Here's a great example of how sustainability can create a cost savings. Intercall, a well-established video and teleconferencing service, has launched a marketing campaign touting the greenhouse gas savings of its services. It seems that when employees don't have to fly, that saves on carbon emissions and saves on the cost of airline tickets.

Most companies haven't even begun to tap the savings of teleconferencing (and its video cousin) but I'm betting that technological innovation (just look at Skype) in this area will grow ever faster if oil prices continue to rise over the long term.

And the smart companies that invest in teleconferencing will be the ones that save on future carbon taxes, too.

350.org has created a great video that shows the importance of creating climate stability, and all without words. Today, in the midst of a unseasonable heat wave and record temperatures in Portland, Oregon, I've posted the video for your viewing pleasure. Head on over to 350.org for more, or to join the campaign.

That's led me to add a new, key recommendation to my advice: make sure you business model is a good one. All the sustainability in the world won't keep you afloat if your business model isn't successful in linking you to customers and ultimately driving sales.

Of course, Nau may have had a perfectly good business model and just ran into hard economic times--something that can happen to even Fortune 500 companies .

I'm hoping that some smart MBA will dissect the Nau failure soon, so we all can draw lessons from what happened. And, I'm hoping that the very model of sustainability that they offered will be picked up by the Naus of the future and taken to yet higher heights.

No Impact Man says it better than I could say it today. Enjoy.

Leading the pack for a long time has been Patagonia, who recently launched the "Footprint Chronicles" to let customers track the carbon footprint of individual pieces of Patagonia clothing. As far as I know, Patagonia is the first retailer to examine the impacts of manufacturing and shipping at this granular level. (I know, because I have a long, bad habit of asking retailers I shop with why they don't do more to reduces the impacts of  shipping halfway across the globe).

Other sportswear companies, are not far behind. Particularly, Portland's own Nau is demonstrating great transparency and honesty as they attempt to ameliorate their impact. Simple Shoes, Nike and Icebreaker have also made good strides.

The unfortunate news is that sustainability appears to cost much more than unsustainable goods. Sometime in the near future, that will probably be different, as governments grapple with imposing carbon taxes. I think the companies I've named--and others that are on a path towards sustainability--will definitely have a leg up when that time comes.

Another unlikely ally was added to the cause when Alaska's sportsmen's groups--the hunters and fishers of that vast northern state--recently decided to ask Congress for caps on greenhouse gas emissions. This could give rise to an unusual alliance of the pro-gun sportsmen with the preserve-the-animals environmentalists.

Let's hope this alliance is a fruitful one, and that it causes Congress to move fast on the pending bills to cap greenhouse gases. If the scientists are right, we don't have much time.

In the end, it proves that there's nothing like a looming disaster to make us humans get over our smaller differences and unite behind a really important cause.

This is a big move for a grocery chain, but it demonstrated to me how far we've come in just a few short years. It's become OK to ask shoppers for little -- some might say big -- inconveniences for the environment's sake. The shoppers I saw barely batted an eye at the banishing of their plastic; instead, they happily carted off their groceries in their new, reusable bag, and promised to bring it to the store the next time they shopped.

Now if only Whole Foods would start charging for paper bags, we could really put a dent in waste...