Last week, the Rockefeller family made an historic challenge to Exxon Mobil Corp., the company founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1870 (as Standard Oil), and in which dozens of family members still hold stock. The challenge came in the form of a shareholder resolution to require an independent chairman of Exxon's board of directors, so that the company can better maximize long-term shareholder value in a rapidly changing energy environment. Making the board chair independent of the CEO may seem a technical governance matter, but it has great significance. The family argued that having a board that was independent from the day-to-day operations of company management would enable Exxon to better assess the risks and opportunities that are altering the energy and environmental landscape

Something old is new again. GreenBiz.com, of which I am executive editor, has just relaunched with a new, improved format. The new site — the result of a revamping of the somewhat antiquated technology platform on which the site was originally built in 1999 — now reflects the topics you deal with daily: energy and climate; the various aspects of daily operations, from purchasing to cleaning to fleets; the design of products and packaging; the more efficient use of energy, water, and materials; and the way you communicate all of this through marketing, PR, and reporting. There are also sections for smaller businesses and on green careers. Kudos to the team, headed by Matt Wheeland and Carlie Peterson, for making it all happen. The new look represents the beginning of a forthcoming

The 2008 Shareholder Season Some of the most important voting of the year doesn't involve candidates or political parties. It's taking place between shareholders and the companies they own. It has become an annual rite of spring: a bumper crop of shareholder resolutions filed by activist investors aimed at compelling companies to address any of a wide range of social and environmental issues. This year is no different. A new report on the 2008 season — the majority of companies hold their annual meetings in the spring — has been published by As You Sow (Free download). And while its intended audience are foundations, whose endowments typically include large stock holdings, the report offers insight for anyone interested at the state of the art of shareholder activism. First,

It's time for my (second) annual survey of surveys — the bounty of public opinion polls on green topics that seems to sprout every spring in time for Earth Day. A half-dozen or so years ago, there were perhaps a couple such surveys. Today, there are more than a dozen, ranging from substantive to silly to self-serving. All told, they paint a portrait that hasn't changed much over the past twenty years: The public wants to buy green products and support good companies. Of course, what this means — and how to define both "green" and "good" — is where the devil meets the eco-details. But there's something slightly different about this year's bumper crop of data. A shred of realism seems to be creeping into the mix. Whereas such polls traditionally were pretty

Water hasn't yet risen to the level of energy and climate as a pressing issue for most companies, but the conversation seems to be flowing lately. And that conversation includes two concepts likely to enter the green lexicon. One of those, "virtual water," received currency last month when its foremost proponent, Professor John Anthony Allan from King's College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies, was given the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize. Allen coined the term back in 1993 to refer to the amount of water embedded in the production and trade of food and consumer products. A cup of coffee, for instance has 140 liters (about 37 gallons) of virtual water, when you consider the amount of water used to grow, produce, package, and ship the beans. A hamburger

50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth is back in print, updated for the 21st century. If that doesn't send a mild shiver down your spine, then you are under 25 years old. If you somehow didn't catch the early 1990s, 50 Simple Things, published a few months in advance of Earth Day 1990, was a cultural phenomenon. It caught a wave of interest - notably, media interest - in all things green, which propelled the book's sales to cult-like status. The book sold 5 million copies in all, about a third in one of the 20-odd languages in which it eventually appeared. The principal author and publisher, John Javna - who the first time around hid behind the anonymity of "The EarthWorks Group," basically himself and some helpers - eventually got discouraged and cynical about

The promise of the green economy and the clean-tech revolution is that they will bring a new wave of job opportunities - productive and respectable jobs at every part of the economic spectrum, from line workers to senior managers. Nonprofit groups like the Apollo Alliance have made this part of their raison d'etre. A steady drumbeat of studies since the late 1990s has told us that burgeoning markets for solar, wind, clean transportation, and other technologies would represent the next big wave of job creation. Cities and states have been positioning to become clean-tech hubs, eyeing the workforce development potential. Organizations representing low-income populations have been viewing the green economy as an entry point for those near the bottom of the economic ladder. So, now that

The latest annual edition of Clean Energy Trends has just been published. My colleagues and I at Clean Edge have identified five key trends affecting clean-energy markets and produced our annual forecast of markets for four clean-energy technologies. And, working with our partners at New Energy Finance, we've analyzed the investment trends of the past year. As we point out in the free, downloadable report, 2007 was a very strong year for clean energy technologies, with no signs of a slowdown in 2008. That said, with all of the uncertainties facing the economy, there are some potential speed bumps. One of the biggest is whether and how U.S. policies will extend the production tax credits for wind and solar, both of which are expiring at the end of the year. If these credits aren't

I've spent the past few weeks on the road talking about the State of Green Business, listening to the questions and concerns of audiences at the companies and conferences I've addressed. There's one constant query: In a world gone green, how does a company make itself heard, credibly and authentically? And how does it do this in a way that minimizes the risks of being charged with greenwash, or worse? The questions themselves represent a sea change. For years, companies have been satisfied to walk more than talk - that is, do more, environmentally speaking, than they'd publicly disclose. It's not that these companies were being virtuous, or that they didn't care about the world knowing of their green commitments and achievements. Far from it. But the corporate risks of sticking one's

My colleagues and I at GreenBiz.com have just published State of Green Business 2008, an accounting for how, and how much, the greening of business is moving the needle on environmental issues. The simple answer: not much - and certainly not enough. I'd been thinking about this report for a good five years, but it was only last year that my team and I got to it. Probably a good thing: The state of data on business and the environment likely wouldn't have been sufficient in previous years to accomplish this. The free, 64-page report includes the top green business stories of the year just passed - a lengthy piece I'd previously debuted in this blog (see here, for example). But the heart of the report is the GreenBiz Index, a set of 20 indicators of progress on the greening of