the environment. Read the rest of this entry »

The trucks may be brown on the outside, but UPS is taking steps to let customers add a tinge of green to the cargo they carry inside.

For pennies a package, UPS customers can now offset the carbon dioxide emissions generated by the transport of their packages within the United States. Read the rest of this entry »

The mass media love the power of lists to attract readers or viewers. Pick a topic from music to politics to sports to movies, put together a ranked list that starts with “Best…”, “Greatest…” or “Top…” and it becomes a must read or must watch if you don’t want to be left out of the water cooler debate.

There is now confirmation that the green movement in business has risen to the level of a hot topic, at least around corporate water coolers, as Newsweek magazine has come out this week with its ranking of the Top 500 Greenest Big Companies in America. Read the rest of this entry »

How can companies do good business with a reduced environmental impact? That was the focus of a very well organized conversation in a large unconference held recently in Boston. Read the rest of this entry »

Americans revel in the accomplishments of U.S. athletes in international competitions like the Olympics. But a survey finds the American consumer is no Michael Phelps when the worldwide measure of success has a green rather than gold tint. Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston College Institute for Responsible Investment has released its Handbook for Climate-related Investing across Asset Classes. Funded by the Brooks Family Foundation, the handbook identifies eight asset classes – cash and cash equivalents, fixed-income, public equities, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, commodities and hedge funds – that allow for climate-related investing. Each chapter provides practical examples of climate-related investments that lay out trends in the field. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not unusual for a company to use product packaging to communicate its commitment to “green” practices. But a division of Boston College Center member PepsiCo has gone a step further to make the packaging itself a part of that commitment. Read the rest of this entry »