Sit in on the Green Car of the Year Award presented at the 2008 LA Auto Show (via AutoNetwork).

Green was an obvious color to hang the environmental renaissance on. It was a reclaiming of the old pejorative “greenies” and “treehuggers.” Both of those terms have been reclaimed by the fringe, but then quickly co-opted on the mainstream as a movement. From green-collar jobs to green-washing and from green-tech to green-building, there’s no shortage [...]

Ninety-two percent of respondents to The Global Facility Management Association’s recently released Green Practices Study (PDF) say that they are working to make their facilities more sustainable. In addition, 67% say their customers are “forcing them” make sustainable changes. Forty-six percent say the government is forcing the change. Other findings: 89% say Facility management is driving sustainable [...]

The London 2012 Organizing Committee published the first edition of an online “Sustainable Sourcing Code” (PDF). The code is an effort to ensure the products and services used for the Olympics are responsibly sourced and minimize environmental impact during the manufacturing process. Potential products will be assessed based on where they come from, who made them, [...]

Owens Corning announced that it has increased the the certified recycled content in its PINK Fiberglas insulation to a minimum of 40 percent. The company says at this level of recycled content, the amount of waste glass diverted from landfills could form a two-lane glass highway that extends 1.3 times around the world. In addition, the [...]

Austin retailers who participated in the city-led , “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” campaign report that they have recycled over 20 percent more bags at stores during the first half of 2008 compared with the same period in 2006, Austin Business Journal reports. Retailers like HEB, Randall’s, Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s and Target provided 40 percent fewer plastic bags [...]

St. Paul Port Authority has gained unanimous support from the City Council to develop a once-controversial biogas plan, Star Tribune reports. The biogas plan is aiming to pipe rural Minnesota manure and ethanol byproducts to urban paper recycler Rock-Tenn. The move would help keep 475 jobs at the plant. As part of the plan, the plant [...]

House Democratic leaders voted 137-122 to oust auto-industry ally Representative John Dingell from his chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce committee, replacing him with Representative Henry Waxman, Bloomberg reports. Waxman is an advocate for pollution controls and currently leads the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He argued that a leadership change of the energy panel [...]

Xerox Corp.’s announced it will be installing six 25,000 gallon tanks at its EA toner plant in Webster, N.Y. The installations are preparation for the production of Ultra Low-Melt EA Toner, which the company says can cut overall power consumption of digital printing devices by  15 percent to 30 percent. The Webster plant is expected to [...]

Wal-Mart has signed a four-year agreement with Duke Energy to supply up to 15 percent of the retailer’s total energy load for about 360 Texas Wal-Mart stores and other facilities using wind energy. Under the deal, Duke Energy will provide about 226 million kilowatt-hours of renewable power each year from a wind farm that’s currently under [...]