Latte, but make sure you hold the carbon

Forbes
Starbucks is tracking a new Key Performance Indicator (KPI) — its carbon footprint. Calculating the number and cutting emissions is tricky. Power consumed can come from coal as well as other less injurious sources. And do you include the cost of transporting and disposing of goods even when you don’t have control over it? If you just calculate utility bills, Starbucks serves up about 2 ounces of carbon emissions per cup. And while Starbucks has joined with companies like Staples and Google to buy bulk wind power, reducing emissions is just getting off the ground. Look for more companies to follow Intel and Sun Microsystems, which report their carbon footprints annually.

The Economist

Following the trend of putting the "eco" into economics, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently did a tree census. The value of the city's nearly 600,000 trees? $120 million-plus. How does he arrive at the number? "$11 million for filtering out air pollutants; $28m saved in energy consumption (less need for air conditioners); $36m for stemming storm-water run off; and $53m in aesthetic benefits." Bloomberg plans to plant another 1 million trees to increase property values and clean the air.

Fast Company

Want to do something to help stop the climate crisis? Stop buying bottled water. Last year Americans spent $15 billion "for a product we have always gotten, and can still get, for free, from taps in our homes." In the United States we ship 1 billion bottles of the stuff around a week. That's "37,800 18-wheelers." And water is "so heavy you can't fill an 18-wheeler with [it]-- you have to leave empty space. To top it off, US tap water is safer than the bottled stuff, 24 percent of which is "tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi."

BusinessWeek

Last week I was on vacation. No newspaper. No computer. No cell phone. No TV. No calls. And I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with Liz Ryan, who writes that "in the knowledge economy, the only way to free yourself from your work is to conspire with your colleagues to put everything on hold." Because the system we work in "never sleeps," we all need to practice "vacation solidarity." Thanks to all of my colleagues who filled in for me or waited on projects until I got back. Now it's your turn. I owe you one.

Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

On my flight back from vacation, the flight attendant announced over the intercom that they were "confiscating" all iPhones, to which a guy who had one replied, "Nice try." The best way to experience iPhone mania? Read the anonymous blog "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs." Here's a quote from "Steve." "Some iTard paid $305 for one of the paper bags that we put the iPhones in. No guff. . . . Is Apple doing this stuff itself in order to keep the mania going. Um, yes." However, I still want one.

Pink Slip

Maureen Rogers points us to TutorVista, based in Bangalore, India, that offers "World Class Tutoring, just a click away." A visit to the site, staffed by well-educated Indians working from home 24/7, reveals a startlingly low cost of $99 per month and a first month trial for only $24.99 . . . and that's for unlimited tutoring. Rogers says, "One more job going overseas, one more amateur act being professionalized." And another example of how the Web matches people with the services they need, regardless of physical location.

Harvard Business Review

A new study shows that four times as many CEOs are being dismissed now as in 1995. The good news? It isn't just a result of trigger-happy boards. With more independent boards and strengthened government practices, ineffectual CEOs are being dismissed once they've had a fair chance to prove their worth. The study found an ousted CEO's company achieves only half the profit, cash flow, and market capitalization of a comparable company run by an effective CEO for the same length of time.