Google, IBM, Nike Make List Of Businesses Bettering The Planet

Plenty Magazine awards 20 businesses for bettering the planet in innovative ways:

A123 System – for making a nanotech breakthrough with a battery that charges faster, holds more power, and is safer than other batteries.

Applied Materials – for repurposing its nanomanufacturing technology to create the largest thin-film solar cells in the world.

Arup – for bringing the latest ideas in sustainability to the construction industry.

Bon Appétit Management Company – for purchasing food according to deep-green principles, such as direct purchasing from farmers and artisans located within 150 miles of where each meal is.

Coskata – for converting tires and glass, as well as municipal and agricultural waste, into fuel.

Environmental Working Group – for campaigns pushing cosmetics to be more eco-friendly. Such as their Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which has made more than 600 companies pledge to replace hazardous chemicals in their products.

Forest Stewardship Council – for providing green stamps of approval.

Google – for investing hundreds of millions of dollars to find a clean, low-cost form of energy.

Home Depot – for demanding fair-labor and eco-friendly practices of its suppliers.

Iberdrola – for being the largest renewable energy operator in the world, and investing $8 billion in renewable energy, mainly wind power, in the U.S. in the next two years.

IBM – for exploring ways to make the entire energy grid smarter, so companies can measure and charge for energy usage more accurately.

Innovest Strategic Value Advisors – for placing emphasis on companies’ environmental, social, and governance issues when investing.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – for providing a scientific basis with which to frame the climate change issue.

Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams – for their eco-designs in upholstery, such as using regenerated fibers and soy-based biomaterials in seat cushions; and using responsibly sourced wood in its furniture.

Nike – for launching eco-products and setting goals for reducing toxic and wastes in its products.

Patagonia – for launching the Footprint Chronicles, a Web site which discloses the eco-impacts of its products.

Pizza Fusion – for using organic, locally-sourced ingredients to make its pizzas, and offering incentives to get customers to bring pizza boxes back.

RecycleBank – for offering recycling incentives by rewarding dollars for the weight recycled.

Swiss Re – for buying certified emission reductions and verified emission reductions to make itself greenhouse neutral.

TransFair USA – for adding flowers and honey to its list of certified products this year.

Here’s a look at last year’s Plenty 20.