One company’s approach to doing business in a healthy and environmentally sound way.

“Effective today, DreamHost is now a carbon-neutral company. That’s awesome! But what does it mean?… It means a few things, actually! It means we’ve calculated our carbon footprint. Our footprint represents the impact of everything that DreamHost uses and leaves behind in the course of our daily work. All of the resources that we use - paper in the office, electricity for our 1300+ servers, even the gas in our cars that bring us to the office - leaves behind some kind of soul-sucking residue in the world.”

“We in America talk like we’re already “the greenest generation,” as the business writer Dan Pink once called it. But here’s the really inconvenient truth: We have not even begun to be serious about the costs, the effort and the scale of change that will be required to shift our country, and eventually the world, to a largely emissions-free energy infrastructure over the next 50 years.”

Real customer service: “The very first order I got was from a store called Lassen’s Market. Lassen’s ordered one case of this product I sell. So, I put the product in my electric car, and drove it the 35 miles to their store. The guy who signed for it, a really nice guy, was a little shocked to see me, but he signed for it, and I left. When I got home from the trip, there was a message from my broker asking ‘What did you just do?’ I told him ‘I dropped the product off. You said they ordered it, so I took it to them.’ He said, ‘They just called, and were so amazed that you brought the product to them that they want to order four more cases!’ I told him, ‘OK, whatever you say,’ and so I drove back again.”

“We love Apple. Apple knows more about ‘clean’ design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have abandoned? A cutting edge company shouldn’t be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That’s why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple.”

“Some notes on a presentation by Thomas Friedman, who I’ve somehow managed to unconsciously steer clear of. (Doesn’t help that his stuff is behind the NY Times paywall. If he really wanted to make the impact on this green stuff, he’d get the Times to move that stuff out in the open so us proles can link to it and discuss it.) Here’s Friedman’s five reasons why ‘this is not your father’s energy crisis’ (ie the 1970s)…”

“President Bush is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming, senior Washington sources say. After years of trying to sabotage agreements to tackle climate change he is drawing up plans to control emissions of carbon dioxide and rapidly boost the use of renewable energy sources.”

“Following last week’s report on green companies, here’s a list of five that have either present or past complaints against them.”

Blatant self-promotion: Attention St. Louisans — your humble bBlog and xBlog editor (that would be me, Bill Keaggy) is having an exhibit at the Center of Contemporary Arts in St. Louis, Missouri. The opening is tonight, Friday, April 14 from 6-8 p.m., for Junk Science | Projects by Bill Keaggy: Found objects, trash photography, strange collections and accidental art. If you are able, please stop by and say hi. COCA is at 524 Trinity in the U City area. There will be free wine and you can even enter for a chance to win a free piece from the exhibit, or a cool poster. Hope to see some of you local bBlog readers and friends of XPLANE there!

“From the San Jose Mercury News, a report on venture capital honchos John Doerr and John Denniston’s push for investment in clean and green technology at last week’s Cleantech Venture Network conference…”

“Much of the used computer equipment sent from the United States to developing countries for use in homes, schools and businesses is often neither usable nor repairable, creating enormous environmental problems in some of the world’s poorest places, according to a report to be issued today by an environmental organization.”