I love good news.

The World Wildlife Fund recently announced 143 new species of animals, including a fanged frog and a tiger-striped pitviper, identified in the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia. There’s so much bad environmental news associated with that river (such as the brink of extinction for the Mekong Irawaddy Dolphin), that it’s hopeful to see findings like this which might help push countries to be more active in protecting that waterway.

These findings happened at about the same time as a team from the UK was exploring a volcanic crater in New Guinea, and discovered more than forty new species there. The headliner here is a giant woolly rat with no natural fear of humans. I’m glad they’re not around here.

So much of the globe has been mapped (or paved). The fact that there are still pockets of unknown left makes the world so much more interesting.

Really? Do we need to individually wrap each one of our baked potatoes in shrink wrap? We take them out of the dirt, clean them off and then protect them from what? Think of all the energy used to get them to this point and then the waste from the plastic.

Just a reminder that tomorrow, Saturday, March 7 from 9-12 is our Linen Drive. You can get information in the previous post. I have received some phone calls from people who can’t make the drive and want to give later. All you need to do is contact the ReSolutions office or the Community Furniture Bank. The need for linens and towels does not stop.

Another event coming up is the March Green Beans. It will be on Tuesday, March 10 at Cool Beans in Edgewood. I hope you can make it but if not the next one will be on April 14.

With the gold coffee filters available for most all coffee machines, why are we still using paper? One more paper product that we don’t need in our day to day lives.

Like most investors, T Boone Pickens has identified an investment strategy that will work for him. It is forward-thinking, aggressive, and the potential payoff and risk are both high. But he’s not the only one out there, looking for ways to invest in the burgeoning ‘green’ economy. Lots of individual and institutional investors are seeking to get great returns; if they can “do good” at the same time, well, that’s fine too.

The “Leading Green” Blog at the Harvard Business Review reports this week about phenomenal growth in ‘green’ investing. While financial priority for sustainability has been growing for more than two decades (CERES itself celebrates twenty years in 2009), it is reaching numbers that are really hard to ignore. Mindy Lubber, the author, cites several studies and indices that show this. Her organization, CERES, is responsible for organizing a $10 billion commitment for renewable energy from European and US investors over the next two years. Those billions are likely just the tip of the iceberg (can we still use that analogy?).

What is driving all this interest? Knowledge and opinion that climate change, energy and water scarcity – among others – are global challenges that must be met, and that there is tremendous financial opportunity in being ready to handle them.

However, not all of us are investors with millions of dollars to invest in a windmill or two hundred. Just the same, there are opportunities for small, medium and large companies to profit from facing these challenges head-on, rather than pretend they don’t exist or hope we can drill our way to energy independence.

Be proactive. Be creative. It’s not necessarily about increasing your value by inventing a better photovoltaic cell to capture sunlight, it’s also about streamlining your energy and water use, and preparing the business for those global challenges. Companies that are successful at this will be smiled upon by these same institutional investors; viewed as having strong management. Off-book intangibles like this make a company more attractive for investors.

As Ms Lubber puts it: “Warning to U.S. companies: Just because national lawmakers are dawdling on global warming, don’t think your business can dawdle, too.”

When I tell people that I am starting an environmental sustainability consulting firm I get vacant stares. This weekend one of the partners experienced that same stare when he used that same line on a couple. But he immediately said “we find companies money by making environmental improvements.” They perked up and the man said “oh, now you’re talking my language” while the woman said “I think its so great that ya’ll are helping improve the environment.”

This tells me a few things. First we need to talk our audiences language, not ours. And two, there is value in going green.

Sustainability is a word that is freely used in our business but there is no one definitions. We decided we needed to define it for our own company. I searched online and found as many different versions as I wanted. But none of them spoke our audiences language. Then I came across a speech by David Blood of Generation Investment Management, a firm he founded with his partner, former Vice-President Al Gore. The speech is titled “The case for sustainable business” and was given at Gresham College in London in January 2008. I encourage you to listen to the speech or download the transcript.

David Blood has some very insightful views and he gave a great definition for sustainable investing. We modified it and adopted it as our definition of a sustainable business.

“A sustainable business recognizes that environmental, social, ethical and economic factors directly affect business strategy. Factors that are sometimes difficult to quantify but drive the success of a business.”

It is simple, to the point and should be able to explain what we do so that everyone can understand.

I have been an avid mountain biker for more than 15 years. In the last two years I have taken up road biking as a way to get in more mileage. Mountain biking takes a good part of the day to load the car up and drive to my local trails. Road biking I can leave my driveway and hit some nice terrain in Homewood and surrounding areas.

There is a love/hate relationship that everyone seems to have with bikers. Everyone knows that biking is good for the body and good for the environment. Drivers just don’t want them to be in front of their car as they are driving home or doing errands. And as bikers we don’t help things by hogging the road and running stop signs. Unfortunately for drivers things are not going to get better. With rising fuels prices we are already starting to see more and more bikers on the roads. And not just the amateur road bikers but familys with small kids and trailer.

Apollo Gonzales of the Switchboard blog wrote a nice piece entitles “On cycling and a loss.” It brings up the problems that are presented when more and more people hit the road on their bicycles. I think even drivers are looking to get more drivers off the road but as Gonzales said “One less driver on the road doesn’t necessarily mean one less person on the road.”

What if global warming had an impact on your golf game? Would you be more concerned about the environment? Well it can and you should. According to a study by the Longitudes Group that is published in Golf Digest magazine, of the more than 1,000 courses considered coastal, over half of them will disappear if seas rise two meters.

Granted if these courses do flood then we will have more problems than less tee-times at inland courses but it is something to be concerned about. It is easy for people to throw out the idea that seas could rise. It is tough to imagine, but the north pole ice pack is the thinnest it has been in years and Greenlands ice pack, second only to the antarctic, is melting as well. All that ice, water that is, has to go somewhere and that somewhere includes our golf courses. It’s time to yell fore.

Golf Digest has this great chart to show if you favorite course is in danger of flooding. You may just need it for to plan a future golf trip.

When I suggest to someone that they should replace their regular light bulbs with CFLs, they are usually concerned about the mercury and how they should recycle them. This, in and of itself, is remarkable that most people know this much about fluorescent lighting but now I can give them an answer.

The Home Depot has just launched a fluorescent lighting recycling program. All you need to do is take the spent, unbroken light to the returns desk and give to an employee. Home Depot will work with an environmental management company to dispose of the light properly.

Now you have one less excuse not to change the lights in your house. And with three-way and dimmable options available in CFLs even less excuses. And if you are like me you will be going to The Home Depot this Friday night and then two or three times on the weekend to get what you forgot on the project you are working on.

You can download a pdf from The Home Depot that will explain the program further. For more information on the CFL Recycling Program or Eco Options, visit www.homedepot.com/ecooptions.

The new Apple iphone is set to appear on July 12 and I may not be one of those to campout or even show up when the doors open, but I bet I have my phone the first or second day on the market.

While I have loved my mac since I switched from the PC back in the early 90s I have not been so happy with how green they are. Greenpeace, among others, have been going at Apple for many different issues including the use of PVC and BFRs in its products. Steve Jobs has promised a greener Apple and it sounds like the new iPhone is a step in the right direction. The packing that is.

According to The Register, the new iPhone will ship with Paperfoam trays made of recyclable potato starch, a 90 percent carbon footprint reduction according to the company. This along with the smaller packaging Apple has been using lately is definitely a step in the right direction.