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ABOUT THE PANEL DISCUSSION: Companies sometimes regard sustainability as "metaphoric low-hanging fruit," says moderator Peter Senge, and reach for a few easy targets to achieve cosmetic improvements. His three panelists describe how their corporations are attempting to embrace sustainability as more than just another high-profile, low-impact initiative that "goes right into an overloaded bucket."

We can't afford to think of business as the enemy. Businesses in many cases are realizing the importance of sustainability more quickly than the public sector which too often defines its view by outdated political philosophies. This video provides a great deal to think about.

Internet search giant Google - sometimes criticised for the amount of energy its servers use - now aims to do for the power grid what it did for the web. Having conquered the market for web search by first simplifying how it is done and then linking advertising to users' search terms, Google Inc is now funding green technology and using its brand power to lobby for policy change.

Abu Dhabi has taken a 20% stake in the London Array - the £3bn project to build the world's largest offshore wind farm in the Thames estuary. Masdar, part of Abu Dhabi's multibillion-pound drive to develop green energy technologies, is buying part of the 50% stake in the project held by the German-based utility E.ON.

Energy and environmental leaders, including representatives from the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Pew Environment Group, recently met with members of President-elect Obama's transition team. The groups came carrying a monstrosity of a document that describes their recommendations on energy and environmental issues for the new administration. The 391-page report, entitled "Transition to Green," was made available Monday on Obama's transition Web site. The environmental groups had suggestions for a wide swath of federal departments, from Energy to Education and Homeland Security to Defense.

REW has an article on making the switch to a clean energy world - Will the Children of Today Be Living in a World Powered by Renewable Energy by 2050?. The world needs a one-off switch-over to renewable energy -- and this could be largely accomplished in just forty years time, slashing energy costs and greenhouse gases while allowing healthy economic growth, experts say. By 2050, 80 percent of the world's electricity could be coming from renewable energy sources provided efforts are made, in parallel, to improve energy efficiency, according to a study by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). That means, the children of today might well grow up to experience a world where the energy they use comes almost entirely from the sun, wind, sea and biomass. By 2090, the shift to renewable energy around the world could be almost 99 percent completed reducing pressure on the environment and laying the foundations for a new era of prosperity based on green energy.

During Earth Week, visitors to the U.S. Department of Energy website -- energy.gov -- will be immediately directed to a special web feature giving them key energy saving tips and user-friendly information about the critical emerging technologies and initiatives underway to move the nation toward a clean energy economy. The webpage is intended to help people enjoy a more green lifestyle by making simple adjustments. It details steps consumers can take to make informed energy decisions, save money on monthly bills, become more energy efficient, and protect the environment. These money saving tips include monitoring energy usage in homes, purchasing fuel efficient hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars, insulating homes, using Lighting Emitting Diodes (LED) and Compact Florescent Light (CFL) bulbs and using power strips to fully shut off multiple appliances and electronics at once when not in use. "Earth Week is a fitting time for all of us to reevaluate our personal energy habits," Secretary Chu said. "By taking simple steps to reduce our energy use, all Americans can strike a blow for energy independence, while saving money on energy bills and moving America toward a clean energy future."

Being a Geographic Information Systems Specialist may not sound like a very "green" job at first, but when you think about it, this position is crucial to making decisions about the environment.

All of the cell phones sold about three years from now will have a universal charger to the benefit of cell phone producers, owners, and the environment.

Environmentalists have hailed recent announcements by the US Interior Department that purport to protect wildlife, but both of these announcements carry with them asterisks that should give greens pause. On Friday, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management announced that some 340 square miles of ecologically sensitive land in the northeast section of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve will be off limits to drilling.

Make Green Pay Video, Part 1

The WWF format is a PDF that cannot be printed out.

Good simple means of being green. It is also a good marketing tool because you can have people contact you if they do want something that can be printed out. This will be a minority but hopefully the benefit of a growing relationship will make the print out worthwhile.

Keeping the backyard pool fresh and sparkling clean is a lot of hard work, it also needs a lot of chemicals. These chemicals are hard on our hair, our eyes, our skin and our clothing as well. They are also bad for the environment.

Global investment in sustainable energy amounted to $148 billion in 2007, a 60 percent gain over 2006, according to a United Nations report (PDF) Tuesday. That will grow to $600 billion past 2020, reported New Energy Finance, a consultant to the U.N. Environment Programme.

An aide to Obama said Friday that the administration plans to add 20 gigawatts (GW) or more of wind power and 4 GW of geothermal and solar power by 2012 through loan guarantees and fast tracked national renewable energy requirements, like the Renewable Portfolio Standard. Last May the U.S. Energy Department estimated wind power could provide almost a quarter of U.S. electricity. Trade groups from the U.S. wind and solar industries were happy with the news, considering that the current economic environment for commercial credit has lowered all boats as it were, with all investment now endangered - not just investment in risky financial instruments, but even those investments in renewable energy that are essential to growing a stable economy. 4 votesBuzz up! No other country, in any single year, has added the volume of wind capacity that was added to the US electrical grid in 2007 with both wind and solar growing well over 40%, but with the credit crunch affecting all sectors of the economy, new projects could drop by as much as 50%, without help from the Federal government.

In February, President Obama called for a doubling of the US renewable energy capacity within three years. Yesterday, Obama visited a wind energy company in Newton, Iowa and again emphasized the importance of new forms of power generation: "Now, the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline. We can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy." vote nowBuzz up! With billions in stimulus dollars heading toward improving the electricity grid and building sustainable energy infrastructure, emission-free power may be coming to your neighborhood sooner than you think. Here are five of the biggest, most ambitious projects that are in the pipeline, both in the US and elsewhere.

For some people, eco-tourism means going to the areas where the environment is still fairly untouched and pristine. To others it has a much broader scope than that, and means that you do everything you can, to make the trip you are taking eco-conscious, including how you get there and what you do once you arrive.

We have to wear shoes to protect our feet during cold days, wet days or when we are walking on uneven, potentially dangerous surfaces. Some shoes, however, are not good for the environment.