Printer-Friendly Version
Email This Page
Contact Us
Join Online
Email using our web-based e-mail form or call us at 1-202-872-5330.
Get the most from your membership »
Green Business Trends
April 5, 2010
GreenBiz Reports on State of Green Business
The annual edition of Green Biz's
State of Green Business report evaluated a year of continued global economic downturn and dramatic political change here in the U.S. The report presents a mixed bag of encouraging and discouraging trends, but above all found that despite the harsh economic environment, green business activity survived and even thrived. The recession provided a stimulus to some areas such as energy efficiency, and the need to cut operating costs drove more executives, boards, and shareholders to seek green solutions.
New Site Features Small Business Funding
The new blog and online search tool New Equity Daily recently launched to serve as an information source for small business and real estate financing. Hosted by O-H community partners, New Equity Daily will provide answers and information about how to finance small businesses, including how to obtain government or public financing.
Apollo Alliance Calls for Support of Green Jobs
Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are poised to unveil a bipartisan clean energy and climate bill that has the potential to win approval. The Apollo Alliance urges business leaders to call for inclusion of the IMPACT Act in this new bill.
Currently, 70 percent of clean energy systems and component parts developed for the U.S. are manufactured overseas. The IMPACT Act would reverse this trend and ensure that policies that grow the new clean energy economy also create high-quality manufacturing jobs here in the United States.
Shareholder Proxy Campaign Calls on McDonald's to Value Meals
As the biggest fast food giant in the world, McDonald’s is a leading force in the global diet-related epidemic of obesity and disease. Corporate Accountability International (CAI) has launched a campaign to use shareholder proxies to send their staff and activists to the upcoming McDonald’s shareholder meeting. They will directly challenge McDonald’s CEO and top executives on the company's practices of marketing unhealthy products to children and low-income communities, while interfering with public health laws.
Contact campaign organizer to help »
Learn more about CAI's work against McDonald's »
Indianapolis Green Technicians
The first "Green Technicians" have graduated in an Indianapolis training program run by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 481 and the National Electrical Contractors Association of Central Indiana. After receiving their certifications, the Green Technicians displayed an array of solar panels and a wind turbine they recently installed at the Electrical Training Institute, where they received their instruction. Training in the program grants industry certification to work on everything from windmills to energy efficient retrofitting.
March Madness or Sweatshop Madness?
Human rights organizations are challenging participants in March Madness to think twice before purchasing sports apparel to support their favorite teams, lest their money go to support abusive labor practices. The anti-sweatshop movement has targeted university apparel since the 1990s, and achieved a great deal in raising awareness and developing methods of monitoring factory conditions around the world. But a significant group of schools have still not made a commitment to keeping their logos off products made in factories with abusive, anti-union, and even sweatshop conditions.