Green Wombat

Thirteen U.S. corporations today pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between 9 percent and 100 percent over the next decade. The companies, which range from Fortune 100 behemoths like DuPont and Intel to the Sonoma Wine Company, signed up for the Bush administration’s voluntary global warming program called Climate Leaders. (The complete list is here.) So far 58 companies have taken the pledge, and to date five companies, including General Motors and IBM, have met their greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Participating companies agree to conduct an inventory of their greenhouse gas emissions and then develop a plan to reduce or offset them. Some smaller companies have gone completely carbon neutral. For instance, Silver Spring, Maryland, printing company Ecoprint reduced its emissions to zero by buying its electricity from a wind farm and purchasing renewable energy credits to offset emissions from employee commutes, manufacturing and heating. Conservation Services Group, a 270-person Westborough, Massachusetts energy consultancy, promised to slash its annual 2,036 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions to zip by replacing its vehicle fleet with hybrids, curtailing electricity use and buying credits from the Chicago Climate Exchange, a carbon trading market.