BNPP L1 Green Future C C

Fortis Green Future is a global equity fund that invests in businesses that affect the environment positively. The fund is concentrated on three key environmental areas: Clean Energy, Water and Waste. The fund invest primarily in medium and small companies working to solve environmental problems and looking for companies that have a unique position in its field, leading to a better potential future returns on invested capital. The fund is managed by a dedicated SRI team (Socially Responsible Invemstemets).

Öhman Nordisk Miljöfond

Resource and Environmental Fund invests in Nordic companies that can meet today's requirements for resource efficiency and environmental concerns. We believe the Fund, by today identify companies that will meet future customer requirements and legislation, the long term will give a slightly higher return than a normal equity fund.

This is how our investment in the environment has developed lately. As you can see we had to do something to improve the results.

New funds in our green investment is a post from: XavierMedia.org

Anyway, the Swedish movie company WG Films created a film describing a few of the workers and they fight against Dole Food Company, Inc. in court. In the movie Dole Food Company, Inc. also admitted that they had used the pesticides, but the workers pretty much lost the case anyway. Dole sued the film company trying to stop the movie BANANS!* so that nobody would find out their shady methods.

If you would like to know the full story behind what happened to the file company and their fight against the accusations done by Dole Food Company, Inc. (yes Dole accused them of lying), then you should check out the new documentary called Big Boys Gone BANANAS!*. In the movie you get to see the full story about the methods used by Dole to stop freedom of speech by suing documentary makers.

Here you can see the trailer for free and you can also rent the previous movie BANANAS!* after the trailer:

Big Boys Gone BANANAS!* is a post from: XavierMedia.org

There are plenty of photos from the oil catastrophy caused by Deepwater Horison last year from a different perspective then the photos you've seen previously. The photographer rented a plane to take photos of ground zero (the place where Deepwater Horizon went under was called that).

If you have the chanse you should have visit the exhibit, I know I will.

One problem with oil is that we're so dependent on it, and we don't have any other energy sources that really can compete with oil.

After the accident at Fukushima earlier this year everyone got afraid of nuclear power as an energy source, but oil could also cause problems as we saw last year with the Deepwater Horizon accident. The solution isn't just so easy that we can get afraid of all power sources we have, the solution is to utilize the sources we have at the moment so secure as possible until our scientists can find new and petterwaysof producing energy. This is whyit's so important to invest in companies and organizations that are researching new energy sources. Hopefully we will find betterwaysto produce energy in the future, but until then we have to prioritize safety over anything else when we produce electricity before our planet gets destroyed completely.

By the way, what kind of electricity are you using to run your website/blog? We use wind power.

The impact of oil in our world is a post from: XavierMedia.org

The six vacuum cleaners created as a result of this project is of course not enough, but it's a good way of demonstrating how much garbage we need to do something about. The nice thing is that the vac's are created on top of the Electrolux UltraOne Green vac , a vac that's as green as a vac can be.

Check out this video for some more information about Electrolux and the Vac from the Sea project:

This exhibition really opened my eyes that we need to take more care about our oceans and we have way too much garbage floating around everywhere in the world. The life came from the water one time ago and we're still heavily depending on the oceans for our survival so we should take care of the underwater world much better then we do.

The plastic on the vacuum cleaners on the photo above are from:
1. North Sea
2. Pacific Ocean
3. Indian Ocean
4. Baltic Sea

Vac from the Sea is a post from: XavierMedia.org

You don't need to be an expert on water just to join in, anyone can write about water in this event. If you have problems finding a good subject Change.org is even helping you out with some suggestions like for example:

• Water as a Human Right
• Technology Footprint
• Bottled Water
• Farmers vs. Animals
• Water Celebrities

This video from Blog Action Day 2010 will give you some more information about this day:

Blog Action Day on the 15th of October 2010 is a post from: XavierMedia.org

For over 20 years USA has been the number one energy consumer in the world and for only about 10 years ago China consumed about half of the energy consumed by USA. Forecasters had anticipated that China would pass the USA  as the world's largest energy consumer in 2015, but due to the economic crisis that slowed the USA energy demand by so much that China could do it earlier.

According to IEA, China consumed 2.252 billion tons of oil equivalent*  last year, which is 4 percent more than the USA has had a total energy of 2.17 billion tonnes of oil equivalent. In 2008 China used more than 40 percent of the world's coal and nearly half of the increase occurred in electricity consumption.

In 2007 China passed the USA in usage of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and today there are not any other country in the world to emit as much as China. To address this growing problem, China has set targets to reduce its emissions intensity and improve energy efficiency. A tough challenge because the government would simultaneously increase GDP growth by four times by 2020.

USA is still the largest energy consumer if you look to the energy used per capita, and China only gets a 4th place in that ranking. If you consider that it took China about 10 years to double it's energy usage and that China got a population of 1.3 billion while USA got only 310 millions you don't need to be a scientist to figure out that energy is going to be a luxury in the future.

*  An energy measurement based on the energy content of average crude oil.

China – The number one energy consumer in the World is a post from: XavierMedia.org

How many remember the Exxon Valdez accident outside Alaska about 20 years ago? This was one of that times greatest catastrophes where over 40,000 tonnes of crude oil filled the Alaskan coast line. The BP Gulf of Mexico Catastrophe is even worse than the Exxon Valdez accident [1], so the more we drill for oil the worse accidents we should expect

At the moment the US government is claiming BP will have to pay for the oil damages, but just look what happened after Exxon Valdez. Exxon had to pay 5 billion dollars at first in fines, but thanks to their lawyers they managed to fight the legal system and get it lowered to only 500 million dollars. Call me pessimistic, but I think the same thing will happen in this case too. At first BP will have to pay a huge amount of money and it will be all over the news, but many years later they get it lowered to a tenth of the original amount and by then everyone will have forgotten about the catastrophe so nobody cares if they don't have to pay.

This is why it's so important that we all help supporting the organizations working to make our planet a better place (like WWF and Greenpeace).

[1] This is how we calculated that the BP oil spill is worse than Exxon Valdez:

We know that the Exxon Valdez spilled 40,000 tonnes of oil and according to calculations from BP and environmental organizations the latest oil spill is somewhere between 5,000 and 50,000 barrels per day. We calculated on 25,000 barrels per day for 45 days. One barrel is about 0,1369 tonnes ("1 barrel per day (b/d) = 50 tonnes per year (approx.)" from eppo.go.th) of oil so we get:

25,000 barrels * 45 days * 0,1369 tonnes per barrel = 154 012.5 tonnes of oil

BP Mexican Gulf Oil Catastrophe is a post from: XavierMedia.org

Since this fund isn't paying a yearly amount to green projects like the other funds we own, we're planning to use the dividend earned from this fund to invest in SEB Baltic Sea Fund and Skandia WWF Fund.

The total fund development has been really nice the last year and we're up over 150% since April last year, but that's also including new investments we've done. We're really looking forward to an exciting year and we hope that the investment will continue to increase like in the past year (the more the investment increases the more money WWF will get from the funds )

New fund is a post from: XavierMedia.org

WWF says it all in their blog with this qoute:

The UN climate talks in Copenhagen were inches away from total failure and ended with an outcome far too weak to tackle dangerous climate change, WWF said today.

So it looks like the ordinary person (Average Joe if you like) have to do the most work once again since the people we pay to negotiate these things are just too fat and happy to bother…..So my suggestion to everyone is to make a new year promise to focus all their little actions on the environment next year. Like for example switching to renewable green energy, try to walk instead of using the car for short distances, and maybe bring leftovers as lunch from the dinner the day before. By taking these actions you may not only reduce your impact on the planet, but also save a few bucks

If you have any money left after buying your Christmas presents, then perhaps you may consider investing in a fund investing in companies working for a better planet (like the SEB Baltic Sea fund/WWF) or giving some money to WWF. You can read more about donating money to WWF here.

Merry Christmas to you all and Happy New Year!

Merry CHristmas and a Happy New year is a post from: XavierMedia.org

"Bananas!*" is a movie from the Swedish film company WG Film about the banana company Dole Food Company, Inc. and their activities in Nicaragua. In the movie you get to know that Dole used banned pesticides at their banana fields they knew where dangerous to the workers.

What's even worse is that Dole is now trying to silence anyone that mention this, especially the filmmakers by suing them. Dole's acting is a big threat to the freedom of speech in the entire world, because if they succeed no one will ever be able to critic big companies since they will be able to sue you (even if you're right).

The film makers and WG Film issued a statement via their lawyer Richard J. Lee:

"My clients and I believe that this suit is without merit and represents the latest in a continued line of intimidating harassment by a multinational corporation aimed squarely at a small, independent film and its filmmakers.

It is unfortunate that rather than concentrate its resources toward genuinely addressing the acts it admitted to, and was found liable of committing as covered in the film, Dole instead chooses to stifle even basic discussion by attempting to silence the messenger of a message it dislikes.

Moreover, it is appalling that through this action, Dole is attempting to shift the focus away from its own CEO’s court admission that Dole continued the usage of a banned pesticide even after being informed of its harm by its manufacturer Dow Chemicals, and now on to WG Film which captured that moment on film.

It is important to note that Dole committed to suing WG Film without seeing the film.

Dole has touted a judge’s later finding against one of the attorneys in the case shown in the film which did not in fact exonerate Dole or its actions in Nicaragua.

In all screenings of the film which have occurred to date we have disclosed the judge’s findings and put the trial fully in context with events which happened after the completion of this documentary."

As an example Dole was able to stop the movie from competing at the Los Angeles film festival, by having a court order to block the film’s screening prior to the Festival’s opening in June 2009!

Swedish parliament member Mats Johansson writes:

"For me as a former journalist and publisher the "BANANAS!*" case is of great political importance. The freedom of speech is central to an open society, and must be protected all over the world. The outcome of the process is crucial for the future in a global context, which is a new situation to Swedish standards."

If you have the chance see the movie, if not for the banana workers but at least to protect freedom of speech in the world! Here's a trailer for the movie and you can also rent the full movie for only $4.99 after the trailer:

UPDATE: Rent the movie BANANAS!* here! (After the trailer for the new movie Big Boys Gone BANANAS!*)

BANANAS!* – The Movie is a post from: XavierMedia.org