Mindy S. Lubber's Climate Chronicles

Why would a new Ceres report give low scores to Whole Foods, one of the nation's largest purchasers of renewable energy, for the way it is responding to the challenge of climate change?

Precisely for the word that Whole Foods uses to describe itself: "whole."

Many of the company's actions on climate change are laudable, but it still lacks a holistic strategy for
dealing with this colossal challenge that will ripple across all industry sectors. While it is encouraging that Whole Foods is buying wind-based renewable energy certificates to power all of its stores, it is discouraging that the company has not measured its overall greenhouse gas emissions or set targets to reduce those emissions. The company has also done relatively little to improve energy efficiency or promote products with lower carbon footprints.

Apple received a low score in our climate governance report for many of the same reasons. Yes, the company deserves kudos for its first-in-the-industry report in October disclosing the energy and carbon footprint for each of its main product lines. (Apple lovers take heart: the Mac mini uses less than half the energy of a typical light bulb, making it one of the world's most energy efficient desktop computers.)

As we headed to the polls, the economy, the environment and our collective common sense told us the old ways were not working. The stumbling financial markets show the consequences of unfettered pursuit of profits in a system that has no debits on the ledger for environmental degradation and no credits for a social conscience. The troubled climate is bringing home the cost of fouling the air and abusing fragile ecosystems. And inequitable use of resources is widening the gap between rich and poor.

The short-term blowback from the global financial panic has been pretty logical: A flight to value and safety and reallocation of assets to deal with longer-term risks of the new economy. So what does this mean for cleantech investing?

If we have any doubt about the prevalence - and cost - of "short-termism" in global capital markets, the current economic meltdown is an obvious reminder. But, beyond the $700 billion bailout and other financial band-aids to stop the bleeding, the bigger debate is how to fix the regulatory and corporate governance systems to avoid future calamities -- whether financial or environmental.

A critical question is to whom companies should be most beholden to -- shareholders or society.

The fiscal crisis on Wall Street is a painful lesson in how entire industries can delude themselves into ignoring the most fundamental issues -- in this case, the hidden risks from easy sub-prime mortgages. It also reveals the vast pitfalls of an economic system obsessed with short-term gains and growth at all costs while ignoring essentials such as building long-term shareholder value and protecting the future of the planet.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has a major role to play in addressing climate change.

While that may surprise some, leading institutional investors have already reached that conclusion. That’s why leading investors managing more than $700 billion in assets sent a letter this week to the SEC asking it to require oil and gas companies to provide better disclosure in their 10-K filings about their potential liabilities associated with climate change.

The Wall Street Journal may not like T. Boone Pickens' clean energy plan, but it has a lot of merit. What Pickens sees -- and the WSJ ignores -- is that our oil-driven global economy is stretched to the limit and is likely not sustainable.

A telling indicator is an enormous oil-extraction project in Alberta, Canada -- an enormous energy-intensive, financially questionable undertaking that oil companies are now treating as the next great oil bonanza.

Warning to U.S. companies: Just because national lawmakers are dawdling on global warming, don't think your business can dawdle, too.

While U.S. policymakers are running in place on climate change, global investors are moving quickly to make money from its far-reaching risks and opportunities. One Wall Street firm is calling climate change the "next global mega-trend," after the opening of the Iron Curtain and the Internet revolution. Despite losses from the subprime debacle, European and US investment firms are ramping up their global warming research, trading desks, investments strategies and capital.