Banktrack

BankTrack is a global network of civil society organisations and individuals tracking the operations of commercial banks, investors, insurance companies, pension funds, etc, and their effect on the planet and people. The website carries news about events and the latest headlines and reports concerning the private financial sector and the environmental issues surrounding them.

Green Inc

Green Inc is a New York Times blog covering “energy, the environment and the bottom line”. The posts cover environmental and energy-related news from across the globe but with a special focus on the USA, as you might expect. The blog forms a handy resource, with plenty of information and facts and figures.

Environmental Leader

The Environmental Leader provides a wealth of business-related environmental news, billing itself as “the executive’s daily green briefing”. Sections include “Strategy & Leadership”, “Contracts & Installations”, “Products & Planning”, “Research & Technology”, “Finance & Reporting” and “Policy & Law”. The news items cover subjects such as energy efficiency, sustainability and carbon offsets.

Greenbang

Greenbang provides clean-tech and business news, tracking “the explosion of developments affecting global business leaders working toward a low-carbon future”. The news includes reports on innovative sustainability strategies, new green technology and the latest discoveries as well as profiles on green business leaders. The angle is positively focused on alternative resources, energy efficiency and low carbon technologies rather than the environmental problems they are designed to counter.

Environmental Capital

Environmental Capital is a Wall Street Journal blog providing “daily analysis of the business of the environment”. The posts cover a wide range of topics, such as carbon capture and storage, oil prices, climate change, global warming, clean energy and sustainability. The blog offers an informative and interesting source of green business news.

Council of Foreign Relations

This is the website of the Council of Foreign Relations, an independent, non-partisan membership organisation, think tank and publisher. The CFR is “dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries”. The website features news and opinion on the latest world developments.

by Rhiannon Harries

http://www.independent.co.uk

Booking my ticket to Hastings to visit Craig Sams, I notice a link on the train operator’s website that allows me to check the carbon footprint of my trip. It’s a fitting start to a journey to meet one of the foremost pioneers of the green movement – not least because the latest endeavour of the man who brought the macrobiotic diet to Britain and made organic chocolate one of the most fashionable foodstuffs of the past decade is an ambitious global carbon-capturing initiative that may hold part of the answer to climate change.

Sams, now 65, decamped to the Sussex town from west London full-time with his journalist wife Josephine Fairley, 52, eight years ago, as they were slowly disentangling themselves from Green & Black’s, the enormously successful organic, Fair Trade chocolate brand they founded together in 1991. In the time that Sams and Fairley owned the company, they managed to change the taste of a nation, convincing consumers weaned on insipid milk chocolate that the bittersweet delights of their rich, cocoa-heavy offering were a more sophisticated, not to mention ethical and healthy, choice.

For some, the multi-million-pound sale might have been the beginning of a comfortable retirement, but neither is the sort to rest on their laurels. Long before the deal was completed, the pair was already knee-deep in a new project, Judges, an organic bakery in Hastings Old Town, which was soon followed by the Wellington Square wellness centre, turning the seaside town into something of a healthy-living destination.

“I still think that introducing the macrobiotic diet with my brother through our shop and restaurant and Seed – a journal of organic living – was the most important thing I ever did,” Sams says of his wide-ranging influence. “But ultimately we haven’t been anywhere near as successful as McDonald’s. And that’s depressing. Mind you, nobody ever subsidised brown rice and vegetables, yet the organic market keeps on growing, because people really do care about these issues.” ‘

Home is a three-storey Georgian town house, a few hundred yards up the winding street on which Judges sits. Its gorgeously imperfect interior is stuffed with objects and furniture that suggest a life well lived. It is not, however, the kind of place one would necessarily expect Britain’s premier green couple to inhabit. Colourful and cluttered, there is none of the austerity that one might imagine to be the reality of saintly eco-living.

But then, a large part of the success Sams and Fairley have had might be attributed to the combination of exactly this brand of bohemian glamour with an area that sometimes risks being perceived as worthily dry.

Nebraska-born Sams’ groovy, counter-culture credentials go back to the 1960s, when he and his brother Gregory opened Seed, the UK’s first macrobiotic restaurant and shop, on London’s Portobello Road, attracting a mixed crowd of hippies and wealthy Holland Park denizens.

Around the same time, Sams imported a few hundred Afghan coats that he had spotted on his travels in Asia to sell on Chelsea’s King’s Road. Among the first takers were the Beatles, and the rest is fashion history. His gift for anticipating, if not creating, the zeitgeist is almost preternatural.

Later he would bring organic peanut butter and baked beans to the consumer market with his Whole Earth Foods range, and transform the British Soil Association from a sleepy, minor charity into the UK’s leading organic organisation in his exceptional three-term tenure as chairman.

Fairley has also led what might be considered a pretty extraordinary life. Made Britain’s youngest magazine editor at 23 (at Look Now, a women’s title), she has carved out a career as a highly respected beauty journalist and author in an area of the industry not known for its candour or integrity.

She also happens to have been best friends with the late Paula Yates, and remains close to Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches and Pixie – Yates’ three daughters with Bob Geldof – and Tiger Lily, whose father was the singer Michael Hutchence.

On the morning I visit, the Sams-Fairley household is a hive of activity, although I get the impression that this is just an average day by their standards. As Sams makes tea for us in their cosy kitchen (”soya or non-homogenised cow’s milk?”), two willowy young girls and an even willowier young man swirl through the kitchen, making breakfast and proffering almond croissants from Judges. One of the girls is Fairley’s assistant – the couple both work from home – and the other two, it transpires, are Peaches Geldof’s flatmates, over from New York.

Sams takes it all in his stride. Handsome, tall and tanned in an unconsidered, outdoorsy way, if you didn’t know who he was you might take a stab with Hollywood actor or a former rock star – although he has aged far better than the excesses associated with either career would have allowed.

On the contrary, he is a flesh-and-blood advertisement for macrobiotic living. He swims in the sea daily in all but the coldest months and tells me he hasn’t seen a doctor since 1965 – the year some friends converted him to the macrobiotic principle of eating less and from lower down the food chain.

He is charismatic in an unselfconscious way, but his laid-back manner belies a fierce intellect and an ability to range engagingly across lofty ideas and practical minutiae, which become apparent when we sit down in Sams’ back garden to discuss the latest commercial venture firing his imagination, Carbon Gold.

Set up in partnership with the former music promoter and Sams’ fellow eco-entrepreneur Dan Morrell, Carbon Gold is a company with a bold plan to get farmers around the world transforming their agricultural waste – which would otherwise be burned or left to rot, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – into a type of charcoal known as “biochar”. Produced by heating plant matter in the absence of oxygen, biochar is essentially a stable form of raw carbon, which can be used to fertilise soil.

Simply as a low-cost, organic means of regenerating degraded farmland, it represents an exciting development. But it is its potential as a means of sequestering carbon, reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and slowing climate change that could have the greatest impact on the future of the planet.

The project is the crystallisation of something that has been on Sams’ mind, both consciously and subconsciously, for many years: “I was born on a farm,” he explains. “When my great-grandfather first ploughed that land in Nebraska, there were 40 to 50 tonnes of carbon per hectare; there are now five. When I went back there to visit at 12 years old, I remember being appalled to see these huge gullies where hills had been eroded – gaping holes where there had been soil. Back then I didn’t understand what soil was, but soil is carbon. And all that carbon was just being ploughed away.”

Sams’ eureka moment arrived decades later, around the time of the Green & Black’s sale, when he read about an ancient technique used by pre-Columbian native Americans to enrich the poor soils of the rainforest in Charles ‘ C Mann’s 1491, a history of the Americas before the arrival of the Italian explorers. That practice was the production and burial of biochar, and its legacy can still be witnessed today in the Amazon basin in the form of swathes of fertile, black earth known as terra preta.

“Suddenly, I thought, ‘Golly!’” recounts Sams, full of renewed enthusiasm at the memory. “Instead of organic farmers putting 10 tonnes of compost onto an acre and 90 per cent of that going back into the atmosphere as CO2 in five years’ time, and the remaining 10 per cent being gradually lost with every ploughing, here is a way that you can take 10 tonnes of biomass [plant material], reduce it to carbon, put that in the soil and most of it will stay there for an indefinite period.

“I had already got into the idea of re-carbonisation of soil in the mid-1990s when I took Whole Earth organic corn flakes carbon-neutral by planting trees, which was primitive but genuine, and we discovered that the carbon footprint of our corn flakes was much lower simply by virtue of them being organic. We found that the carbon content of the soil they were farmed on increased incrementally every year, whereas the carbon content of non-organically farmed soil decreases incrementally.

“Then I read the book and it knitted it all together and I suddenly saw that this was a very elegant way to draw together all these threads. It ramped up the potential not just for organic farming, but for all agriculture to reverse the loss of carbon from soils.”

The beauty of the scheme, as Sams sees it, is that it could turn the futuristic concept of carbon capture and storage into a low-tech, low-cost reality that can be rolled out to every corner of the earth. “Our view is that small is beautiful and lots of small-scale processing of biomass is the way forward,” he says. “We’ve looked at all the technologies out there and we found that actually you can get a biochar yield of up to 35 per cent of your biomass with very simple, cheap technologies that you can put all over the place – so it would be fine for cocoa farmers or olive growers, for example.

“It’s not big, shiny steel stuff – the units cost a few thousand pounds or less, and it’s lower-temperature technology that is cleaner and much easier for a farmer to operate. You don’t need a degree in engineering to keep it from exploding or catching fire. So that’s why we’ve chosen this route.”

Later in the day I see the rough-and-ready reality for myself at the kiln that Sams and Morrell have built in a clearing near the former’s smallholding on the outskirts of Hastings. An unprepossessing brick structure chugging out steam, it certainly doesn’t look like the future of Earth might depend upon it, but it’s here that two of Sams’ employees have been gathering data and perfecting the efficiency of the technique.

We return reeking of smoke and I can see why Fairley has chosen not to get involved in Carbon Gold, concentrating instead on her latest books – a re-edition of The Green Beauty Bible and a new title called Beauty Steals.

“It’s man make fire,” she laughs. “I think it is a brilliant idea, it’s genius, and it is weird having Craig do something that I am not involved in, but in this case I really don’t think I bring anything to the party. Except maybe a damp rag.”

Sams has no such reservations as he proudly scoops up handfuls of the fine black powder for me to inspect. The previous weekend his charcoal even took centre stage at a dinner party as the special ingredient – replacing squid ink in a risotto nero.

Sams and Morrell are now pinning their hopes on December’s UN climate talks in Copenhagen, which will determine whether biochar is officially recognised as a way of cutting carbon emissions under the Kyoto protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism. If so, it will eventually lead to its qualification for carbon credits, as part of a global carbon-trading scheme that allows countries such as the UK to sponsor carbon-reduction schemes to offset their own emissions.

Although Sams is confident that the Carbon Gold business model stands up on its agricultural value as a fertiliser alone, biochar’s inclusion in the carbon- trading scheme would be a huge economic incentive for farmers around the globe to adopt it along with other organic practices. It’s a move that Sams considers essential in battling climate change. “The biggest single cost of industrial farming is its contribution to global warming, and up until 1980, half of all greenhouse-gas emissions came from agriculture. Since then they have gone up; it’s just that industrial emissions have gone up faster [which is why the focus of the world's media has been there].”

Biochar is not without its critics, however. Nick Rau, an energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, tells me that “although there is potential there, we are advising an approach of absolute caution in the face of what might be another fake solution, of the sort we’ve seen with biofuels”.

The two main problems as Rau sees it are a lack of long-term research into the area and, as in the case of biofuels, the possibility that commercial interests might lead to vast areas of land being given over to cultivating dedicated crops for the production of biochar, threatening food production and access for indigenous peoples.

Sams, who has long been staunchly opposed to bio- fuels, rules out the possibility of dedicated biomass cultivation. “The potential to do that is there, but we’re nervous about it,” he says. “If you start driving people off the land to produce super-fast-growing bamboo for biochar, it all becomes very counter-productive. And our crunching of the numbers shows that at that sort of scale you need a disproportionately high capital investment.”

He admits that research is still in its early stages, but points out that from Iowa to New South Wales, “any university that has an agriculture department is now working within its area on applications of biochar for agriculture”. Carbon Gold itself already has two projects under way – one at Sams’ kiln and the other in Belize – and two weeks ago 12 PhD students began work on biochar-related subjects at the University of Edinburgh’s UK Biochar Research Centre.

Of course, a little controversy should hold no fear for a man whose attempts to popularise healthy, sustainable eating were initially met with a Reader’s Digest cover that screamed, “The Hippie Diet That’s Killing Our Kids”.

“Everything I have ever done has had an element of controversy about it,” reflects Sams sanguinely. “You weather that kind of criticism. Gandhi said that when you come up with a new idea first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they abuse you, and then they do what you are doing.”

In 2005 Sams sold Green & Black’s, somewhat controversially, to confectionery giant Cadbury for a reported £20m. I ask whether the decision to sell the company felt contentious in a slightly different way, since it was a move perceived by some as a surrender to the status quo rather than a break away from it – and whether he feels that his credibility has since suffered as a result.

“Oh, I’m sure it did. You know, capitalist, sold-out, millionaire – I have had the word ‘millionaire’ used as an epithet now a couple of times. It’s as relevant as blonde or dyslexic, but it is somehow acceptable.

“When we sold to Cadbury, the happiest people were our cocoa farmers because they’d had this relationship with a company who they knew had had shaky times and now they were in bed with the world’s biggest confectionery company, who had agreed to honour all our agreements and could do so in a much more precise, professional way.

“That was my emotional satisfaction if you like, not the fact that we were an upstart company kicking Cadbury in the shins – although I guess there was an element of that. You engage with the world, and if you don’t, you marginalise yourself, which satisfies the people who want to see you marginalised.”

It is the same philosophy which underpins Sams’ belief that the popularisation – for which he is partly responsible – of organic and Fair Trade products as a kind of trendy, bourgeois lifestyle accessory is a positive development rather than a frivolous distraction from a serious issue.

“If somebody buys a bar of Green & Black’s because it tastes good or because they want to flash it at a dinner party, that’s fine. At the end of the day, as long as the product is authentic, the benefits find their way through to the producers and the environment. Lots of things that are groovy are also extravagant and unnecessary, and I would rather people got their self-esteem from shopping at Daylesford and Whole Foods than buying a Ferrari.

“Softly softly, catchee monkey. Every little incremental lifestyle change makes a difference. It’s like the idea of meat-free Mondays – you can’t exhort people to make a complete lifestyle change over night, but once they realise, ‘Hey, it’s Tuesday and I’m still alive,’ it’s not such a challenge after all.”

The small changes make a big difference for Sams, but with Carbon Gold, the possibility of solving the planet’s greatest problems begins on an infinitesimal scale. Listening to him wax lyrical about the evolution of soil funghi and bacteria that he has been learning about in his biochar research, it’s as gripping as if he were imparting the secrets of the universe. Probably because that is exactly how he sees it.

“Kenneth Williams once played a gardener in a radio comedy series whose response to everything was, ‘The answer lies in the soil.’ But if you really drill into it and ask ‘The answer to what question?’, then that question is, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ It’s not like people haven’t understood bits of it already, but now that I am into it, it’s as exciting to me as discovering the new world was for Christopher Columbus.”

In the excitement stakes, charcoal and soil might not be up there with chocolate, afghan coats or even brown rice, but if Craig Sams finds them thrilling now, it might not be too long before the rest of us discover a similar fascination.

‘The Story of Green & Blacks: How Two Entrepreneurs Turned an Ethical Idea into a Business Success’, by Craig Sams and Josephine Fairley, is published by Random House at £8.99

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/his-dark-materials-the-man-behind-green–blackrsquos-chocolate-wants-to-save-the-planet-ndash-with-charcoal-1792557.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk

British Airways chief, Willie Walsh, says the industry can meet the 2050 target through a emissions trading scheme and improvements in aviation technology…

Ryanair and easyJet, the low-cost airlines behind the huge growth in air travel over the past decade, have backed the industry’s pledge to halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

No-frills carriers have been berated by green campaigners as flag-bearers for the “binge-flying” culture that erupted in the wake of industry deregulation in the late 1990s, sparking often furious exchanges with Ryanair’s outspoken chief executive, Michael O’Leary.

But Ryanair softened its stance yesterday, saying it was “open” to proposals for a cut in aviation emissions while easyJet urged carriers to achieve the reduction through developing greener airplanes rather than spending billions of pounds on carbon dioxide offsets and permits.

A delegation of aviation executives, led by British Airways boss Willie Walsh, told the United Nations forum on climate change that the industry can meet the 2050 target through a global emissions trading scheme and improvements in airplane technology.

Ryanair, which as Europe’s largest short-haul airline carries 60 million passengers a year, backed the proposals. “If it takes into account airlines such as Ryanair that have already taken great steps to reduce emissions by running fuel-efficient aircraft, we are open to it,” said a Ryanair spokesman.
EasyJet, Europe’s second largest low-cost carrier, backed the 50% target but urged the industry to achieve the cut without the help of carbon offsets or carbon credits, which Walsh has admitted will be necessary. An easyJet spokesman said an absolute reduction of 50% could be achieved by setting minimum guidelines for aircraft emissions standards, such as those being introduced for the European car market, and a reform of aviation taxes.

“The target is the right one to go after, but rather than using offsets and buying emission permits from other sectors we should be doing this on our own by reducing absolute emissions. To do that we need minimum [aircraft emissions] standards and the right fiscal incentives,” said an easyJet spokesman.

IATA had considered a 50% reduction in absolute terms before deciding that it would need the help of carbon offsets and carbon permits – in effect buying off some of its emissions.

The reliance on offsetting and permits has been criticised by environmental campaigners, who accused the aviation industry of using greener sectors to foot the bill for its carbon costs. The Aviation Environment Federation said the plan’s emphasis on net rather than absolute emissions exposed serious flaws in the strategy. “Carbon offsets are a significant part of the aviation industry’s menu, but are no substitute for real cuts in emissions,” said Jeffrey Gazzard of the AEF in a letter to the Guardian.

Walsh has estimated joining a global trading scheme will cost airlines about £3bn a year, compared with the industry’s annual revenues of $455bn (£278bn), as carriers acquire the necessary carbon offsets and permits to keep their emissions reduction targets on track. The BA boss has warned that fares will “have to” rise to cover the £3bn bill.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/22/ryanair-easyjet-emissions-reductions

http://www.pcmag.com

Recycling your old, unwanted cell phone and carrying your laptop in an eco-friendly bag are just some of the steps you can take to protect the environment.

Most folks aren’t exactly what you’d call “environmentally conscious” when it comes to technology. We often leave our computers powered up for weeks on end (even though we know better). Our old cell phones get tucked away in dresser drawers alongside other discarded devices. Peek into our homes and offices, and you’ll often find chargers still plugged into sockets even though they’re not in use.

Not every techie is guilty of all of these crimes against the environment, of course. Some of us have actively taken the first step toward going green, such as investing in a green PC, or using solar-powered gadget chargers and LEDs. But these aren’t the only ways we can take better care of the environment. Whether it’s recycling an old cell phone or reducing computer power, here are 10 steps you can take towards going green.

1. Use an Eco-Friendly Laptop Bag: Targus Grove Bags

Targus recently released its line of eco-friendly notebook bags, made of recyclable material and nickel-free metals, and are PVC-free. The Grove Bags line consists of the Messenger ($49.99), Sling ($59.99), Topload ($59.99), and Convertible Messenger/Backpack ($79.99). The cases fit 15.4-inch laptops, and also include a security strap and custom pockets for your water bottle and MP3 player. Targus will offer free shipping to anywhere in the U.S. for the rest of April. In addition to the green bags, Targus partnered with Dell on its “Plant a Tree for Me” program to help off-set the impact carbon emissions have on the environment.

2. Reduce Computer Energy: The ecobutton

The next time you leave your computer to take a lunch break, attend a business meeting, or go away for the weekend, press the ecobutton to put your computer in energy-saving mode. This recycled, computer power-saving device can really make a difference for your home or work PC power usage. It can be placed on your desk and connects to your computer via USB. When you’re about to take a break, press the button, and your computer will be put into energy-saving “eco-mode,” which is said to ensure that both your computer and monitor draw the same nominal power as when they are shut down. In addition, each time your computer is put into “ecomode,” the ecobutton software records how many carbon units and how much power and money you have saved. The ecobutton is available outside the UK for £17.92 ($35 USD) plus shipping costs.

3. Unplug Your Phone Charger: Nokia’s Mobile Tip

Nokia recently shared some very helpful green mobile-phone tips with us. A simple way to save energy in your home is by unplugging your phone charger when your phone is fully charged. “Two-thirds of the energy consumed by a mobile phone during its usage is lost when the phone is fully charged and unplugged but the charger is left connected to the outlet,” according to the company. In an effort to remind consumers to unplug their charger, Nokia released four phone models that include alerts to remind people to unplug the charger once the battery is full: the 1200, 1208, 1650, and the 3110 Evolve, which is currently available in select European markets. By the end of 2008, virtually all of Nokia’s newly launched phones will have this alert built in. To learn more about Nokia’s environmental efforts, visit www.nokia.com/environment.

4. Share Your Favorite Green Products: Amazon’s Green 3

Amazon.com just launched Green 3, a site where Amazon shoppers can list the three green products they are most passionate about and would recommend to other consumers. Amazon’s vast selection of environmentally-friendly products includes everything from Electronics & Computers to Home Improvement. Consumers can also educate themselves about going green with the ongoing series of postings from leaders in the green community.

5. Web Surf the Green Way: Flock’s Eco-Edition Browser

Social Web browser Flock, which lets users organize their online interests in one place, has launched an Eco-Edition browser. Scheduled to go live on Earth Day, the new Web platform is built on the company’s existing model of social applications, offering a wide range of environmentally related content from media streams, news feeds, and recommended bookmarks that will be free to download and use. Flock partnered with major news and information outlets like Discovery Networks, The New York Times, and TreeHugger.

6. Recycle Old Phones: Verizon Wireless’ HopeLine Program

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, approximately 130 million cell phones will be retired this year, and fewer than 20 percent of those phones will be recycled. Verizon Wireless wants to make it easier for mobile phone users to recycle no-longer-used wireless phones through its HopeLine phone-recycling program. The phones are “refurbished, recycled or sold and the proceeds are donated to domestic violence advocacy groups or used to purchase wireless phones and service for survivors.” Go to www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline to find a store to donate.

7. Educate Your Kids: Planet Earth, SeaLife, and WildLife DVD Games

Saving the planet is important for people of all ages. What better way for parents and children to explore the beauty of the planet and the importance of keeping it clean than with Imagination Games’ three new DVD board games? In Planet Earth ($25), answer a range of trivia questions based on the award-winning television series. The DVD game features categories like Fresh Water/Ice Worlds and Seasonal Forests/Jungles, and is made out of 100-percent recycled materials. In SeaLife ($27), players collect sea creature cards by correctly answering educational ocean-based trivia questions. And in WildLife ($30), players explore the African Serengeti safari.

8. Shop Green Electronics: CircuitCity.com’s Online Resource

Electronics retailer Circuit City offers a new online resource that aids consumers in adopting a green lifestyle. By visiting www.circuitcity.com/green, consumers can research and shop for products that have earned ENERGY STAR designations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The site also offers tips for recycling electronics, saving energy, and spotlights Circuit City’s trade-in program, which allows consumers to turn in old electronics in exchange for Circuit City gift cards.

9. Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: iLinc’s Green Meter Web Conferencing

If you’re a frequent business traveler, you may want to mention to your boss that it’s better to Web conference than commute. James M. Powers, Jr., head of the Web conferencing software company iLinc, designed the Green Meter, a CO2 savings application embedded in the company’s conferencing products. Inspired by Al Gore’s initiative to save the earth, the Green Meter uses a “mathematical algorithm to detect the locations of the people that are attending a Web conference via IP address and measures the distance between the meeting participants and the meeting leader.” The program then arrives at the amount of travel and measures how much CO2 is saved by Web conferencing rather than commuting. iLinc’s Green Meter comes standard with iLinc version 9.0.

10. Travel Green: SmarterTravel.com

SmarterTravel.com, an online travel resource, is covering new eco-friendly travel destinations for its “Trip du Jour” series every day for the month of April. The series will feature domestic and international destinations, including New York City, Berkeley, and Iceland. For instance, the site highlights the Big “Green” Apple, with organic bakery finds and environmentally friendly clothing stores.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2286030,00.asp