The easy way to do corporate philanthropy is to write a little check to everyone who asks. Many companies operate this way–$5,000 to the Boy’s Club, $5,000 to the YMCA, $5,000 to the local cancer society or heart association. This is mostly a feel-good exercise, performed, it must be said, with other people’s money. Today’s Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com is about GE, and the company efforts to be strategic in its corporate giving. I met Bob Corcoran, who runs the GE Foundation, on a trip to Ghana in 2004, and had a chance to see GE’s health care initiative in action there—the company donated medical equipment, a generator, money and lots of expertise to a hospital in rural Ghana. Last week, Bob and I had a chance to catch up when he was in

Some exciting news today from Mars, the giant candy maker: The company is going to spend $10 million to decode the genome of the cacao tree. The goal is to guarantee the company a long-term supply of chocolate, improve the livelihood farmers and help preserve the environment in the tropics where cacao trees grow. “This is the dream of a lifetime for a plant breeder,” Howard Yana-Shapiro of Mars told me, over the phone from Rome, where he is attending a meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization. “And especially for someone who’s interested in sustainability.” Howard spoke at FORTUNE’s Brainstorm: Green conference in April. If you were there, you noticed him—he was the friendly guy with the long white beard that stretched down to his belly. He’s a fascinating and

Who’s the most powerful person in the world of green business? It might be Jeff Immelt, ceo of General Electric, with its far-reaching eco-magination iniative. It might be Lee Scott, ceo of Wal-Mart, which is greening the world of consumer products. You could make an argument for John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins who with his pal and partner Al Gore aim to make Kleiner the leading venture capital firm for clean energy. Others have clout, too—Washington politicians, the leaders of the big environmental groups, pundit Tom Friedman of The Times. But the most powerful of all might turn out to be someone whose name you probably don’t know: Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber. Al-Jaber is chief executive of the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC), which was created by the government of Abu Dhabi

I continue to be impressed by the scope and seriousness of the sustainability work being done at Wal-Mart. The company is reaching deep into its supply chain to try to wring out waste and develop “greener” products. They’re planning a major push around environmental and social issues this fall in China. All important, interesting stuff. Last week, I interviewed Matt Kistler, WMT’s senior v.p. for sustainability, at the inaugural Greener by Design conference. He’s an affable guy with a real passion for environmental issues. I’m joking, though, when I call him the “sustainability czar”—it’s just the opposite. WMT is driving better practices in the company through “sustainability networks” that are organized around products and themes. There are networks for the

I’ve never been a fan of the Hallmark Holidays. So please forgive me if I come off as churlish when I saw that we—meaning the fathers of America—don’t have much to celebrate on Father’s Day. Here’s the problem. Most American men aren’t very good fathers. Most American women aren’t very good mothers, either. I say this not to critique family life in America. I’m not expert on how we rear our children in the privacy of our homes. Instead, I want to make a larger point—that as citizens and consumers, we are at best neglecting and at worst abusing our children. Strong language, I know, but bear with me. Our neglect of our kids is most evident when you think about the issue of climate change. But it’s also demonstrated by the way in which, as a society, are dealing

Public interest groups need more scrutiny. So a forthcoming book called Green Inc: An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad (Lyons Press) by a journalist and activist named Christine MacDonald piqued my interest. MacDonald argues that big green environmental groups – specifically Conservation International (where she worked briefly), The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund — have become too cozy with corporate America. The big conservation groups are “deforming themselves,” engaging in “questionable practices” and cultivating “unsavory corporate ties,” she writes. They are conflicted because they take corporate money. They are too quick to provide cover for bad actors: Groups that once dedicated themselves solely to saving pandas

To save the planet, we need to take a handful of big steps, like regulating greenhouse gas emissions. We also need to take many, many small steps, like recycling, buying paper from sustainably-harvested forests and using less packaging. Last week’s high-profile defeat of the Lieberman-Warner bill to regulate greenhouse gases was a significant setback, a big step that won’t happen for at least another year.. So this posting will look at some small steps towards a cleaner planet that have not gotten as much attention. We’ll start with Best Buy. Thanks in part to the work of an effective shareholder activist group called As You Sow, Best Buy announced last week that it will test a free recycling program that will offer consumers a convenient and safe way to get rid of old TVs,

Like every smart company, Microsoft is thinking about sustainability. Rob Bernard, the company’s head of sustainability, tells me that MSFT is working to measure and reduce its own footprint, build data centers that use less energy and partner with groups like the Clinton Foundation to design software and services that helps cities measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Recently, Microsoft asked me to write an essay about the role of technology in driving sustainability. Here’s how it begins:

Technology got us into this mess—a planet that’s heating up, with potentially catastrophic consequences. Our cars, our homes, our office buildings, our appliances, our computers, MP3 players and big-screen TVs all require burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse

The formation of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership was a landmark moment in the long history of efforts to get the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases. But the alliance of big companies and NGOs has split over the Lieberman-Warner bill that is headed for the Senate floor—without enough votes to pass. That’s the topic of today’s Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com.

The issue dividing corporate America is how to auction or allocate the permits to emit greenhouse gases, and what to do with the funds raised at auction. As much as $150 billion could be raised in the program’s first year. I wrote a column about this called The $3 trillion climate change battle a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, I talked to Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, who

Big doings this morning in Dallas. ExxonMobil holds its annual meeting, highlighted by a long list of shareholder resolutions about corporate governance, climate change, renewable energy, discrimination against gays and lesbians and the company’s sponsorship of the Masters. Why, there’s even a shareholder resolution, submitted by a tiny, politically-conservative mutual fund, to ban all shareholder resolutions!

The annual brouhaha at XOM is the topic of this week’s Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com. Here’s how it begins:

It’s hard to imagine why ExxonMobil shareholders are so unhappy. After all, the world’s largest publicly-owned energy company rode the surge in oil prices to a record $40 billion in earnings last year, making it by far the