The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists.

“The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives an award of $150,000, the largest award in the world for grassroots environmentalists. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.”

The Goldman Prize ceremony (which is held in San Francisco) is one of the best events I attend every year. The recipients are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and inspiring. This year’s six prize winners (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions) are:

• Caroline Cannon (Point Hope, AK, USA) – Issue: Oil and gas drilling
• Sofia Gatica (Argentina) – Issue: Toxic/lethal pesticides
• Ma Jun (China) – Issue: Pollution from manufacturing plants
• Edwin Gariguez (Philippines) – Issue: Nickel mining
• Ikal Angelei (Kenya) – Issue: Large dam development and water security
• Evgenia Chirikova (Russia) – Issue: Highway development in a protected forest

Click on each recipient’s name to read about—or watch a brief video about—their remarkable efforts and achievements.

Here’s the three-minute video about Caroline Cannon, who has been “bringing the voice and perspective of her Inupiat community in Point Hope to the battle to keep Arctic waters safe from offshore oil and gas drilling.” Shell and other oil companies currently have plans to drill in the Arctic.

Last year’s recipient from the U.S. was Hilton Kelley, who has been fighting for environmental justice for communities along the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Please take a look at The Green Spotlight’s Facebook Page to see our daily green blurbs and links. You can view the page even if you don’t have a Facebook account. But if you do have an account, we hope you’ll click on the Like button (if you haven’t already “Liked” the page).

Visit the Page to get a sense of the wide variety of topics that it covers, and feel free to comment on the posts or add your own.

Here’s a sampling of topics that we’ve spotlighted on the page over the last month or so:

• One Planet Living principles
• The Great Animal Orchestra, a new book by Bernie Krause
• 2012 Cleantech Forum
• Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2012 semi-finalists
• The Future of Hope, a film about Iceland
• Waking the Green Tiger, a film about China
• Urban Roots, a film about Detroit
• Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Rural Renewable Energy Alliance
• Good Jobs, Green Jobs regional conferences
• Wastewater treatment technology that uses renewable energy
• Evolve electric motorcycles and scooters
• Better World Books
• GMO food labeling
• The growth of clean energy markets
• The top B Corp businesses
• TED talks (e.g. urban farming and enterprise in a school in the Bronx)
• Quotations from Thomas Edison, Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, etc.

Green building & design is one of this blog’s main content categories. The following are some of the posts on green building-related topics that have been published on The Green Spotlight or on its sister site (M. Landman Communications & Consulting):

On green building projects:

• LEED Platinum Leaders: 2012 Update of Top-Ranking States and Countries
• Model Sustainable Neighborhoods: LEED ND Developments in the U.S., Canada, and China
• Green Homes: Online Case Studies and Project Profiles
• Online Case Studies and Profiles of Green Buildings in the U.S.
• LEED Platinum-Rated Buildings Worldwide (listing)
• LEED Certified Buildings in Northern California (listing)
• Green Buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area (listing)
• Map of Green Buildings in San Francisco

On green products and materials:

• Water-Saving, High-Efficiency Plumbing Fixtures: Toilets, Showerheads, and Faucets
• ENERGY STAR Products for Homes and Businesses
• How to Choose Less-Toxic, Low-VOC Paints and Coatings (brief intro)
• How to Select Less-Toxic, Low-VOC Paints, Primers, Stains, and Coatings (4-page, 120-KB PDF download)
• Low-Emissions (Low-VOC, Zero-VOC, and Natural) Wall Paints (product listing)

On other green building topics:

• Green Affordable Housing Resources: Websites and Organizations
• Location, Location, Location: How to Choose a Sustainable Place to Live / Build
• Green Schools: Resources and Links
• Net-Zero-Energy and “Passive” Homes: New Resources
• Low-Cost, High-Payoff Green Home Improvements, Retrofits, and Remodeling Projects
• Sustainable Neighborhoods and Communities: Planning and Development Certification Programs, Projects, and Organizations
• Green Tax Credits, Rebates, and Other Financial Incentives
• Haiti: Sustainable Recovery, Rebuilding, and Community Development Initiatives

A lot of new green building content will be added to the blog in coming weeks and months. These are some of the topics that we’ll cover in upcoming posts:

• Green product certifications, eco-labels, standards, and lifecycle data
• Green prefab/modular homes
• Green real estate listings: Where to find green homes for sale
• LEED ND certified projects: 2012 update of completed neighborhood developments
• Sonoma Mountain Village and other One Planet Communities
• Green operations & maintenance practices for buildings and for households

P.S. If you like the information provided on this blog, we hope you will vote for The Green Spotlight for this building-industry Best Green Blog award. (It just takes 2 clicks to vote. Scroll to the bottom of the ballot to find The Green Spotlight.)  Thank you!!

This post provides a list of links to green-business-related organizations, associations, websites, books, and other resources, which are useful not only to people who own, manage, or work for companies, but to all of us—as consumers and citizens who are affected by business decisions and corporate practices every day. The resources are organized into the following categories:

• Green Business (general)
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Environmental & Social Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Financing, and Investing
• Clean, Green Jobs
• Local Economies / Community Investment and Resilience
• Confronting the Corporate Corruption of Government
• Ecological Economics

• Online Media
• Books

[Note: New links were added to this post in April 2012.]

Green Business (general)

• 1% for the Planet
• American Sustainable Business Council
• B Corps certification / Benefit Corporations
• California Business Alliance for a Green Economy
• Center for a New American Dream
• Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2)
• Green America
• Green Business Network
• Green Chamber of Commerce (San Francisco Bay Area)
• U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

• Andrew Winston’s blog: Finding the Gold in Green
• Business for Social Responsibility (BSR)
• CERES
• CSR Hub
• CSR Wire
• EcoDesk.com
• Environmental Defense Fund’s corporate partnerships
• Future 500
• Global Reporting Initiative
• Green Seal’s green business standards
• The Natural Step
• SustainAbility
• UL Environment’s 880 standard
• [A brief overview of corporate social responsibility]

Environmental & Social Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Financing, and Investing

• Buckminster Fuller Challenge
• CERES
• CleanTech Open
• Echoing Green
• Green Xchange
• Investors’ Circle
• Net Impact
• New Resource Bank
• One Pacific Coast Bank
• Root Capital
• RSF Social Finance
• Social Venture Network
• Triodos Bank (Europe)
• The Unreasonable Institute
• U.S. Social Investment Forum
• X Prize Foundation

Socially responsible investment funds include Domini Social Investments, Trillium Asset Management, Calvert Investments, Green Century Capital Management, Walden Asset Management, Citizens Fund, and Green Retirement Plans, among others.

Clean, Green Jobs

• BlueGreen Alliance
• Good Jobs, Green Jobs regional conferences
• Green for All
• Farmer-Veteran Coalition
• Veterans to Farmers
• Veterans Green Jobs

Local Economies / Community Investment

• BALLE: Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
• LocalHarvest
• Institute for Local Self-Reliance
• Move Your Money
• Slow Money 
• Sustainable Economies Law Center
• Transition Network
• Transition U.S.

Confronting the Corporate Corruption of Government

(e.g., the excessive influence of dirty industries and wealthy special interest groups on politicians, legislators, and judges, to the detriment of society and the common good: environmentally and economically)

• Corporate Accountability International
• Corporate Ethics International
• Greedy Lying Bastards, a new documentary film
• League of Conservation Voters
• MapLight
• Move Your Money
• Oil Change International
• OpenSecrets.org
• Public Citizen
• Union of Concerned Scientists
• U.S. Chamber Watch
• “The U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak for Me” campaign

Ecological Economics

CASSE has a great listing of such organizations here.

Online Media (green business-focused web magazines and blogs)

• Fast Company: Co.Exist 
• Forbes.com: Green Tech section
• GOOD: Business section
• GreenBiz.com
• Nature of Business radio show/podcasts
• SustainableBusiness.com
• Sustainable Industries magazine
• TriplePundit.com
• YES! magazine: New Economy (and Planet) sections

Books

Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, by Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: How Interface Proved That You Can Build a Successful Business Without Destroying the Planet, by Ray Anderson

Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top, by Andrew Winston

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins

The Truth about Green Business, by Gil Friend

The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters, by Diane Coyle

Betterness: Economics for Humans, by Umair Haque

Ethical Markets, by Hazel Henderson and Simran Sethi

Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons, by Peter Barnes

Ecological Economics (Second Edition): Principles and Applications, by Herman Daly and Joshua Farley

Changing Business From the Inside Out: The Treehugger’s Guide to Working in Corporations, by Tim Mohin [to be published this August, 2012]

For more books on socially responsible business, see these from Chelsea Green Publishing and Island Press.

This is not an exhaustive list of books and resources related to green business. If you have another resource to recommend, please submit a Comment below. Thanks!

RELATED POST, COMING SOON: Green Product Design and Product Stewardship

Platinum is the highest rating in the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building certification program. Building projects that have attained this rating are among the greenest in the world.*

I recently added newly certified Platinum-rated projects (buildings, homes, offices, and stores) to my online listing of LEED Platinum Certified Building Projects Worldwide, which I had last updated a year ago. The listing is organized by country and—within the U.S.—by state. Some of the listed projects are linked to online case studies. The listing includes projects of all types, from every LEED rating system: New Construction (and Major Renovations), Existing Buildings/Operations & Maintenance, Neighborhood Developments, Commercial Interiors, Core & Shell, Homes, Schools, and Retail.

As of my latest review of the data (at the beginning of January 2012), it appears that there are now more than 1,045 LEED Platinum rated projects worldwide.

While the vast majority of LEED projects—almost 950 of them—are located in the United States (where LEED was created), Platinum rated projects now exist in 25 countries; a year ago only 16 countries had LEED Platinum rated projects. The nine countries that gained their first LEED Platinum projects over the past year are: France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Turkey. The other countries with LEED Platinum projects are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and of course the United States. After the U.S., India is the country with the most Platinum projects, with about 35 projects so far (up from 20 a year ago). Canada and China also have many Platinum projects.

Within the United States, 49 of the 50 U.S. states (all states except North Dakota)—plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico—now have building projects that have achieved the LEED Platinum rating. A year ago, Alabama and West Virginia did not yet have any LEED Platinum projects, but now they do.

In terms of the absolute number of LEED Platinum certified projects in each state, here are the top 5 states with the greatest number of LEED Platinum projects (at last count):

• California (164 projects)
• Oregon (64)
• New York (61)
• Texas (51)
• Massachusetts (40)

So California has more than 2.5 times more Platinum projects than any other state—but that’s not too surprising since it’s the most populous state in the country.  On a per capita basis (i.e., as a percentage of population size), Washington D.C. has more LEED Platinum rated projects than any of the states. And when you add in the 50 states, here are the Top 5 with the greatest number of LEED Platinum projects per capita:

1. Washington, D.C.
2. Oregon
3. Montana
4. Vermont
5. New Mexico

The range of Platinum project types is very broad. In addition to high-profile projects (such as the iconic TransAmerica Pyramid in San Francisco, which got the Platinum rating for its upgrades under the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance rating system) and a number of high-end offices, retail spaces, and luxury residences, LEED Platinum projects also include several public buildings and many modest homes and affordable housing developments. For example, there are dozens of Habitat for Humanity-built LEED Platinum homes around the country, and more than 75 affordable Platinum homes built in New Orleans alone through various initiatives, including Make It Right.

* Another green building certification, which is widely considered to be an even higher bar to reach than LEED Platinum, is the Living Building Challenge. To date, four projects have achieved the Living Building Challenge certification: the Tyson Living Learning Center in Eureka, Missouri; the Omega Center for Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, New York (which also got a LEED Platinum certification); and the Eco-Sense home in Victoria, British Columbia. The latest project to achieve this certification (along with a LEED Platinum certification) is the Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Lab in Kamuela, Hawaii.

Some people might call me a chocolate enthusiast…or, a chocoholic. I crave chocolate. And I usually indulge this craving, because after all, dark chocolate has been proven to have a slew of health (physical and mental/mood) benefits.

I have a little bit of chocolate almost every day. Not a lot on any given day, mind you…but since my cumulative consumption of chocolate is considerable, I’ve been very pleased to find that many of my favorite chocolate bars are made by companies that address the social and environmental issues related to the production of chocolate.

The following chocolates are a few of my favorites; and they are all made with organic ingredients and/or their cacao has been sourced through fair-trade arrangements. Some of them also support other types of sustainability or conservation programs and practices, which are noted below. I am not being paid to recommend any of these companies or products.

1. TCHO

• Organic (certified by CCOF)
• Fair trade (certified by Fair Trade USA)
• Started the TCHOSource program “to obtain the best beans in the world while enabling the producers of those beans to earn a better living.” They “partner with growers and coops and transfer knowledge about growing and fermentation to enable farmers to escape commodity production and become premium producers and to create a relationship of mutual self-interest that goes beyond Fair Trade.”
• They also “raise consciousness about the reality of modern slavery in our industry and in the world, and set an example by refusing to use cacao produced by slaves.”
• Manufactured in San Francisco

I recently tried TCHO’s SeriousMilk Milk Chocolate “Cacao” bar (with 53% cacao), and I think this has now become my #1 favorite chocolate bar.  It’s the perfect balance between milk and dark chocolate. I look forward to trying their other bars, as well.

2. Newman’s Own Organics

• 100% organic (certified by Oregon Tilth)
• Rainforest Alliance Certified, which “guarantees that the cocoa in our Signature Series was grown on farms that meet comprehensive standards for sustainable farming, protecting soil, waterways and wildlife habitat as well as the rights and welfare of workers, their families and communities.”
• “We have confirmed in writing that the cocoa products we purchase have been produced on farms that treat their workers fairly, and pay them a fair wage. Our suppliers do not and will not support any farms or plantations that mistreat children and adults or engage in Slave Trade Practices.”

My favorite Newman’s Own Organics bar is: Dark Chocolate (54% cocoa), which is a light/creamy dark chocolate.

3. Endangered Species Chocolate

• Some of their bars are organic (certified by Oregon Tilth)
• “10% of net profits donated to charitable organizations supporting species and habitat conservation in harmony with humanity”
• “100% ethically traded: Cacao used to create our All-Natural and Organic chocolate products is grown on farm co-ops that foster responsible labor practices, community enrichment and sustainable farming… On-the-ground endeavors, like Project Ecuador are helping empower communities in cacao growing regions.”
• “All of our chocolate is shade-grown.  Shade-grown chocolate supports lush forests and the species that thrive there promoting biodiversity, providing shelter for migratory birds, and combating global warming.”
• Information about an endangered species is provided inside each wrapper.

My favorite Endangered Species Chocolate bar (that I’ve tried so far) is: Dark chocolate with Cranberries and Almonds.

4. Seeds of Change

• Organic (certified by QAI)
• “Directly contributes 1% of its net sales to sustainable organic farming initiatives worldwide.”

I’ve had their Milk Chocolate, and Milk Chocolate with Puffed Grains, and they were really tasty. I haven’t tried their various dark chocolate products yet, though I plan to. (One point against this company’s chocolates: I don’t love that they put 3 small, individually wrapped bars inside of the larger package. Though the smaller serving sizes are good for portion control and for keeping the unopened chocolate fresh, using that extra wrapping material seems a bit wasteful.)

You can find many or all of these chocolates at most Whole Foods stores and other natural foods stores. There are a number of other companies that make organic chocolate and/or fair trade chocolate (e.g., ALTER ECO, Dagoba, Theo, Angell, and Divine, to name just a few; commenters have also recommended Taza and Green & Black’s). I haven’t gotten around to trying all of them yet, but I surely will in the near future…

P.S. Fine chocolate makes a great last-minute gift for any chocolate lovers you know!

What’s your favorite kind of organic or “ethical” chocolate?

The Green Spotlight has begun creating simple, colorful graphics of some of our favorite Quotations. We hope that you enjoy these and will share your favorites with your friends. More of these graphics will be available in coming weeks; check the Quotations page for new additions.

Click on each image to see a larger (full-size, e-card) version.

Please feel free to pass them on! You can use the Share icons at the bottom of the post (for direct links to email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or just drag a full-size graphic onto your desktop and share it from there.

If you have a favorite quotation (whether it’s one that’s already on our Quotations page or not) and you’d like to see it presented in graphic form like these, please mention it in the Comments section below, or send us a note (email: info[at]thegreenspotlight.com). Thanks.

About a year ago, I posted a piece with tips, ideas, and considerations for selecting green gifts. Here’s a summary recap of the 7 types of gifts I suggested in that post:

1. Non-“stuff”  (e.g., activities, services, or donations, rather than products)
2. Homemade, handmade, or homegrown stuff
3. Locally made or Fair Trade goods
4. Products with green attributes or purposes
5. Re-gifted items or lightly used finds
6. Eminently useful things
7. Small stuff

Take a look at last year’s post to see the specific ideas that I suggested within each of those categories. This year, I’d like to supplement those suggestions with a few more. In addition to the criteria listed above, you also might want to consider choosing the following types of gifts:

• Products (or services) made and sold by small, independent (and ideally local) businesses, rather than national chains or multi-national corporations. Or at least try to buy things that were Made in the USA (or whichever country you live in) to help boost the domestic economy.
• Goods made or sold by companies that are members of the 1% for the Planet campaign: “a growing global movement of 1,395 companies [as of Nov. 2011] that donate 1% of their sales to a network of 2,691 environmental organizations worldwide.”
• Goods made or sold by Certified B Corporations (or Benefit Corporations), which “are a new type of corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.” As of Nov. 7, 2011, there are 451 Certified B Corporations. That number will be growing, as more companies achieve this certification and as more states pass laws establishing the legitimacy of Benefit Corporations. One of the Founding B Corporations is BetterWorldBooks.

Speaking of books, here are a few green-themed books that might interest some of the people on your gift list:

• Beautiful and Abundant: Building the World We Want, by Bryan Welch (2010)
• Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, by Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute (2011)
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver (2007)

Also, I might as well mention a few green product brands that are personal favorites of mine: Newman’s Own Organics (their 54% Dark Chocolate bars are exceptionally good); Seeds of Change; Sustainable Seed Co.; Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds; EO organic body care products; and Patagonia. I am not getting paid to recommend any of these companies.

Lastly, here are some online resources for additional information on green products and reducing wasteful consumption:

• Green America: click on the Green Gift Guide, Responsible Shopper, and Fair Trade links
• Center for a New American Dream: Simplify the Holidays
• Good Guide: ratings of safe, green, healthy, and ethical products
• SustainLane: green product and service reviews

The following is a partial list of environmental non-profit organizations that have a national (U.S.) or international scope and that take a broad approach to sustainability. These 14 groups address a wide spectrum of environmental issues; they are not single-issue organizations. Due to their holistic perspective, many of these groups do work that—directly or indirectly—promotes greater social and economic equity, as well as environmental sustainability, as all of these issues and conditions are inextricably connected to each other.

Please click on the links to learn more about the work that each of these groups is doing.

• Buckminster Fuller Institute
• Earthjustice
• Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) *
• Foundation for Sustainable Development
• Global Exchange
• Global Green USA *
• Green America
• Green Cross International
• ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability *
• Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
• One Planet Living (BioRegional)
• Resource Renewal Institute *
• Union of Concerned Scientists
• World Resources Institute

This is by no means a comprehensive list of sustainability-minded organizations.  For a longer list, see this set of links.

In addition, there are many single-issue environmental organizations (and local, state, and community-level organizations) that do good and important work in their respective areas and issues. I have highlighted such groups in past posts (e.g., organizations focused on green schools, environmental education, green affordable housing, green building, sustainable communities/planning, etc.), and will highlight other types of green groups in the future.

If you have a favorite green organization that you’d like people to know about, please share that in the Comments.

* Full disclosure: I have worked on projects for the organizations that are marked with an asterisk.

Take a peek at The Green Spotlight’s Facebook Page to see our daily blurbs and links. Anyone can view the page, whether or not you have a Facebook account. But if you do have an account, be sure to click on the “Like” button to join our growing online community (if you haven’t already); then you should be able to see The Green Spotlight’s posts in your daily Facebook news feed.

Please visit the Page to get a sense of the wide variety of topics that are featured. Here’s a sampling of a few of the solutions, efforts, and success stories that we’ve spotlighted on the page in recent weeks:

• the electric DeLorean, coming out in 2013
• LEED for Homes Awards: this year’s winning projects
• hybrid wind/solar systems
• Reinventing Fire, the new book by Amory Lovins
• Earthjustice
• Global Community Monitor
• Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
• Green Corps’ Field School for Environmental Organizing
• Silent Spring Institute
• Arctic Live
• Revenge of the Electric Car (new documentary)
• CleanTech Open: this year’s finalists and Forum
• Brower Youth Awards: videos and info about this year’s winners
• Solar Decathlon home design competition’s winning projects
• DIY solar installations in Ypsilanti, Michigan
• how to size a solar PV system for charging an electric car
• B Corporation legislation passed in California
• quotations from Ray Anderson, Buckminster Fuller, Annie Dillard, and others