AAMCO, the multi-state transmission and car care franchise people, have launched a new (and first of kind) program to completely eliminate waste at their auto serving centers. Called Eco-Green Auto Service Certification, the program also works on getting customers’ cars more fuel efficient and promotes alternative fuels that many studies conclude are less polluting.

Between 1970 and 1992, Texaco --- now a subsidiary of Chevron --- is alleged to have dumped 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon.  Aside from the damage this dumping has exacted on the ecosystem of the Amazon, the indigenous population that lives in the area has been suffering from an extremely high incidence of cancer in recent decades, with little money and few resources to treat their ill. Justica Now!, a short film featuring Darryl Hannah, documents the fight that is going on to this day to hold ChevronTexaco accountable for these crimes.

The business of cell phone charity—turning in used cell phones to recycling companies for a per unit price used for fundraising—is coming under scrutiny as the business is booming. Ecophones, based in Dallas, has already helped 20,000 organizations across the country. The recycling companies claim to keep the phones out of landfills—but many resell them to middlemen or export them overseas where their hazardous waste components are dangerous to foreign workers and environments.

When the first rumblings of Corporate Social Responsibility Movement emerged out in the 1970's, legendary economist Milton Friedman wrote that the only "social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” Free-market fundamentalists have since been about as resistant to the concept of socially conscious capitalism as Friedman, arguing that any money spent in the pursuit of benevolence amounts to nothing short of a theft from shareholders.