The world's fifth largest insurer, and largest insurer in the UK, Aviva, has decided to go carbon neutral worldwide.  By the end of March 2007 they even plan to have offset the 110,000 tonnes of carbon they emitted in 2006.  All their UK energy is sourced from renewable sources, and they're moving into tree planting and wind turbines.  [GT]

Norwich Union-owner goes carbon neutral

Related stories: BSkyB goes carbon neutral! | Economist carbon-offsets global warming issue | Do carbon-offset schemes work?

smile, the internet branch of The Co-Operative Bank, is going the extra mile to help endangered species around the world.

Open a current account and smile will donate £50 to WWF-UK and adopt an orang-utan for you, too!

As if the feel-good factor of banking with the only UK clearing bank with an ethical policy and donating to WWF wasn't enough, WWF will send you an adoption pack for your Orang-utan. This includes a cuddly toy, information booklet and a picture. Aaah.

Go through the link on this page to open your account.

Related stories: Money and Finance

How would you like to do Good With Money without any evil to yourself? Cooperative Insurance has been ranked high in customer satisfaction compared to regular high street banks, and also provides ethical insurance, mortgages, and even investment funds. As part of their "every penny counts" campaign, every £100 spent turns into 1.25p donation to charity; they offset 20% of your vehicle's carbon emissions at no extra charge to you; and the CIS solar tower generates enough power per year to make 9 million cups of tea. But here's a practical motivator: they offer one interest rate for everything, whether you're buying or pulling out cash, where most banks have a good rate for consumption and a ruinous one for cash. Check it out yourself - your wallet won't be sorry. [GT]

Cooperative Insurance [via hugg]

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Investment management company Standard Life released the results of its annual Ethical Investor Survey a few days ago.

The company's ethical fund customers were asked to rank the issues that most concern them, and this year it turns out that they would prefer Standard Life "to favour investment companies that encourage, maintain and improve the quality of working conditions in their global supply chains".  Numbers two and three on the list of companies favoured by investors were firms involved in controlling pollution and those involved in developing or using renewable energy sources.

On the flip side, survey respondents wanted to avoid having their money poured into companies with poor human rights policies and/or operating in countries with poor human rights records, those involved in producing military weapons and those clearing tropical forests.

10,000 teenagers are being challenged to turn a £10 loan into a social enterprise.  In essence, whoever takes the loan has a month to invest it.  Prizes are awarded to the top 50 profit makers and, crucially, prizes are also awarded to the 50 judged to have made the most (presumably positive) social impact.

The 'Make Your Mark With A Tenner' (MYMWAT) scheme is funded by a "marketing guru" (according to the BBC), Andrew Reynolds, who said he had donated the money so that youngsters had a chance to show they were "not all a bunch of violent hoodies".

Brashly conceding that magazines don't make money off subscriptions, GOOD Magazine goes so far as to promise to donate the full $20 USD for six issues to your pick of a dozen charities, ranging from Creative Commons to the World Wildlife Fund.  Contains articles on affordable and attractive housing and fair trade coffee online, and various pieces on economics available only in the print version.[GT]

GOOD Magazine

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Got a hybrid? Need insurance? If you go with Yesinsurance.co.uk, they'll flat out give you £20. Then they'll donate £20 more to Climatesure for emissions offsetting. Considering that hybrids cost several thousand extra pounds up front, I'm not sure how far the £40 will get them, but it's certainly generating them a lot of free buzz, and more carbon offsetting is always good. [GT]

Yesinsurance.co.uk [via Treehugger]

Related stories: Green insurance for your fuel-efficient vehicle | Better World Club | Make it a Treeflight

Illustrating some of the pitfalls in greening British business today, the Guardian has a lengthy article talking about how although Jamie Oliver has gotten junk food out of schools, the students are, shock, just going across the street for their packets of crisps. Not only this, but vending machine companies are actively boycotting the schools because they're losing so much money on the deal. (Hold fast fellas, the free market will take care of this.) Another problem is coming from Tesco: crisp company Tyrell's promised they would only sell their luxy crisps to Waitrose and indie stockists, but Tesco is stocking them anyhow and ignoring Tyrell's polite requests to the contrary. According to Tyrells “nobody is going to pull them up for their behaviour because they will get delisted as a supplier”. Eesh. [GT]

Pay more or we quit, canteen operators to tell schools as vending machine purge hits profits

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EIRIS stands for Ethical Investment Research Services. They provide information to investors, investment managers, individuals, financial advisers, charities, corporations and academics about the ethical circumstances of a given research topic. Topics range from specific corporations, to commodities, to futures, to specific governments, and beyond. They are specialized in offering services in English and Japanese, and have offices in London and Boston, Mass. [GT]

EIRIS: Ethical Investment Research Services

Related stories: New ethical fund from Aberdeen Unit Trust Managers Ltd | Has Brown been green enough? | Invest ethically, make a killing

While tidying the prodigious collection of familiana in my to-be-in-laws spare room, I discovered a packet of Old Money. No, not cash - that is, not anymore. Dolphin Blue Tree-Free stationery are made from kenaf, denim trimmings and old bills. Rather than dump bleach into the environment, all products are left their own low-key and lovely colour of ivory, pale blue or pale green respectively. Writing on the latter is a particularly luxurious experience (though one wonders how many recycled $20 bills are in there and therefore what the cocaine content is). [GT]

Dolphin Blue Tree-Free stationery

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If you run a green business, do drop us a line at editor@hippyshopper.com. But also, GreenBusiness.net is a site for professional greenies. The fees are $12 a month and there are, at last update, 207 members specifically involved in green industry that you can network with. These kind of things are very hit-or-miss, but Jason offers a two week free trial where you can poke around and see if it's going to be valuable. His personal success story, involving saving $15,000 USD, was the impetus to found the site. He also has a raft of testimonials from members who have found the focus well worth the fees. [GT]

So you're on your bicycle. And you're in an American state that has Better World Club insurance. And you get a flat. Call 'em up and they'll come over and fix your tire. Twice a year. (Assuming you have the version of their insurance that covers bikes.) Naturally that's not all that they do. 24 hour emergency assistance, coverage in any car, family coverage, flat tire change, battery jumps, emergency tows (depending, again, on the level of insurance), fuel delivery service, and $100 locksmith benefit. Then there's the actual cash and benefits for hybrids in particular.

Looking for a few extra quid to put your green house in order?  By which I mean your actual residence, not your garden (although there may be money for that too).  Check out the energy saving grants all neatly organized for your perusal at the Energy Saving Trust.  The UK government funds up to £2,500 for renovations, energy companies have their own programs, and then local authorities "provide grants and offers for local residents to install energy efficiency measures in their home."  And while you're there, take the poll.

The Aberdeen Ethical Engagement UK Fund is a sub-fund of Aberdeen Investment Funds ICVC (UK-domiciled OEIC).  In ethical funds, "the manager aims to use his position as stakeholder proactively to promote ethical corporate behaviour and will favour companies demonstrating progress in that regard."  Basically, you give the manager some money, he puts it in a bag with money from other people, and when the bag gets big enough, he can use it to smack people when they're not nice to their workers.  This is better than giving it to a manager who uses the full bag to smack anybody who gets in his way.

The Aberdeen Fund in particular focuses on good corporate governance, the environment, labour equity and human rights.  All of which are good.

We were all ears listening to the environmental issues in Mr Brown's budget yesterday, but were his ramblings much cop? The general consensus is that although Brown has increased road tax for the most polluting cars (such as 4x4s) from £175 to £210, that is not nearly enough.  Both Greenpeace [see story here] and Friends of Earth say that the rise will not discourage road users from driving gas guzzling cars.  FOE feel that Brown's commitment to an Annual Carbon Report needs to be linked to a statutory requirement for annual cuts in climate changing pollution (as per The Big Ask campaign).  Friends of the Earth generally welcome most of the changes but feel they need to be backed up by policy and legislation, particularly in relation to energy efficency and related technology.