Environmental Leader

Yahoo has introduced Yahoo Green today, an online education program that will offer users the latest environmental news and consumer tips, Reuters reports.

The site, which has Ford and its Bold Moves campaign as an advertiser, looks like a major expansion of the 18Seconds site that Yahoo developed to track CFL purchases at national, state and local levels, ranking each city and state based on per capita sales.

Earlier this year, Yahoo asked ad agencies to create and submit proposals for a new campaign from the search/ad giant that encourages environmental responsibility – it’s not clear if this site is part of one of those proposals.

Last month, Yahoo said it would become “carbon neutral” as a company by the end of 2007.

Along with the new site, Yahoo has launched an online contest where it will donate 10 hybrid-fueled Ford Escape taxis to the U.S. city where the most Yahoo users sign up to take the personal environmental pledge or take part in other environmental themed activities on Yahoo sites. It donated another 10 hybrid taxis to New York, where the campaign launch took place, replacing an equal number of conventional taxis.

Yahoo rivals like Google and Microsoft are racing to outdo one another with corporate environmental measures. MSN Network is heavily involved with the Live Earth concerts. In partnership with Kevin Wall, executive producer of Live 8 and CEO of the Control Room, it launched Save Our Selves (SOS) – The Campaign for a Climate in Crisis.

Google announced it was constructing a solar electricity system for its Mountain View, California, headquarters campus with a total capacity of 1.6 megawatts -? enough to supply 1,000 average California homes. Google also joined the Business Council on Climate Change, a coalition of San Francisco Bay Area businesses that promise to report and reduce carbon emissions, share the best green practices and advocate for policies to address global warming,

Media giant News Corp. also recently pledged to make its operations carbon neutral by 2010.