By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

Palm Oil, an ingredient found in most processed food, has been the subject of much environmental debate in recent years over its role in deforestation. It is commonly found in cooking oil and as an ingredient in cosmetics, soaps, detergents, and some plastics. Palm oil also has been considered for use in the production of biodiesel.

There have been many attempts to make palm oil sustainable. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was even established in 2003 to do just that. Unfortunately, six years later, there is still no system that can effectively trace palm oil beyond the processor to the plantation level. Companies that manufacture products using palm oil have little way of knowing where the controversial substance originated — which leaves the question of whether and to what degree palm oil is sustainably farmed up in the air.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Just in time for the new school year, an environmental watchdog group has issued a report card on paper retailers with forest-friendly policies.

ForestEthics, a Canadian-US non-profit founded in 2000, and the Dogwood Alliance, a defender of Southern US forests based in Asheville, N.C., collaborated on the third annual Green Grades report, which placed FedEx Office and Office Depot at the top of their class.

FedEx Office received an A- and Office Depot a B. Staples got a B- and Office Max a C in the group’s evaluation of the office retail sector.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Underwriters Laboratories, whose UL symbol has long been a stamp of approval indicating product safety, has validated its first green product. Serious Materials’ new drywall product EcoRock is the first product to be validated by UL Environment since it launched in January.

UL Environment is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northbrook, Ill.-based UL, the 115-year-old company known for its product safety testing services. UL Environment will offer Environmental Claims Validation, a service testing and verifying manufacturers’ self-declared environmental claims, and Sustainable Products Certification, a service testing and certifying products to accepted industry standards for environmental sustainability.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The economy is in the tank. But green consumers haven’t tossed in their organic cotton towels.

A survey out today reports that 34 percent of Americans say they are more likely to buy environmentally responsible products today than they were a year ago. Another 44 percent say their environmental shopping habits have not changed as a result of the economy.

The Cone Consumer Environmental Survey concludes that Americans interest in preserving the environment is not getting washed away by economic worries.

Among the other findings:

• 35 percent of Americans have higher expectations for companies to make and sell environmentally responsible products and services during the economic downturn

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

This just in from the inaugural Greenwashing Forum in Portland: Four out of five people say they’re still buying green products, even in the midst of the U.S. recession, according to a new opinion poll.

And they thought we were clinging to our guns and religion out here in the hinterlands!

The study, commissioned by Green Seal, a green certifier, and EnviroMedia Social Marketing, which founded the Greenwashing Index, looked at opinions and green behaviors.

It found that:

• About 50 percent of the 1,000 people survey say they are buying just as many green products now as before the economic downturn

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Green Depot, a Brooklyn-based supplier of environmentally sensitive building products and household products is extending its reach with a new flagship store in Manhattan.

The depot’s new uptown presence, at 222 Bowery, is set to open on Feb. 12, with 3,500 square feet of retail space featuring products such as cork and bamboo flooring, air and water filtration systems and low VOC paints that can be sampled a “paint bar”.

The new store will have a special section featuring new innovations on the market and another area devoted to helping parents create an eco-friendly, healthful environment for their children.

Browsers beware, you’ll need to remain alert: products will be displayed with eco-report cards, part of the store’s proprietary “icon” labeling system, that are designed to educate consumers. The labels explain how and why a product is green, assessing it in the areas of air quality, conservation, energy use, local origins and responsibility.

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By John DeFore

For a movie that explicitly addresses the perils of overconsumption, Pixar’s WALL*E is being used to promote an awful lot of consumer products.

One tie-in in particular is rankling Greenpeace. It seems that the lovable robot’s image has popped up on boxes of Kleenex, a product the activist group has criticized with a “Kleercut” campaign that asserts, “it takes 90 years to grow a box of Kleenex” because the product’s manufacturer Kimberly-Clark “all but refuses to use recycled paper in its products.” (Among other things, they’re trying to get parents and teachers to reject the company’s tissues in classrooms.)

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strong> By John DeFore

The Federal Trade Commission met in Washington on Tuesday with the aim of speeding up its efforts to regulate green marketing claims. Motivated largely by the rapid expansion of firms selling carbon-offsets, renewable energy certificates (such as those assuring buyers that they’re investing in new eco-friendly power plants), and the like, the FTC’s main goal is to make sure consumers know exactly what they’re buying.

The FTC and invited experts are looking at items such as airline offers that charge an optional fee to offset the ecological impact of a flight and a credit cards advertising “points” of renewable energy as a reward for each dollar spent.

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