 | January 19, 2010 |  |  | | | | THIS ISSUE'S SPONSOR
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Taking Care of Business
By Joel Makower
Twenty-ten has gotten off to a pretty good start, from the perspective of green business news. The holiday lull has given way to a steady stream of stories about innovation, from cars to computers to cleaners. January's Consumer Electronics Show and Detroit auto show both offered an impressive line-up of green-minded products. At CES, as we report this week, attendees found residential fuel cell systems, projectors made without mercury and outlets that can be controlled through the Web.
But it was another announcement last week that caught my attention. A small, innovative company called Method rocked the staid laundry world with its 8x detergent -- a product so concentrated that Method was able to pack eight times the conventional amount in a bottle. Deploying what it calls its patent-pending Smartclean technology, the new Method detergent, which is a plant-based formula made with 95 percent natural and renewable ingredients, requires 33 percent less energy and oil to produce and is packaged in 36 percent less plastic.
This wasn't Method's first innovation (see here, here and here, for example), and Method isn't the only maker of home cleaning products that's on an innovation streak (see: Seventh Generation). What I like about Method is that its whole brand is focused around cool design and innovation, not green; you can barely find the g-word on its website. That's a recipe for success, in my book: make products that are better, and happen to be greener.
There's lots more this week: BSR's Ryan Schuchard on 10 Climate Trends That Will Shape Business in 2010. (Note that only a couple of them have to do with climate policy or global accords.) Ecosystem Marketplace's Steve Zwick on How Forest Carbon Markets Fared in 2009. (Its one of the few good things to come out of Copenhagen.) Serious Materials CEO Kevin Surace's testimony last week before Congress on how to help small business succeed in the green economy. (Incentives that require people to use products substantially made in America.) Senior contributor Marc Gunther on the Worldwatch Institute's 2010 State of the World report. (Western consumer culture is killing us.) And my post on what it will take to fund the cleantech revolution. (A new breed of investment banks.)
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A Blueprint for Greening New York City's Buildings
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In Greenpeace's latest Guide to Greener Electronics, Nokia and Sony Ericsson retain top spots on the list while Samsung falls for not meeting a chemical-elimination goal. Greenpeace is now also rating companies based on their support, or silence, on changes to a European Union chemicals law.
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