Ever found it odd that, generally, you have to pay for recycling service? After all, the materials you place in those blue bins are commodities that your recycling service will sell. You might argue that paying people a cut of the revenues generated from the sale of such materials could work better to increase recycling rates (though, in fairness, the prices for such materials are relatively low… though they have been rising).

Philadelphia-based Recyclebank was founded on this concept. While the company doesn’t actually pay people for recycling, it offers a rewards program similar to airline miles or credit card points.

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Quickly: which company is greener? UPS or DHL? Stonyfield Farm or General Mills? Google or News Corp.? You may think all of these are no-brainers, but, in two of the three cases, your perception may not align with reality… at least in terms of action related to climate change. A new study, MapChange 2010, finds that, in many cases, there’s little alignment between real action by a company, and its “green” public perception.

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Sustainability advocates generally love the product service system model because, in theory, it reduces consumption, and provides the owners of the products with incentives to maintain those items for as long as possible. You may associate this business model with movie rental (Netflix) or car-sharing (Zipcar), but the types of products offered on a “rental” model continues to grow: designer handbags and dresses, for instance, are now available in this manner.

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It doesn’t have much to do with love or sex, but it being New Year’s Eve and all we couldn’t resist pointing out art director Phillip Niemeyer’s “op-chart” from Sunday’s New York Times called “Picturing the Past 10 Years” (especially if you missed fellow Sunfiltered blogger Matthew Rodriguez’s post about it a few days ago). Read each row from left to right and you get a quick graphic recap of the decade’s evolution in one particular area (e.g. business, fads, culture, sports, etc.) OR read each column from top to bottom and get a recap of one entire year (e.g. the 2002 zeitgeist was defined by flag pins, Guantanamo, Craigslist, the D.C. snipers, Al Jazeera, the New England Patriots, American Idol, collagen injections, HBO’s “The Sopranos,” and “freedom fries”). It’s an interesting and immediate way to be reminded of the past ten years — the mistakes we’ve made, the innovations that have changed the way we live, the things we now take for granted, the celebrity gossip we wasted our time on, the things we’ll never forget, the things we’ve already forgotten.

Like many schools, the University of Florida has developed a number of programs and efforts to produce and promote renewable energy. Mechanical and aerospace engineering major Eric Layton saw an opportunity to learn in a proposed biodiesel plant, and threw himself into the project whole-heartedly: according to the Gainesville Sun, “He helped build and maintain the plant and served as the coordinator for more than 50 volunteers who learned about plant management and operations.” He even received an award for his efforts.

And then, last Spring, the funding ran out.

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Somebody must have done this before. There’s got to be a 1978 calendar buried in someone’s basement  somewhere featuring topless guys in tight pants with lush mustaches and fluffy wittle kittens. But we’ve never seen it. So we’re kind of getting a kick out of Hot Guys and Baby Animals, the new Recess Peanut Butter Cup of the novelty gift industry. Their first product is a 2010 calendar – a portion of the proceeds go to various nonprofit animal rescues, including Bunny World Foundation and Karma Rescue. Apparently, every baby animal in the calendar is a rescue and many of them still need homes (though at least one male model — “Mr. March” — ended up adopting one of the dogs from the shoot, aaaaaawwww). See some behind the scenes stuff here. There should still be enough time to get one for your mom for Christmas.

MORE FROM EM & LO:

• The 10 Most Romantic Holiday Movies
• A Holiday Gift Guide for Broke Perverts
• What’s a Good Gift for a Guy?

Ray Anderson’s epiphany about his own role in environmental destruction after reading Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce has taken on mythic status in the fifteen years since. The “spear in the chest moment” he experienced transformed Anderson into a leader in sustainable thought and practice within American industry, and his company, Interface, Inc. (which manufacture modular floor covering primarily for business and institutional customers) is now recognized as a model of transformation. Named a “Hero of the Planet” by Time magazine in 2007, Anderson is constantly sought out for speeches, interviews, and even documentary film appearances (THE CORPORATION, and the new SO RIGHT SO SMART)

In September, Anderson (with Robin White) published his second book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Planet — Doing Business by Respecting the Earth. This wide-ranging work not only tells Interface’s story in detail, but also provides a blueprint for how a large, well-established company can literally reinvent itself as both a profitable enterprise and a business that learns to operate in harmony with natural systems.

The word “confessions” in the title is very appropriate: Anderson is very frank about Interface’s successes and setbacks in its climb up “Mt. Sustainability” (a phrase he coined). He also discusses the efforts of other companies, and makes bold, and hopeful, cases for environmental and social responsibility as pillars of successful business strategy in the 21st century. The book is an engaging and thoughtful read for business people, environmental activists, and consumers concerned about the impact of industry on the planet’s future.

I spoke with Anderson on the phone on Wednesday, November 4, 2009.

So much of Interface’s success in “climbing Mt. Sustainability” seems based in really common-sense approaches to design, manufacturing, and distribution. We Americans generally regard ourselves as practical, efficient, etc., yet we encounter such strong resistance on numerous fronts to these kinds of changes… they really seem to scare some people. In your experience, what’s the best way to approach this resistance to new ideas?

It requires a considerable amount of patience, and also persistence. I know in bringing our people along, it was one mind at a time. It’s not something you could dictate, and everyone accepted immediately. Or, it’s not something you can dictate and everybody ever accepted, for that matter. It’s one mind at a time.

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What were you thinking about on September 16, 2008? Green business ideas probably weren’t at the top of the list… September 15 was the day that Lehman Brothers went belly up, and you were probably more focused on your portfolio and savings. As such, Tim Sanders’ book Saving the World at Work (released on — you guessed it — September 16) got buried under talk of a second Great Depression.

Sanders and publisher Doubleday decided to give the book another go, and relaunched it on September 16th of this year. I’m glad they did: while the title led me to believe I was going to be reading another “how to” book on greening the workplace (which is not a bad thing), Sanders goes well beyond tips on saving paper and electricity.

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If you take a look at the current season for Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company, none of the plays should strike you as particularly “green.” Yet on September 29, Aurora became the first professional residential theater company in the Bay Area to be certified as a green business by the Alameda County Green Business Program and the Bay Area Green Business Program. The Company accomplished this not by staging plays on climate change and recycling, but by implementing some major changes in operations, including:

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Carpooling is a great way to cut both your transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, and your gasoline spending. You probably associate it most with commuting to and from work: a few co-workers get together and agree to share costs (and the headaches of driving in rush hour traffic). But what about trips into town for a museum visit, or a ballgame, or shopping?

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Bottled water contributes to a host of environmental challenges — you know that. But, let’s face it — bottled water is also incredibly convenient, especially if you’re on the go a lot. A refillable bottle is environmentally preferable, but if you’re out and about, and run out of water, you may also find yourself out of luck in terms of refilling it.

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