Soli put the cat amongst the pigeons in this article in The Times last week. Anna Shepard explored why more women are behind ethical enterprise, compared to the gender inbalance in traditional business. As the 2008 winner of the Ethical Businesswomen of the Year award, Soli had this to say...

“We need to be recognised not because we are female or ethical but because we are darned good at business.” And, lest the lofty ambitions of ethical businesswomen were in doubt, she added: “Don’t just put me in The Ecologist. I want to be on the front of Fortune.”   

Hell yeah.

Futerra is recruiting for 3 new starts, with a deadline of July 6 2009 for applications. Check out the job ads here.

Last week we celebrated our eighth birthday, join us for the next eight!

Last night saw the first ever Green 500 Awards, the gong-giving for London's pioneering programme that helps businesses cut carbon for which Futerra is the PR and Marketing partner. At a rip-roaring event at Chelsea Football Club, very well-attended despite the best efforts of the RMT to create a significant travel obstacle, the Mayor Boris Johnson set an exemplary trend as he arrived by bike to present the awards to the deserving winners. Futerra's very own Ed compered the award-giving ceremony, winning praise for keeping the pace up and avoiding the pitfalls of long-drawn out award ceremonies where everyone just wants to get on with the drinking and networking.

The scheme has now delivered 120,000 tonnes of carbon savings, which is a great start but with a lot of work still to do - and this is the collective challenge of the Green 500 scheme. Notable winners included our good buddies at National Magazine Company, who achieved 19% energy savings last year and got a Platinum Award for their efforts and the good burghers of Addison Lee who were the overall winners on the night attaining both a Diamond Award and the London Leader Award. Onwards and upwards!

On Sunday 7 June, the Swishing website was deleted by a hacker along with 100,000+ other sites. It is a massive loss to us, Swishing party-throwers and goers, and all the other website owners.

We are working to restore the website and database as quickly as possible. It will be back bigger and better.

And ladies, while our site has been swished, the Swishing movement carries on. Throw parties, be eco-glamorous and save the planet; we will not be beaten!

In case you were wondering where our site had been for the past 48 hours, the hosting server we use got hacked. All the sites they looked after went down.

The problem's solved now and we're very glad to be back with you.

You can read the full story here.

Congratulations to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) on their third auction.

Over 30 million CO2 allowances were sold, raising $117 million dollars for energy efficiency, renewable energy and other consumer benefit programs in the ten RGGI states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont).

Futerra worked with RGGI on media relations for their launch in September 2008, and built the information and trading portal www.rggi.org.

For the latest, see the RGGI news release here or Environmental Leader. 

Got a lovely letter this morning from the geezers at Glastonbury and the good news is the Earthly Sins Confessional Booth will be returning to the Green Futures Field this year - for only the third time since our inaugural appearance way back in 2004. In those days Fair Trade tea seemed fairly subversive so we'll be putting our creative thinking cassocks on to come up with some new ways to offer absolution through action, update the timeless, classic website (ahem) and dress up as priests and nuns obviously. Have you sinned?!

Read previous articles about the Booth in the Times and online.