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CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with Gary Hirshberg, CEO of organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm, and author of Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World. Hirshberg believes that business is a necessary force for creating a sustainable economy and society, as outlined in his book. Yet he admits that business is a primary cause of our current unsustainable economy, a seeming contradiction that he explains in our conversation.

Stonyfield Farm

Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World

—Chevron Donates $2 m in Disaster Relief to Burma but New Report Charges the Company with Abetting Human Rights Abuses
—Military Contractor in Iraq Hires Translators Who Can’t Translate, Putting Iraqi and US Lives at Risk
—Climate Counts Releases 2008 Ranking of Commitment by Companies to Reversing Climate Change

Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, provides commentary on a recent Ceres report examining how mainstream mutual funds vote on shareholder resolutions that urge companies to address climate change. A 2004 SEC rule requires mutual funds to disclose their proxy voting records each year. The report finds that mainstream mutual fund opposition to climate resolutions is thawing–but ironically, support for climate resolutions is also decreasing. Filling this gap is abstentions, which have doubled from 2004 to 2007. For the sake of disclosure, CWR co-host Bill Baue co-authored the report.

Ceres

Ceres Report: Mutual Funds and Climate Change: Opposition to Climate Change Resolutions Begins to Thaw