An investment company headed by Nobel Prize winner Al Gore has reportedly closed a new $683m fund for investing in green start up businesses, and VC giant KPCB launches a $500m Green Fund.

Companies such as Nike, Google, Anheuser-Busch and Levi Strauss have taken strides in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and communicating those efforts in ways that are transparent to consumers, according to the second Climate Counts Company Scorecard released today.

Shoppers at Tesco supermarkets can now see the carbon footprint of certain items just by checking the label.

The National Milk Producers Federation, International Dairy Foods Association and Dairy Management Inc. will team to address sustainability within the dairy supply chain of producers, processors, manufacturers, retailers and distributors.

Cost is the perennial barrier to green corporate investments in energy efficiency, but a new approach from Economist Jerry Jackson, the author of "Energy Budgets at Risk," can help companies evaluate these expenditures using tools created by the financial industry.

The benefits of leasing transactions for roof-mounted systems are growing because installation costs are becoming more attractive, due in part to various state rebate programs and the increasing cost of electrical energy.

Say what you will about Shai Agassi, but no one will accuse him of thinking small. Agassi, who recently turned 40, has never worked in the energy industry or the automobile business. But he's trying to turn both industries upside down by getting the world to embrace electric cars. And he is making surprising progress.

The Carbon Disclosure Project queried suppliers about what emissions they report and if they feel greenhouse gas regulations and climate change will impact their operations.

The utility company will ask its suppliers to provide hard data on their greenhouse gas emissions as part of its membership in the Carbon Disclosure Project's Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration; it is the first U.S. utility company to join the group.

The co-generation facility put the papermaker on the path of using 100 percent renewable energy to power the operations of its Southern Ohio location. The company also will sell excess power to the state’s grid, as well as generate carbon credits.

Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance look at where the voluntary carbon market is at and how it got there.

Millipore Corp. unveiled a goal on Wednesday to reduce its carbon footprint by 20 percent during the next five years. The initiative will take aim at the its consumption of non-renewable resources and production of waste, as well as introduce programs that will foster behavioral changes conducive to environmental sustainability.

Despite a steady transformation of business attitudes on climate change, businesses have been relatively slow to address one global warming challenge: adaptation to the physical impacts of climate change. A new report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change offers a screening process companies can use to assess climate-related physical risks.

New research from Sun Microsystems aims to allow firms to measure the carbon footprint of their emails.

With the purchase of 500 new vehicles, the company will continue to grow its alt-fuel fleet, already the largest private fleet in the industry.

The European Commission has identified three areas of the economy that can be improved through the use of efficient Information and Communications Technologies.

These days, green marketers are challenged to efficiently reach consumers and effectively impact their attitudes and behaviors. There are many reasons for this of course: consumer attitudes are still evolving, familiarity with green products is just emerging and purchase behavior is inconsistent within and across categories. As such, marketers tend to look for targetable demographic groups or behaviors that have a higher propensity for green.

The second annual Green Business Conference takes place in Chicago this month; in advance of the gathering GreenBiz Radio sat down with Denise Hamler, director of Co-Op America's green business programs, to learn how the world of green business has grown.

A look at where the global carbon markets were in 2007, what drove their growth and what is expected to happen in the coming years.

Two reports look at the global voluntary and mandatory carbon markets, seeing where growth happened, why and what is in store in the future.

Climate change poses a serious threat to the continuity and prosperity of organizations, but there are ways to be prepared.

A cornerstone of the market for Renewable Energy Certificates is the knowledge that RECs have passed muster with independent verifiers like San Francisco-based Green-e. But now that a certified company has fallen out of compliance, Green-e is in the position of having to play hardball to maintain the market's credibility.

By joining the voluntary North American CO2 reporting group, the company has committed to measuring, reporting and independently verifying its greenhouse gas emissions for its facilities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

As a reporter covering business and the environment, I don’t want to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. We should cheer, or at least politely applaud, the small changes that companies make to lighten their environmental footprint. But we ought not to fool ourselves into believing that incremental change is adequate to the tasks ahead—of slowing down climate change, dealing with water issues, or eventually making our economy sustainable.

Yet another lively week in the world of green business brought these headlines—Climate Counts ranks consumer companies (again) on global warming practices, the trucking industry slows down and Goldman Sachs banker Mark Tercek takes the helm of The Nature Conservancy. My reactions: