A Dark Day for the Arctic

The Senate voted today to include revenues from oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in its budget. The vote was 51-49.

This vote, though a major setback, does not end the fight. Each house of Congress will still need to vote at least twice more to finalize the budget and open the Refuge to drilling.

Toyota to build a US Plant

According to The Detroit Free Press, Toyota Motor Corp., the world's largest seller of gasoline-electric cars, will decide in June where in North America to build such vehicles.

Demand for fuel-saving hybrids could grow to as much as 10 percent of
total U.S. new vehicle sales by 2010, Jim Press, Toyota's U.S. managing
director, said last month. U.S. sales of Toyota's Prius more than
doubled this year through February to 12,644 from 6,140 a year earlier.
Honda Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co. also sell hybrids in the United
States.

Big Oil Not Interested in Arctic Refuge

A recent story in the New York Times states that the oil industry has not shown much interest in drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The article cited BP and ConocoPhillips' withdrawals from the pro-drilling group Arctic Power, each of which followed Ecopledge campaigns, as proof of this fact. Congressional debate over the Refuge's fate may be affected by this article, as one might reasonably wonder why we should be considering drilling if the oil companies themselves aren't interested.

This article demonstrates that Ecopledge's efforts to protect the Arctic are bearing fruit. However, no company has yet publicly committed to stay out of the Refuge. This is probably because of industry fears of upsetting the Bush Administration. Public support will be key in convincing these companies that they are better off protecting the Refuge than the White House.

Good Corporate Citizens May have Recruitment Advantage

Two academic studies, one from Stanford Graduate School of Business and one from University of Olso, support the idea that companies that are socially responsible may be better at recruiting talented and motivated employees as a result.

This supports Ecopledge's belief that companies that protect the environment can succeed financially as well. It also suggests that companies should consider any potential recruitment advantage when evaluating corporate social responsibility programs.

Finally, these papers also suggest that Ecopledge's strategy of organizing students to use their leverage as potential employees to win environmental change from companies can be effective.

Whole Foods & GE Labeling

Whole Foods has stated that, "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not issued mandatory labeling requirements for GE-ingredient or non-GE ingredient foods nor have they determined a standardized testing protocol for how to test for the presence of ingredients that have been genetically engineered. Accordingly, it would be extremely difficult, as well as costly for us, or any other retailer or manufacturer, to provide customers accurate and meaningful information about the GE status of products on the basis of speculation of future changes in legislation."

And yet, many other food manufacturers such as Simply Organic, Walnut Acres, Hains, Amy's Kitchen and Natures' Path already list the absence of genetically engineered ingredients on all of their products. Amy Kitchen has accepted the additional costs to labeling despite the fact Amy's Kitchen revenues are significantly smaller.

Furthermore, according to the Austin American Statesman, when sales per square foot at Whole Foods are nearly $800 it is hard to believe that they are not labeling based on the financial costs incurred.

Renting Fuel Efficient Vehicles: What are the options?

Friday's New York Times article highlights the growing trend in environmentally friendly rental cars and other forms of for-hire transportation.

Given current gas prices and growing popularity of hybrid vehicles it seems logical that rental car companies would add these fuel efficient vehicles to their fleet mix. However rental car companies state that they are not able to obtain these vehicles due to the shortage of cars available.

Bill Ford recently said in an open letter to New American Dream, "To be successful, sustainability has to be customer-driven."

What better way to drive customer demand than by signing onto Ecopledge's Hertz Campaign . Ecopledge is calling on the Hertz Corporation a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company to increase the fuel economy of its rental fleet to 40 mpg by 2012.