First Takes: Ford Moves into Home Solar Business; Big Poultry's Big Problems, and More...

• Ford Moves in to Solar Sales with SunPower Partnership: Ford and SunPower today are unveiling an innovative partnership to bring solar power to EV owners' homes. The program ties an EV charger to a 2.5-kilowatt SunPower solar installation. The move comes as Ford works to bring EVs to market in a big way, even as questions emerge as to if Ford can get its Focus EV to market on time.

• More Efficient Vehicles Create More Jobs: On the heels of the new fuel efficiency standards for trucks and cars, the NRDC has released a report showing that there are already 155,000 jobs in clean automobiles, with many more on the way. See also today's blog post from the Rocky Mountain Institute that digs in deep to EVs' job-creation and economic benefits.

• Big Poultry's Big Problems: As a new salmonella outbreak affects 36 million pounds of ground turkey from a Cargill plant, news emerged today that the government knew about possible contamination at the plant as early as 2010, but didn't act due to loopholes in federal laws about salmonella contamination.

• In Related Poultry News: A study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives finds that organic poultry-farming practices reduce bacteria resistance to antibiotics. The current salmonella strain, which has killed at least one person and sickened 77, is resistant to antibiotics normally used to treat it. And the Pew Environment Group today is releasing Big Chicken: Pollution and Industrial Poultry Production in America, a report highlighting the rapid growth and health and environmental impacts of factory-farming poultry operations.

• Bridgelux Innovation Brings Cheaper LED Bulbs Closer: Lighting startup Bridgelux is announcing that it may bring cheaper LEDs to market within two years The company has developed a way to grow LEDs on silicon wafers that can dramatically cut the costs of production, and thus retail price, for the highly energy-efficient bulbs.

How to Navigate the Risks of Drilling in a De-Iced Arctic Circle The extractive industries are preparing to swoop in and capture their shares of Arctic oil and gas as the top of the world loses its ice cover. Here's how they can approach it with caution, transparency and risk mitigation in mind.	First Takes: Britain's Busted Bag Ban, Smart Meters Snag Scammers, & More... Britain makes scant headway in efforts to cut use of plastic shopping bags and Emirates airline is the latest carrier to beef about the EU's cap-and-trade plan, but on the plus side smart meters are looking to be smarter than at least one utility thought.
Heavy Truck Efficiency and Carbon Standards to Save Money, Boost Jobs We all depend on trucks to deliver the goods we consume. Making trucks more fuel efficient means the delivery costs of goods is less influenced by volatile world oil prices, which is good for consumers as well as businesses.	Chicago Exchange's Closure Drives Another Nail in US Carbon Market The Chicago Climate Futures Exchange will close its doors early next year, in the wake of low trading volume and a lack of political leadership on carbon pricing and regulation.
Why You Should Think About Sustainability Like an Engineer The Chief Sustainability Officer at UPS explains why building your company's sustainability initiative is like constructing a building, and how you can make a sustainability strategy that lasts.	How the Tourism Industry Can Prepare for Climate Change From airlines to ski resorts, climate change -- and the world's attempts to address it -- will have big impacts on tourism-dependent industries and regions. Here are five ways the travel business can get out ahead of the changing climate.
Why Tork Certified its Napkins to Be Compostable Paper product maker Tork finds benefits in certifying something that seems like fact: Napkins are compostable.	Feds Adopting Green IT, but Lag on Tracking Progress President Barack Obama has ordered federal agencies to beef up their green IT practices, but a lack of baselines and performance targets makes it difficult to assess how these efforts are advancing the government's sustainability agenda.

In This Section

Featured Blogs

A Life of Ideas

In This Section

VERGE Events 2013

GreenBiz Forums 2013

Resource Center

State of Green Business

Career Resources

News

First Takes: Ford Moves into Home Solar Business; Big Poultry's Big Problems, and More...

Convergence Paris 2013