greenwashing

For some time, investors who wanted to put their money where their morals were have chosen socially responsible investing -- steering their cash away from firms whose practices they disapproved of. Now comes impact investing, which uses invested funds to solve social or environmental goals and earn competitive returns, too.

It's called waving a "false flag," using a green-sounding name on an anti-environmental organization. Most of these groups do (or did, many have fleeting existences) exactly the opposite of what their name implies. If it's the "Land Conservation Coalition," it may have been born in the back room...

I'm sure you could create your own similar list from products you've bought with high hopes but then experienced disappointment. These are five that make green claims they're unlikely to realize: 1. Designer waters. Regular bottled water is bad enough, but when it goes upscale -- that's when it...

At some point in the mid-1980s, a pony-tailed upstate New York environmental activist named Jay Westerveld picked up a card in a South Pacific hotel room and read the following: "Save Our Planet: Every day, millions of gallons of water are used to wash towels that have only been used once. You make...

Coming soon to a store near you: Lip balms, cleaning supplies and other products bearing a new green stamp of approval from the federal government. The U.S. Department of Agriculture hopes its awkwardly-termed new ecolabel -- "USDA Certified Biobased Product" -- will steer you to buy these products...

Did you know that fur is green? I hadn't heard it either, but then I visited the Fur Council of Canada's "Fur is Green" website and was set straight. "Like leather, suede and shearling, fur is a natural product, a true gift of nature," it says. "At a time when we are all trying to be conscious of...

The W Hotel in San Francisco is without doubt one of the greenest hotels in America. It won a 2008 "Good Earthkeeping Award," and in April was awarded Silver LEED status, making it "the first LEED certification of an existing building belonging to a major hotel brand." Here are a few hotel...

The people who help bring you Domino Sugar, C&H sugar and Jack Frost have carved out a successful green niche with Florida Crystals' natural sugar and organic sugar, "sustaining the environment" and being "sweet to Mother Nature," according to the product web site. But critics say the wealthy...

Many companies and products claim to be green. But what does that actually mean? In some cases, labels can be misleading. As "greenwashing" increases, so does the need for greater consumer awareness.

This is a story about bags, but it's not the same old "paper vs. plastic." To understand the twists and turns here, a few words about the electric grid are necessary. The electricity from wind farms and solar "groves" is usually uploaded to the grid, where it joins the vast sea of other electrons...