Not only is the world flat, it is amazingly interconnected. Who would have thought that Oreos or Cheez-Its could contribute to deforestation and global warming? Today’s Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com looks at palm oil, the commodity that connects hundreds of products on supermarket shelves to the disappearing tropical forests of Malaysia and Indonesia. Enviros who take a confrontational approach (Rainforest Action Network) as well as those who prefer to consult or collaborate (Conservation International, WWF) are attacking the palm oil problem. So are big agribusiness companies like ADM, Bunge and Cargill, although they’re not moving fast enough or far enough to satisfy the activists at RAN. Interestingly, the palm oil story appears to be following a script

The Environmental Working Group looked at nearly 1,000 sunscreen products and found that “4 out of 5 contain chemicals that may pose health hazards or don’t adequately protect skin from the sun’s damaging rays. The Natural Resources Defense Council analyzed household air fresheners and found that “most contain chemicals that may affect hormones and reproductive development, particularly in babies. The EPA was so concerned about keeping rodenticides—rat and mouse poisons—out of the hands of children that the agency ruled this spring that four of the most most hazardous types of pesticides will no longer be sold for personal use These days, it seems like you can’t open the newspaper or, worse, search the Internet without hearing about the dangers of ordinary household

While carbon offsets are controversial and always will be, they have enormous potential to promote an elusive goal: sustainable development. At their best, carbon offsets are a low-cost way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, transfer clean technology to poor countries and help people out of poverty. Which brings us to JPMorgan Chase and cook stoves. The global Wall Street investment bank has begun subsidizing the production and distribution of efficient cooking stoves in Africa, an effort that could expand to India and southeast Asia as well. The project is the topic of today’s Sustainability column on fortune.com and cnnmoney.com. Here’s how it begins: By any measure, it is a long way from the Park Avenue headquarters of JPMorgan Chase, the global investment bank that

Carbon neutral, you may remember, was the word of the year back in 2006, but as my friend Joel Makower (executive editor of greenbiz.com, aka the guru of green business) has written, no one knows exactly what it means or even how to define a company’s carbon footprint.So when Dell announced today that the company had become carbon neutral, I decided to take a closer look in my Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com. Here’s how the column begins:Dell is announcing Wednesday that it has become carbon neutral by turning out the lights in its offices, buying wind power and protecting endangered forests in Madagascar.It’s all part of CEO Michael Dell’s commitment to make the company that he started back in 1984 “the greenest technology company on the planet.”But

There’s a fair bit of cynicism out there about Product (Red), the celebrity-inspired idea that we can help poor victims of AIDS in Africa by going shopping. See, for example, the pointed parody at www.buylesscrap.org, which says, among other things, “Join us in rejecting the ti(red) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering.”Then again, there’s this number: $110 million. That’s the amount of money that (Red) partners have generated for the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to provide AIDS treatment in Ghana, Rwanda, Swaziland and Lesotho. Bono and Bobby Shriver created Product (Red) a couple of years ago, and now you can buy (Red) phones from Motorola, (Red) iPods from

I’m growing tired of reading (and writing) about companies that are “going green,” except if the company is named Wal-Mart or GE or has an outsized influence on its industry. Far more interesting is the question of how entire industries and markets can be transformed so they become more sustainable. This is happening, albeit slowly, in several industries—fishing and forestry come to mind—but what’s caught my attention lately are some significant changes coming to the TV industry. I’m not talking about trends in TV news or programming (which I covered for many years) but about recyling old TVs. Last week, LG Electronics USA, the North American unit of the big Korean electronics firm, and Waste Management announced a nationwide recycling program that should make it

I’d ordinarily be reluctant to take on Warren Buffett and the Girls Scouts of America in a single blog post, but this story is too good to pass up. Have you heard? Dairy Queen, which is a unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, struck a deal with the Girl Scouts to incorporate the Thin Mint, the best-selling of the Girl Scout cookies, into one of its Blizzards, an ice-cold drink. The result of this ill-advised merger, according to a news release from DQ and the scouts, is a A creamy soft serve blended with Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie pieces and a Crème de Menthe topping to create this summer’s blockbuster – the DQ® Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard. Have they not heard about America’s obesity crisis? The nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest couldn’t resist

I’m heading home from an eight-day, action-packed vacation in Alaska. Hiking, biking and sea-kayaking, I saw snow-capped mountains, the largest ice field in North America, a couple of glaciers, countless bays and rivers, abundant and beautiful wildflowers, salmon swimming upstream, bald eagles, seals, a sea otter, marmots, a porcupine and bears (three!) – all in one corner of the state, the Kenai Peninsula. But what really impressed me was the women. There are surely more women who call themselves feminists on New York’s Upper West Side than there are in, say, Anchorage. But women in Alaska — at least the ones that we met – are plenty strong and self-reliant. Of the 199 runners who completed the grueling Crow Pass marathon this past Saturday, twenty-eight were women. I

The plastics industry is dealing with a nightmare these days when it comes to potentially toxic chemicals. Because so many people no longer trust big business or federal regulators to protect them and their health—perhaps with reason, perhaps not—companies are vulnerable to campaigns by activist groups, politicians and trial lawyers who want to get alleged dangerous toxics off the market. The latest example: Bisphenol-A, the chemical used in polycarbonate bottles, including baby bottles, and in the linings of aluminum cans and in many, many other products.I’ve spent a fair amount of time—more than I’d intended to—looking into the controversy around BPA. The result is a column that was posted today on fortune.com and cnnmoney.com. The FORTUNE websites is also running a video

There’s no doubt that buying and eating local food is a hot trend. But is it good for the environment? Recently, I got a press release from Wal-Mart saying that Partnerships with local farmers have grown by 50 percent over the past two years—one example of the company’s efforts to support local economies, cut shipping costs and provide fresh food offerings. For the 4th of July, a Wal-Mart Supercenter in DeKalb County, Ga., featured Georgia-grown Vidalia onions for burgers, Georgia cantaloupes and watermelons for fruit salad and Georgia peaches for cobbler, the company said. Meanwhile, Chipotle Mexican Grill reports that it has stepped up its efforts to buy local produce. The fast food chain says it is the first and only national restaurant company committed to buying local