Vegan news portal

Hip sandals, slingbacks, pumps and messenger bags are in for spring, and are included in Vegetarian Shoes and Bags’ fashionable spring line announced this week.The company, located in Tarzana, California, offers convenient online shopping that welcomes consumers to “fear-free browsing.” Consumers can find shoe styles and bags for men and women to fit every outfit and fashion need, all of which are guaranteed to be completely cruelty-free. Their extensive product line features such name brands as Ecolution, Earth, Simple. CL by Laundry and more. All products at Vegetarian Shoes and Bags are made from faux leather, faux suede or fabric, allowing consumers to shop compassionately, while being confident that all materials are free of animal products.

John F. Brock, president and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Enterprises (NYSE: CCE), joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to announce that the company is undertaking energy saving measures in New York, including introducing the five hybrid-electric trucks to their distribution center in the Bronx. Currently, the Bronx sales center has 90 trucks servicing 8,700 customers in Manhattan and the Bronx, delivering more than 8 million cases of product annually. The hybrid-electric trucks use 32 percent less fuel than standard trucks and use technology to eliminate emissions when they're idling or in traffic.

Citigroup plans to build a $232 million LEED-certified data center in Frankfurt, Greener Computing reports. The data center, which the company said would cost no more to build than a traditional facility, will go online in March 2008.Citigroup estimates that the facility will save 11,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and cut energy use at the site by 75 percent.

A new study has found that technology leads to a dramatic increase in energy efficiency and is actually a net saver of energy by a 10:1 ratio across the economy.The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found a direct correlation between gains in energy productivity and investments in information and communications technology.

After years in development, Rare Natural Care, Inc. announces RARE2B®, a new skincare line that is 100 percent vegan, organic, vegetal and natural and made from non-GMO sources.The products include special ingredients like seaweed, olive oil and passion fruit seed oil that nurture and nourish the skin

An Airbus A380 aircraft has successfully completed the world’s first ever flight by a commercial aircraft using a liquid fuel processed from gas (Gas to Liquids - GTL) in the first stage of a test flight program to evaluate the environmental impact of alternative fuels in the airline market. The flight from Filton, UK to Toulouse, France, lasted three hours.

Coca-Cola’s second largest bottler, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company, has reached an agreement with ContourGlobal to build 15 new combined heat and power plants by the end of 2009. They will be built at facilities in Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Northern Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Nigeria, Serbia and the Ukraine. Italy, Russia and Romania will each have two facilities built. Coca-Cola said each plant will reduce CO2 emissions by at least 40 percent.

Xerox is filling more than 20 miles of pipe and stainless steel tanks with billions of micron-sized toner particles with the opening of its first U.S.-based emulsion aggregation Toner plant. The new $60 million, 100,000 square-foot plant located near Rochester, N.Y., will be staffed by more than 40 chemical engineers and increases Xerox’s capacity for toner made by the EA process by 175 percent.Xerox says EA Toner is significantly more environmentally friendly than other toner.

While large corporations get most of the headlines on green initiatives, many U.S. small businesses are also cutting energy costs making green choices, USA Today reports. Harbec Plastics, for example, uses wind and natural gas turbines, a state-of-the-art water-cooling system, hybrid cars and trucks and fluorescent lights which have saved $1.2 million and cut CO2 emissions by 750,000 pounds.

U.S. demand for advanced lighting products is forecast to rise nearly 14 percent per year through 2011, reaching $4.4 billion, according to Advanced Lighting, a new study from The Freedonia Group. Gains will be fueled by consumer desires for more energy efficient lighting, which will boost demand for compact fluorescent lamps. By 2011, CFLs are expected to replace incandescents as the dominant choice in residential building applications.

United States Steel Corporation is considering a $1 billion capital investment program at its Clairton plant coke making operation near Pittsburgh to boost the company’s environmental performance. The program, which would take place over a period of years, involves the construction of two new technologically and environmentally advanced coke batteries and a cogeneration facility, along with environmentally focused rehabilitation of several existing coke batteries.

Thanks to global warming, wacky weather has brought on a whole new set of style dilemmas -- like what to wear when it's 60 degrees in the middle of winter. Luckily, a host of new, fashion-forward designers are offering up stylish solutions to ensure your closet can help combat environmental issues without looking like you took a trip back to the '60s.

When 1,800 workers lost their jobs after a Maytag appliance factory and headquarters closed last year in the small town of Newton, Iowa, a wind turbine blade company saw opportunity -- an available, skilled workforce in the middle of one of America's hardiest wind energy production regions.TPI Composites Inc. is building a new plant there as the energy industry aims for a cleaner, more sustainable future. With proper incentives, thousands of "green-collar jobs" could be created, from ethanol production to wind turbines and solar panels, and all the maintenance and construction to support them, industry officials said

The federal government could save U.S. tax payers more than $1 billion in energy costs over the next five years by deploying green technologies in data centers and using more energy efficient PCs, says two new studies released Tuesday.The annual savings by the feds using more energy efficient PCs would be equivalent to conserving 1.3 billion barrels of oil, for example

Fujitsu announced a new company-wide initiative dedicated to make greener products in a greener fashion, reports Fox Business. As part of the initiative, called Pervasive Green, Fujitsu established an environmental management system to cut waste and prevent pollution at two of its largest facilities in California and New York.

HP will install a large-scale solar power system at its San Diego facility and buy windpower to run a number of facilities in Ireland. The company has a goal to reduce its energy use by 20 percent by the end of 2010.Initial estimates indicate that the project will save HP approximately $750,000 in energy costs during the next 15 years. HP also will earn renewable energy credits as the installation will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1 million pounds per year, or nearly 16 million pounds during the next 15 years.

As a green entrepreneur, Jeremy Leggett has spent the past ten years fighting an enduring myth: solar panels don’t work in Britain. Granted, they work better in Spain. But at solarcentury’s office in London on a distinctly cloudy October day, the roof is gathering enough energy to power all the firm’s computers. “We could have zero-carbon buildings,” he says. Most of us would be content with one successful career; Leggett has three. After studying earth sciences at the University of Oxford, he became a researcher in the history of the oceans. Ironically, his research was largely funded by oil companies, BP and Shell included. But, in the mid1980s, reading the first papers on global warming, he became concerned.

Renewable energy engineer, energy account manager, carbon management consultant, carbon logistics specialist ... the variety of job titles is mind-boggling but they all have one thing in common: climate change.Public awareness and government policy are putting pressure on companies to be seen to go green. And the opportunities for those who literally fancy saving the world are growing.

Jinjee Talifero sells her raw food eBooks on her family homepage at TheGardenDiet.com and was profiled in an article about eBooks in the June 07 issue of Business 2.0 magazine. For the full article visit:http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050985/

No longer considered a "hippie fad," the vegan lifestyle is translating into business opportunities for some local entrepreneurs, resulting in part from a growing $50 billion a year natural-products industry.

No longer considered a "hippie fad," the vegan lifestyle is translating into business opportunities for some local entrepreneurs, resulting in part from a growing $50 billion a year natural-products industry.