Citi released a video today promoting that in May, Citibank became the first bank in the world to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for 200 projects from the U.S. Green Building Council. The brand rose two places on Interbrand's just-released Best Global Green Brands ranking with the comment:

Citi Group improves on this year’s ranking by 2 spots, now sitting at #44. While the banking institution continues to navigate turbulent waters due to global economic conditions, Citi managed to increase the public’s perception of its environmental efforts, thus closing its perception/performance gap significantly since last year’s assessment. More recently, Citi joined forces with Google to finance a large wind energy center in California and embarked on a joint venture with SunPower to finance residential solar lease projects. The financial institution still remains in the latter portion of the ranking, partially due to its large-scale investments in coal industries, which contribute heavily to climate change effects.

British Petroleum has rarely been out of the spotlight since the Deepwater oil spill in 2010 that put nearly five million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. This week it's back in the news again, with word that the still-in-turnaround energy giant has extinguished its solar power business.

The simple reason, according to The Guardian, is that — despite being one of the world's largest solar companies — BP says it can't turn a profit on selling panels at a time while it spends $20 billion annually on its oil and gas businesses.

Despite its much-ballyhooed aim to move "beyond petroleum," BP has been quietly closing its solar panel factories in recent years, with around 1,750 workers laid off just in the last three years according to the Guardian. "At the same time," the report adds, "the company has gradually retreated from other areas such as carbon capture and storage and shut down its separate London headquarters for BP Alternative Energy."

Where BP is not scaling back its financial investment: sports, as a London 2012 Olympics partner, and the arts.Continue reading...