Taking advantage of a re-cycled Newsweek magazine of 25-October-2010, we discovered a treasure trove of good green project and green business info in that issue which we’d like to share with you.

Two articles deserve your attention, and we provide here for you links to their on-line counterparts for your ongoing reference.

The first, and their cover story, was a feature regarding 10 radical ideas to save the planet.

The first idea, and the reason for the giant hamburger on the cover of the issue, regards the greening of beef (not literally!).  Here’s a quote that caught our attention:

“No one has been more a target of environmentalists’ ire than Blairo Maggi. Though known as a soybean tycoon, Maggi became Big Beef’s best friend as a two-time governor of Mato Grosso, the frontier state that boasts Brazil’s largest herds and has helped make that nation the world’s No. 1 beef exporter. But this “developmentalista,” who in 2005 won Greenpeace’s Golden Chainsaw award for the havoc he had wreaked on the Amazon, has become Brazil’s latest tree-hugger. The talk in Maggi’s corral is all about “sustainable development,” “carbon credits,” “avoided deforestation”—and green beef. After signing on to a 2006 moratorium on selling soybeans harvested from recently deforested lands, Maggi last year extended the ban to Amazon beef cattle. He has urged ranchers and Brazil’s giant meatpackers to clean up their act, and is even using satellites to monitor illegal clear-cutting and burning of forests. Why Maggi’s change of heart? It’s smart business.”

This conversion that Maggi underwent, not unlike that which occurred for Interface’s Ray Anderson, focuses on the business sense involved in green choices.

Here’s a summary of the 10 ideas (intentionally given intriguing names):

• Make a Greener Burger
• Invest in the Improbable
• Get out of the Gulf
• Catch a Wave
• Hug a Nuke
• Turn Smoke into Rocks
• Drink your Garbage
• Hire a Microbe
• Shout it Out Loud
• Lighten Up

You can see all of the ideas by clicking here.  The Project Management angle is indisputable. Threaded through each of these ideas are triggers for new projects – in some cases, pilots of wacky ideas, in some cases ongoing actual investments.  But clearly – the more a PM knows about this type of thinking, the better-positioned they are for the job market.

The second feature in the issue is the Green Rankings.

The printed magazine’s detail actually pales in comparison to what you find on line.  So we’ll point you to the online feature instead – click here for that.

We think you will find some interesting trends in the listings.  For example, in the US listings, of the top 10 companies, only TWO are outside of the IT world, one from the Consumer Products sector (Nike at number 10) and one from the Pharmaceutical sector (J&J at number 4).  The other 8 (oh well, we may as well list them for you: Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, SprintNextel, Adobe, Applied Materials, and Yahoo) are all tech companies.

Again, this amplifies (or at least echos) our contention that one does not have to be in the oil and gas or wind power segment to have an effect on your company’s greenality.

Visit the site for their methodology and rankings, which go way beyond what we’ve listed here or even what you’ll find in the magazine.

As a resident of The Netherlands for a couple of years, I caught a slight football (for Americans, soccer) fever and follow the sport somewhat.  So of course I’m excited about the World Cup and the good (and lucky) start by the USA as well as the just-ended match in which the Dutch team has opened Group E with a win over Denmark.  Hup, Hup, Holland!  Go USA!

Building on this theme, we thought we’d also share with you two other resources in the larger planetary competition – that is, which countries are most aware of, most capable of, and most active in reducing their contribution to global climate change?

The other World Cup – who’s doing the most in the area of environmental sustainability?

We found two interesting measurements of this.

National Geographic’s Greendex(TM) – a survey of sustainable consumption

First, we found Greendex(TM) – a program run by National Geographic

Greendex is made up of four components:

1. Qualitative survey of experts
2. 17-country quantitative survey
3. Greendex calculations
4. Market Basket

So Greendex gives significant detail, but on a limited number of countries:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• Hungary
• India
• Japan
• Mexico
• Russia
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
• United States

We encourage you to check this out.  As a project manager, it’s important for you to understand the context and full spectrum of stakeholders in the countries in which your project is taking place.  In fact, you can make this personal by taking the quick but challenging 5-question Knowledge Quiz on the National Geographic site and compare your score with colleagues worldwide.  The link to Greendex is here and also in the title of this section.  Find a PDF summary of the Greendex survey here.  OK., you want the bottom line?  India is in first place, and the United States is in last place in 2010.  Stunning.

Yale University’s EPI

Secondly, we found the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) which is run by Yale University.  Taken directly from the EPI site, here is the description of this index: