You won't hear much about gay marriage this week at the Republican convention, but it remains a hotly-contested political issue, particularly in California, where a fall ballot initiative would overturn the state Supreme Court decision giving same-sex couples the right to wed. John McCain supports the ballot Proposition 8...

I've never been a fan of the Hallmark Holidays. So please forgive me if I come off as churlish when I saw that we -- meaning the fathers of America -- don't have much to celebrate on Father's Day.

Here's the problem. Most American men aren't very good fathers. Most...

You don't have to be a Latin scholar to know that Pax means peace. So why, with the United States bogged down in an unpopular war that claimed its 4,000th casualty a few days ago, is the Pax World family of mutual funds investing in a defense contractor with thousands...

Fidelity mutual fund investors, McDonald's customers, employees of Kodak and Johnson & Johnson - all will soon have the opportunity to urge those companies to speak out against the ongoing genocide in Darfur.

The companies had better figure out what to say.

Fidelity has been the longtime target of a...

Here's a recent headline from Sydney: "Australian Drought Pushed up Price of Beer."

Here's one from Atlanta: "Georgia governor leads prayer for rain."

In the world's first climate change election, Australian voters last month ousted the incumbent, conservative prime minister, John Howard, who scorned the idea of global warming....

Today -- December 17 -- is usually the busiest day of the year at the U.S. Post Office, so it's a good time to look at the environmental impact of the shipping and mailing industry.

That's what a nonprofit called Climate Counts has done. They ranked the four leading...

Most money managers simply want to outperform the market. The people behind Generation Investment Management have bigger things in mind.

Generation is the investment firm led by Al Gore and Goldman Sachs alum David Blood. They want to deliver market-beating returns, reshape the world of investing and improve the...

President Bush is willing to sign climate change legislation, if Congress passes a bill that meets with his approval. That, at least, is what U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat and a key player on Capitol Hill, is now saying.

Boucher spoke this morning to the Business...

"You know how we find out when the power goes out somewhere in our system?" Peter Darbee asks me.

I don't know. Peter is the CEO of PG&E Corp., a $12.5-billion-a-year utility company in northern California. We had lunch recently at the National Press Club in Washington.

"We...

By now, you've probably read that Berkshire Hathaway, the investment firm led by Warren Buffett, has sold most if not all of its holdings in PetroChina. PetroChina is the publicly listed unit of the China National Petroleum Co., which has come under harsh criticism for doing business with the repressive...

If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear a flower in your hair...and consider staying at one of the hotels operated by Joie de Vivre, California's largest boutique hotel company. OK, I'm kidding about the flower (but by all means go ahead if you want...) but not...

Why is the green movement so white? "It used to be the more committed you were to the environment, the further away you were from regular people," Van Jones tells me. "It was tofu and Birkenstocks and all that."

Jones, a 39-year-old African-American civil rights activist with an impressive track...

A whole lot is happening on the issue of gay rights here in your nation's capital. A new Human Rights Campaign survey finds a big leap in the number of companies achieving a perfect score for their workplace practices. The House of Representatives is likely to vote next week on...

"We're in the people business, but we happen to serve coffee," Jim Donald says. Jim's the CEO of Starbucks, and we had a great talk earlier today. It was the first time we'd spoken although I've followed Sbux for years and wrote a chapter about the company in my book...

Not being "in the demo," as they say in the media biz, I didn't hear about AT&T's censorship of the rock band Pearl Jam until a friend in the social investing world told me about it. If you were not paying attention to the Lollapalooza music festival staged recently in...

I'm at lunch with a Washington lobbyist who has good news. "It's quite plausible that we can get a cap-and-trade bill through this Congress," Nikki Roy says. Roy, who is formally known as Manik Roy, PhD., is director of congressional affairs for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. His...

Few companies have embraced the idea of corporate citizenship as enthusiastically as Timberland. The New Hampshire-based firm, which designs and markets shoes, clothes and accessories, leads in not just one arena but many -- community service, partnerships with nonprofits like CityYear, labor rights in its global supply chain, the environmental...

Say what you will about carbon offsets -- they went from being a cool new idea to an object of derision in the blink of an eye -- there's no doubt that they are proliferating, as big companies and small ride the green wave.

For those of you who haven't...

There are days when I feel optimistic about the ability of the American people to deal with our environmental problems (they're buying organic food and hybrids!) and then there are days like today.

I'm in Bethany Beach, Delaware, on a working vacation, if there is such a thing. Today was...