Water hasn't yet risen to the level of energy and climate as a pressing issue for most companies, but the conversation seems to be flowing lately. And that conversation includes two concepts likely to enter the green lexicon.

One of those, "virtual water," received currency last month when its foremost proponent, Professor John Anthony Allan from King's College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies, was given the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize. Allen coined the term back in 1993 to refer to the amount of water embedded in the production and trade of food and consumer products. A cup of coffee, for instance has 140 liters (about 37 gallons) of virtual water, when you consider the amount of...

50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth is back in print, updated for the 21st century.

If that doesn't send a mild shiver down your spine, then you are under 25 years old.

If you somehow didn't catch the early 1990s, 50 Simple Things, published a few months in advance of Earth Day 1990, was a cultural phenomenon. It caught a wave of interest - notably, media interest - in all things green, which propelled the book's sales to cult-like status. The book sold 5 million copies in all, about a third in one of the 20-odd languages in which it eventually appeared.

The principal author and publisher, John Javna - who the first time around hid behind the anonymity...

The promise of the green economy and the clean-tech revolution is that they will bring a new wave of job opportunities - productive and respectable jobs at every part of the economic spectrum, from line workers to senior managers. Nonprofit groups like the Apollo Alliance have made this part of their raison d'etre. A steady drumbeat of studies since the late 1990s has told us that burgeoning markets for solar, wind, clean transportation, and other technologies would represent the next big wave of job creation. Cities and states have been positioning to become clean-tech hubs, eyeing the workforce development potential. Organizations representing low-income populations have been viewing the green economy as an entry point...

The latest annual edition of Clean Energy Trends has just been published. My colleagues and I at Clean Edge have identified five key trends affecting clean-energy markets and produced our annual forecast of markets for four clean-energy technologies. And, working with our partners at New Energy Finance, we've analyzed the investment trends of the past year.

As we point out in the free, downloadable report, 2007 was a very strong year for clean energy technologies, with no signs of a slowdown in 2008. That said, with all of the uncertainties facing the economy, there are some...

I've spent the past few weeks on the road talking about the State of Green Business, listening to the questions and concerns of audiences at the companies and conferences I've addressed. There's one constant query: In a world gone green, how does a company make itself heard, credibly and authentically? And how does it do this in a way that minimizes the risks of being charged with greenwash, or worse?

The questions themselves represent a sea change. For years, companies have been satisfied to walk more than talk - that is, do more, environmentally speaking, than they'd publicly disclose. It's not that these companies were being virtuous, or that they didn't care about the world...

My colleagues and I at GreenBiz.com have just published State of Green Business 2008, an accounting for how, and how much, the greening of business is moving the needle on environmental issues.

The simple answer: not much - and certainly not enough.

I'd been thinking about this report for a good five years, but it was only last year that my team and I got to it. Probably a good thing: The state of data on business and the environment likely wouldn't have been sufficient in previous years to accomplish this.

The free, 64-page report includes the top green business stories of the year just passed - a lengthy piece I'd previously debuted in this blog (see

Can a major consumer packaged goods company with a name indelibly associated with household bleach become a leading light in the green marketplace? That's the hope of Clorox, the Oakland-based company, which this week is launching its first new brand in twenty years: Green Works, a line of cleaning products that are, in the company's words, "at least 99 percent natural" -- made from coconuts and lemon oil, formulated to be biodegradable and non-allergenic, packaged in recyclable bottles, and not tested on animals. The initial launch includes five products: an all-purpose cleaner, a glass cleaner, a toilet bowl cleaner, a dilutable cleaner, and a bathroom cleaner.

It's an intriguing moment. Green Works...

This just in: pretty much every consumer is concerned about the environment and is thinking conscientiously about what they buy - how it's made, under what conditions, and by whom. All you have to do is make good, green stuff and they'll buy it! We've reached the tipping point!

Sound too good to be true? It is, of course. But you wouldn't know it from the marketing studies I've been seeing - and the breathless headlines that result. As they continue to invade my in-box, I find myself getting increasingly irritated. Can market researchers be accused of greenwash? I'm beginning to wonder.

Two examples: