Of the 310 million people in the US, almost all of them have watched TV, spoken on a cell phone, or typed on a keyboard, and the rest of the world is catching up quickly. The 6.8 billion people on Earth are linked to roughly four billion cell phones. That’s a lot of texting, talking and surfing that wasn’t even thought about twenty years ago. But cell phones aren’t the only piece in this societal shift. The past four years were full of indications of the pace at which the entire electronics industry is affecting our lives.

Every cell phone, mp3 player, and TV requires plastics which derive from fossil fuels, metals extracted from the earth with great impact, and incredible amounts of cardboard and plastic packaging. And the companies pushing out these products are anything but oblivious to the impacts they’re having on climate change. But how does a consumer who cares about climate change, know the difference between IBM and Apple or HP and Dell? How do these companies compare in their commitments to climate action?

At Climate Counts, we track many of the world’s largest consumer-facing companies on their climate action (or inaction). By using only public information in our 0–100 point scorecard, Climate Counts exists as a lever to drive greater corporate transparency so that climate-conscious consumers can see the true climate action of the brands they buy. Specifically, we look at whether or not companies are reviewing and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, the positions they’re taking on climate and energy legislation, and their clarity in reporting climate information.

Even amidst all of this positive news, we’re still looking at astronomical amounts of waste from an $822 billion industry that is constantly rushing to beat out its competitor to the newest sleekest gadget. Compare that number to the 2.3 million employees in the electronics industry, the countless number of smaller companies supplying parts, the number of trips to ship products across the globe, the amount of energy used to mine the conductive metals and you’re staring at an industry capable of changing our climate all on its own. Overwhelming, to say the least.

Now step back and imagine what would happen to this entire system if we decided to base our consumer choices on corporate climate action. Imagine if these twelve companies committed to educating their 2.3 million employees about climate change. Imagine if they dedicated their $822 billion in revenue to onsite renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Imagine if they gave every one of the thousands of companies supplying metals, plastics, and transportation for their products a choice: Address your climate impacts, or we’ll find other companies to do business with.

Feeling inspired? Now imagine if you could tell all of these companies directly via a two-click email or Twitter message that corporate climate action matters and you’re paying attention to the climate steps companies are taking before you buy their products. Would companies then take action in order to protect their brand reputation? Absolutely.

This year before you start your back-to-school shopping for cell phones, computers and MP3 players, help bring our planet Back-2-Cool. Find out who’s behind the products you’re buying and let them know that “Climate Counts.”

Mark Harrison is the Campaign Coordinator at ClimateCounts.org, he is currently running Back-2-Cool, a campaign focused on alerting consumers about the climate actions (or inactions) of the companies behind back-to-school shopping ads. Back-2-Cool is supported by these great organizations:

Teens Turning Green - Green Music Group - 350.org - Kids vs Global Warming - DoSomething - Alliance for Climate Education

Most of us start our days the same way. We smack our alarm clock, wish it were Saturday, and get dressed. The scary thing is, the clothes we wear today reflect the votes we make for or against our climate’s future.

Every purchasing decision we make is a vote. Think about the number of socks, underwear, t-shirts, and jeans you’ve purchased over the years. If you are a parent, think about how many times your kids have tapped into your wallet for those same items. The numbers are staggering. MSN Money estimates that the average-income, dual-parent household, will spend over $170,000 on toys, education, food and clothes on a child from the time she is born until 17 years of age. In 2010, it is estimated that the average two-child family will spend over $1,200 on back-to-school shopping alone. Multiply this by the number of US families, and we’re looking at billions of dollars of revenue for clothing companies.

Amidst this segment of annual consumption cycle, two things are happening: first, kids are being told by huge corporations what is cool and green before going back-to-school shopping, and second, our planet is getting warmer – significantly in fact. Last year, NASA determined that the previous decade was the warmest on record, with 2005 the hottest year in recorded history, and it’s a record well on its way to being broken. According to the National Climate Data Center, we just experienced the warmest April, May and June on record. All of our driving, eating, flying, and shopping is having an impact on our climate. Feeling guilty? Hang in there — it gets worse before it gets better.

The bad news. Even if we scale back as much as possible and try to remove ourselves from the cycle of consumption, we’re still living on a warming planet. We can’t stop the greenhouse gases emitted in previous decades from trapping more heat.

The good news. We cast votes every day for our future. Every pair of shoes, every shirt, every dress, every hat is a choice, choices that can be turned into votes for climate action and yes, maybe even revived interest from Congress in moving on climate legislation that will ease the management of greenhouse gas emissions for businesses and communities.

Companies track our consumer choices and then live or die by the money we spend. If we as conscious consumers really care about climate change and sustainability, we’ll pay attention to the climate actions (or inactions) of companies and make more informed choices.

Climate-conscious consumers will take heed of companies like Timberland and REI which have shown self-motivated commitment to engaging consumers on the ways they are trying to tackle climate change (both are charter members of Climate Counts’ Industry Innovators program). They’ll notice Timberland’s climate nutrition label which outlines the environmental impacts of a products packaging, chemicals, and the amount of renewable energy used to manufacture their products. They’ll notice REI’s investment of over 860 kilowatts of on-site energy generation. And, they’ll flex their consumer muscles by telling VF Corporation (parent company of The North Face, Nautica, Wrangler and more) they appreciate it’s finally gotten the message that corporate climate action matters.

Before you start spending on back-to-school clothes this year, think about where your dollars are going and tell those companies you’re paying attention to their climate change actions…if you say something, they’ll listen.

Mark Harrison is the Campaign Coordinator at ClimateCounts.org, he is currently running Back-2-Cool, a campaign focused on alerting consumers about the climate actions (or inactions) of the companies behind back-to-school shopping ads. Back-2-Cool is supported by these great organizations:

Teens Turning Green - Green Music Group - 350.org - Kids vs Global Warming - DoSomething - Alliance for Climate Education

As the summer heat breaks and you begin to gear up for the 2010-2011 school year, what do you know about the companies that get all your back-to-school shopping dollars? Which ones are actually working to bring our planet Back-2-Cool? In 2008, the top 100 brands spent over $100 billion dollars on US advertising alone, and the back-to-school season was second only to the holiday season in revenue generated (US Census Bureau). Companies use these advertising dollars to promote products that require energy, packaging and transportation – all of which contribute to climate change. The question is, what can you do to affect the way these companies do business and help bring our planet Back-2-Cool (B2C)?

The answer: Become an engaged climate-conscious consumer and find out what these companies are actually doing (or not doing) about climate change. If these companies truly want your attention and your money, shouldn’t they know how much you care about the climate crisis?

Of course they should. But you have to tell them. Join the Climate Counts Back-2-Cool Campaign as we shift the back-to-school momentum away from business as usual and towards strengthening corporate climate action.

Over the next ten weeks, Climate Counts will take a close look at the Back-to-School ads from scored companies in the Apparel, Electronics, Food Products, and Internet/Software sectors (which combined had over $1.2 trillion in 2009 revenues). The goal of the campaign is simple: to inform you about the climate action (or inaction) of the companies behind the ads, encourage you to make informed choices, and finally, urge you to raise your voices both to the companies and to your friends.

If you want to tell companies that you believe corporate climate action matters, be part of the B2C Campaign and help us change business as usual! Please join us at Back-2-Cool.

Mark Harrison is the Campaign Coordinator at ClimateCounts.org and can be reached at mharrison@climatecounts.org.

Join our campaign here and follow our campaign on facebook & twitter!

B2C Campaign is supported by these great organizations:

Teens Turning Green - Green Music Group - 350.org - Kids vs Global Warming - DoSomething - Alliance for Climate Education

Are CEOs greener than we think? And if it’s true, what’s holding them back from moving the market towards a sustainable future? In a recent survey conducted by Accenture and the United Nations Global Compact, 93% of nearly 800 CEOs saw sustainability as important to their company’s future success and 81% stated that sustainability issues are now fully embedded into the company’s strategy and operations. Compare that to the mere 50% in 2007 and it doesn’t take much to realize sustainability is being talked about in board meetings.

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But what’s driving this eco-shift in the corporate mindset? The answer is actually quite simple: You. 58% of CEOs identified consumers as the single most important factor driving sustainable business. That’s right, you, the climate-conscious consumer, are driving this marketplace revolution, beating out company employees (45%) and governments (39%).

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As the greatest driving force behind corporate climate action, your consumer choices and voices are felt in revenue streams and heard in corporate board rooms worldwide. Companies spend millions of dollars fine-tuning their brand perception to match consumer wants and needs. 72% of CEOs identified strengthening brand, trust and reputation as the strongest motivator for taking action on sustainability issues. Yet, a disparity exists between the actual sustainable activity of brands, and consumers’ sustainable perception of brands. So how can climate-conscious consumers fix this? Easy. Say something.

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In order to keep these CEOs on their toes, consumers must exercise their muscles and let CEOs know that “climate counts.” Visit www.climatecounts.org to email and tweet companies directly and have your messages land on the table in the next board meeting.

Follow our work on Facebook and Twitter and share our work with your friends.

The devastating and escalating events in the Gulf of Mexico underscore an amazing collection of problems: reliance on polluting energy, absence of a coherent national energy plan, the problems with lax government oversight, and dozens of others. Perhaps most clearly, it shows the gulf we should have seen years ago between the image of BP and the reality of BP.

This spiraling disaster might literally have never happened if BP had made a real and deep commitment to changing more than its logo. Almost 10 years ago, BP – the largest corporation in the UK – spent an extraordinary amount of money and resources on a now infamous rebranding effort ($125 million a year, according to the New York Times) to show its commitment to a world “beyond petroleum.” Branding experts would certainly argue it was money well-spent; for a time, the company became emblematic of the environmental transformation that could occur even within the largest of the world’s businesses and of the ROI that could result when the marketplace rewarded those changes.

Consumers were promised a cultural shift and, to a large degree, bought it. The company was going to remake itself. It was going to become a very high-profile example of how a company with the resources and know-how to profit from 19th-century energy solutions was perfectly positioned to do the same in a 21st century where the realities had changed. The company could be a leader in renewable energy and even transition away from the business of oil extraction. The company could even be positive voice for corporate climate action from an industry sector with a vested interest in increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

It was all a façade.

Unfortunately, the BP case illustrates a glaring example of the disconnect between cynical rebranding efforts designed to shore up the dollars of a growing and loyal green consumer segment and the cold, hard realities of global business. Consumers didn’t get the culture shift they thought they were buying. It’s now clear they saw a company paying the worst kind of lip service to sustainability — while still polluting heavily, while still profiting from the extraction of fossil fuels, while still cutting major corners on safety, while still promising the moon to communities where they did business, while still pouring huge dollars into political campaigns and lobbying designed to win powerful friends of fossil fuel expansion in Congress and in statehouses around the country. BP had played a game of smoke and mirrors. There was no corporate culture shift in “beyond petroleum.” It was cultural disdain. Essentially, the company said, “Who needs to invest in 21st century solutions when people will give us credit whether we’re really leading or not?” The company realized the consumer could be hoodwinked into not asking the hard questions.

When a disaster like this happens, it’s sometimes reassuring to try to find the potential good that can come from it. There is more and more evidence that neither the White House nor the Congress will be using this disaster to issue the necessary clarion call for the new energy future we so desperately need. If we’re lucky, maybe the impact will be largest in deepening both consumer savvy and consumer scrutiny of corporations so that their programs to “go green” have both measurable depth and staying power. Otherwise, we’ll never be far away from being duped again.

Quick note: As an organization annually scoring well-known companies on their efforts to address climate change, Climate Counts made the conscious decision when we launched in 2007 to NOT to score oil & gas companies and automobile manufacturers. In trying to help consumers make more climate-conscious choices when they spend their money, it seemed almost absurd to evaluate companies that had such an inherently profound impact on the climate crisis. Would it really be reasonable to suggest to a consumer, as they drive down the road in a vehicle produced by one of the numerous car makers who’ve fought vehemently against increased fuel efficiency standards, that they are truly more responsible by choosing to buy gasoline from Shell vs ExxonMobil vs Chevron vs ConocoPhillips vs….BP? We chose to opt out of that fool’s errand.

Wood Turner is the executive director of Climate Counts and the founder of the Climate Counts Industry Innovators program.

Earth Day is coming, and with it, hours and hours of “green” television programming and print media coverage. People who hardly give the environment a thought all year will be “Green Watching” programs – and advertisements – about how to be more environmentally responsible. In the past, I always thought of this heightened awareness as a good thing. The added programming draws broader attention to serious environmental problems like the climate crisis, and I firmly believe an educated public is critical to generating strong climate action throughout society.

However this Earth Day I think it’s important to ask: At what point does “Green Watching” become a form of greenwashing? Should media companies lead by example on corporate climate and environmental action or because of their importance in educating the public is talk enough?

Green Watching can get complicated.

Obviously, media companies (like all companies) are in business to make money. In 2009, the six major media companies Climate Counts scored brought in well over $300 billion dollars in revenue. It’s safe to assume that making money is somewhere behind the creation of all Earth Day, Week, and Month programming; if it was all altruism, there wouldn’t be hours of mostly-mindless commercials. Second, I think we all understand that a network’s brand is a critical part of how it builds an audience (and increases ad revenue). Network brands are becoming increasingly important as people have more information and entertainment options. A network that does environmental programming during Earth Week is trying to brand itself in a certain way.  Yet even if the motivation is profit and the strength of a brand, media companies do have a big impact on both the political debate and in setting cultural and societal norms.

So, how can we as consumers be informed Green Watchers?

The first is to know what commitment these companies have made to addressing climate change. But the facts will blow your mind.

Based on our latest round of scoring (released in November 2009), notoriously conservative News Corporation was near the top of green-committed media companies, with 68 points out of a possible 100. Notoriously hip Viacom (the parent of MTV, BET, Comedy Central, and VH1), however, was not only among the lowest in the media sector with just  three points, but among the lowest of nearly 150 companies scored in 16 major sectors.

You read that right. The company that owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal is doing more to reduce its own climate impact than the company that is watched by the young, edgy, and culturally dialed-in. Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity work for the company doing more on the corporate side to address the climate crisis than the company that gives John Stewart and Stephen Colbert their megaphones. And perhaps what’s most striking is how little improvement Viacom and other low-scoring media companies like CBS and Time Warner have shown in the more than three years since Climate Counts began tracking their performance.

However, in terms of influencing political debates, News Corporation has done as much as anyone to confuse the public on the climate crisis, while Viacom programs like “The Daily Show” and CBS programs like Letterman’s “Late Show” have done much to educate viewers on the dangers of climate change.

But wait, there’s more.

While some of its shows may add depth to the public conversation about climate change, CBS launched an entire “Green Campaign” with the tag line “putting our green where it counts” to do nothing more than promote its Emmy nominated shows. With a score of 13 on our most recent scorecard, CBS has not demonstrated action to match its programming or its self promotion.

Time Warner, known best for news and entertainment divisions like CNN, Time Magazine, and HBO, earns less than a third of the points available on the Climate Counts scorecard for making real efforts to reduce climate pollution. And what is the contribution of media companies to climate change? Let’s start with the sheer number of people who work for or contract with these companies. Indeed, whole cities exist to support the media business. And then consider the energy their equipment, data centers, and facilities use. They’re not refining oil or mining coal, but their impact is not insignificant.

Even Disney, parent company of ABC, ESPN, Pixar and others, while relatively better overall than most of its competitors (47 out of 100 points, up 22 from the previous year), still has a very low score on its efforts to measure its climate pollution (one of the areas we track) and to take responsibility for its enormous supply chain, a massive sphere of influence.

The truth is that “Green Watching” actually isn’t that complicated. People just need to know where these companies stand in all areas of their business—and urge them to improve. If you’re interested in becoming a more active and informed Green Watcher, follow Climate Counts’ new “Green Watching” campaign on Facebook and Twitter.  Next week on and around Earth Day, when all eyes are on the environmental programming of major media companies, help us urge big media companies to talk the talk and walk the walk.

Or are you just going to watch?

Wood Turner is the executive director of the non-profit organization Climate Counts.

Take a look at the Executive Director of Climate Counts explain the importance of green business on NBC.

To learn more about the Industry Innovators Program visit: i2.climatecounts.org

It is often said that the college years are the best years of one’s life. In the ideal setting, the freedom to learn, grow friendships, explore one’s passions and embrace youth all collide in a four-year span to create a sort of responsibility-free utopia. Amidst this collision, a college student may feel detached from the real world, but she is still very clearly a participant in the consumer economy.

The big picture – youth is fleeting, but consumption isn’t.

If you think about it, campuses are communities, marketplaces, learning centers, idea generators, and ultimately, earth shakers. When corporations sell to college campuses, they are not only selling to large academic institutions, they’re directly tapping into future generations of consumers. But too few students realize that they have almost exactly the same opportunity in reverse. They’re not simply one-way receptacles for corporate messages. They can and should learn to talk back to those companies.

It does not take a petition thousands of signatures long or a day when the company switchboard lights up with complaints to make companies listen. Many business leaders will acknowledge it only takes a few dozen messages to bring a consumer or investor concern to a company’s attention. Just think of the impact a fully engaged student body could have. Everyone consumes goods and services, everyone can have a say in how the companies that produce those goods and services operate. But when launched from college campuses, those voices can really resonate.

The choice is yours.

Climate Counts Campus Champions have the power to jumpstart a climate-awareness consumer movement. They can motivate their peers, colleagues and administrators to take action. Climate Counts can serve as a source and a roadmap. With our information and support (nearly 150 companies scored representing over 3,000 brands), Champions can activate climate-conscious consumerism on their campuses and have a direct impact on way companies do business. The attention of college students on public policy related to climate change is critical, but perhaps nothing is more important in changing the trajectory of climate change than changing business as usual.

Mark Harrison coordinates campaigns at Climate Counts. E-mail him about the Climate Counts Campus Champions program at: mharrison@climatecounts.org

Still, even though the decision threatens our direct role in our democracy, the power we have as individuals is incredible. Too often we fail to realize the real power that we can have over the companies that now stand to wield such an excess of influence on our government. So in a kind of roundabout way, we can still engage in our democracy by making it clear to big corporations that big global issues – climate change and climate justice, access to clean drinking water, and poverty and disaster relief, to name a few – truly matter to us.

Every time we shop, we’re voting. Every time we eat, we vote. Every time we watch TV, we vote. The list goes on and on. So why not vote for our future? Corporations know where you shop, they know what you eat, and they know what you watch. Their business revolves around what consumers want or they fail. If we are truly committed to a more sustainable world, we should support companies that are making efforts to reduce their impact on the environment, supporting strong public policy on climate change, and engaging with us openly on their efforts to be good corporate citizens. It actually becomes a quite simple equation. If those companies know we care about the environment and climate change and demonstrate our willingness to reward them for their meaningful action, those companies will naturally become the most outspoken forces for aggressive climate action in their interactions with our government. In short, our money talks and will motivate deep-pocketed corporations to put their money to use for good.

This is all about making lemonade out of the Supreme Court’s ruling. Let’s make it work to the advantage of us, the consumers of the products and services marketed by these “corporate persons.” Let’s put increasing pressure on the world’s most well-known companies – many of them some of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases – to put their money towards the issues that matter to us.

The key is making them realize our support for their businesses is contingent upon how responsive they are to our very real concerns about global challenges like water scarcity, poverty, and, yes, climate change.

Take a look at the 2009 Climate Counts Scores of 20 companies in the Food Products Industry.