For the second consecutive quarter, Pepsi finds itself atop the list of the largest purchasers of green energy. Pepsi is committed to purchasing 100% renewable energy and will buy 1.1 billion kilowatt hours in the next 12 months.

The top ten include:

1. Pepsi
2. Wells Fargo
3. Whole Foods
4. Pepsi Bottling
5. Air Force
6. Johnson & Johnson
7. EPA
8. Kohl’s
9. Los Angeles Sanitation
10. Starbucks

Story from Business Week and Top 25 from the EPA.

I’ll cut to the chase and say that having just logged 390.6 miles in the Nissan Altima Hybrid, I am a big fan. The journey began in San Jose and took us through the Napa Valley and back to San Jose for the flight home. Driving consisted of a mix of highway and city driving, including a long stretch sitting in heavy traffic this morning while working our way by the Infineon Raceway where race fans clogged roads for miles.

The Altima has matured with each new release and the latest version is a comfortable sedan easily capable of seating five adults for extended periods of time. However, the hard cloth seats (leather is available) may be a bit much for some. As is expected from the sporty Altima, handling is excellent. The hybrid powered sedan also proved to be exceptionally quick (considering it’s base four cylinder) and never wavered when called on to pass slower traffic or run in the fast lane as we scurried to San Jose fearing that we may miss our flight.

The Nissan website claims 42 MPG city and 36 highway but we didn’t reach these optimistic numbers. The dash display read 31 MPG and our math revealed the number to be 29.64 MPG. Still commendable considering the competition in the vehicle class.

Visit the Nissan Altima website.

Coke has released its 2006 environmental report detailing progress in the areas of water usage, packaging, energy, and climate protection. The report covers 775 facilities, representing 94% of system sales for the year.

Highlights include:

• Despite a four percent increase in sales, the company achieved a three percent improvement in water use efficiency.
• The company expects 100% of its facilities to meet wastewater standards by 2010.
• A redesigned glass bottle saved 89,000 metric tons of glass last year.

Complete story from the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Organic to Go, the first fast casual café to be certified as an organic retailer in the U.S., is fueling growth with the acquisition of Scott’s Gourmet Sandwiches of San Diego. In addition to San Diego, the company has a presence in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Orange County. No layoffs are planned as part of the deal.

In only its third year of operation, Organic to Go has annual revenue of $9M+ and trades under the ticker OTGO.OB. For the price of a sandwich you can pick up four shares in the company.

Story from Food Business Review.

Today GE introduced the Earth Rewards credit card. Rather than doling out airline miles or rewards points, an amount equal to 1% of the monthly charges is donated to carbon offset programs. If you aren’t feeling quite so generous with your funds, you can opt to have one half of one percent donated and have the other one half of one percent returned as part of the cash back program.

Of course, this isn’t a license to go out and run up credit card debt in order to save the planet. However, there are certain things that people purchase every month and if you are going to spend money, donating one percent to carbon offset programs certainly seems like a good thing to do.

Story from Fortune.

340 On The Park is billed as the first residential tower in Chicago to be build to LEED standards. The 61 story tower is located close to numerous attractions and offers just about every amenity imaginable.

However, great location, design, and quality don’t come cheap. At the low end of the scale you can pick up a nice condo for $600K+ and if you want to go all out be prepared to write a check for $2M+.

340 on the Park website.

Car share start-ups have garnered quite a bit of attention for themselves and it seems that somebody at U-Haul figured out that renting passenger cars can’t be all that different than renting moving trucks. In select markets, you can now sign-up for the U Car Share program.

Consumers pay a $25 application fee, $50 per year membership, and $10 per hour or $65 per day. This closely resembles the gym business model, get them to sign up for the annual fee and hope they never show up.

U Car Share web site.

In a move that will see the percentage of qualified products plummet from 98% to 25%, Energy Star has released the latest spec for computers. According to the EPA, the updated spec is expected to save businesses and consumers $1.8 billion dollars over the next five years and reduce greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent of removing 2.7 millions cars from the road.

There are currently 122 products that meet the new Energy Star requirements, 102 of which are laptops. Lenovo leads the group of qualifying products by a wide margin, while HP has just one product on the list.

Story from PC World.

Now that China has cornered the market for fake purses, clothing, and well, just about everything else, organic food from China is drawing the interest of unscrupulous farmers. Confusing certification standards and 21 different agencies claiming the right to certify food as organic certainly aren’t helping the situation.

China ranks behind Australia and Argentina, making it number three in terms of organic farmland. But is the food really organic? It’s complicated and there is certainly a legitimate community of true organic farmers. Luckily, for those of us in the States, organic produce from China doesn’t hit our shelves, as there isn’t a cost effective way to ship organic produce to the U.S.

Story from Business Week.

It certainly won’t garner the attention lavished on Live Earth, but the Virgin Festival in Baltimore, MD is serious about being a green event. The Virgin Festival is sponsored by Virgin Mobile, the wireless service from Richard Branson.

Festival attendees can expect to experience:

• Less trash. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own water containers to replenish at filling stations. A commendable move considering the fat margins of selling bottled water, especially at events where prices are usually inflated.
• Compostable plates cups, and utensils.
• Food items will be composted at a local farm.
• Single stream recycling. This means all recyclables can be thrown into a single bin instead of relying on consumers to do it themselves.
• Recycled paper products.
• Biodiesel and solar power.
• Virgin will purchase carbon offsets for the event.
• Items still usable after the event will be donated to the community.
• Mass transit options and incentives.

Virgin Festival website.