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First Takes: Unilever Gets to Zero in the UK; Schneider In, HP Out at DJSI, & More...

<p>Unilever hits its zero-waste-to-landfill goal for its U.K. manufacturing options, American Le Mans Racing hops on the green bandwagon, and more in our morning news roundup.</p>

DJSI Adds Schneider Electric, Cuts HP & Coke: The Dow Jones Sustainability Index and SAM today released the results of the annual review of the stock index, including who has been added to the list and who got cut. The big names for additions include Schneider Electric and Societe Generale S.A., while the big names who no longer made the cut include Coca-Cola Co. and Hewlett-Packard.

Unilever Hits Zero Waste to Landfill in UK: Following on a string of zero-waste news from Honda, Procter & Gamble, Kraft and others, Unilever today announced that it had achieved its zero waste to landfill goal for its U.K. manufacturing operations. We'll have a closer look at how Unilever pulled it off later today.

American Le Mans Racing Hops on the Green Bandwagon: We've had quite a lot of coverage of the world of autosports lately, with profiles of Nascar and Infineon Raceway, among others. Now, American Le Mans racing is highlighting its significant petroleum reductions in its latest race. Through fuel efficiency and alternative fuel vehicles, Le Mans was able to use 48 percent less petroleum than comparable traditional races, a move that, if it were applied nationwide (in the highly unlikely scenario), would save $175 billion in fuel costs per year.

Tea Partiers are Also Serious Climate Deniers: This political season is shaping up to be a madhouse of anti-environmental and anti-science posturing -- which makes for somewhat entertaining news-reading, and very scary "what if" speculating. But a new study confirms the belief that Tea Party-identified voters are pretty far out on the fringes of conservative thought: A study by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication finds that 34 percent of Tea Partiers don't believe global warming is happening. Depressing, yes; but, given that 87.5 percent of the GOP presidential candidates have also expressed skepticism or outright denial about it, not particularly surprising.

Important Bananas to Hawaii and Other Stupid Corporate Tricks: This is just a pet peeve of mine: The last time I went to Hawaii, far too many years ago now, it was shockingly difficult to find local produce -- but especially bananas or coffee -- for sale on either island I visited. Given how rare a treat it is to have low-carbon bananas 'n' coffee beans, it was a source of great disappointment to me. Over at MNN, Chris Turner feels the same as me, and looks at why Starbucks imports Ecuadorean bananas to Hawaii, and why it's part of the peculiar logic of late capitalism.

Banana photo CC-licensed by Ian Ransley.

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