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EBay is now a green company.

In a new programme centered on Earth Day, eBay is becoming the latest company to promote its green credentials.

Its business model encourages reselling old items rather than throwing them out, and buying used merchandise rather than making new stuff reduces carbon emissions that go along with production. EBay is trumpeting its green claims on a new Website, ebaygreenteam.com. “Green Team” refers to an internal group at eBay that works on making the company environmentally efficient. EBay’s internal projects include its new building in San Jose, California, whose roof is covered by 3,248 solar panels. The company is using carbon offsets and other methods to be carbon neutral.

Says Alan Marks, vice-president for global communications at eBay, that they never setout to be a green business, it was just intrinsic. Michael Brune, the executive director of the activist group Rainforest Action Network says that though every company wants to be seen as being friendly to the environment, he has mixed feelings about eBay’s claim for its green business model. The Postal Service of EBay still uses fossil fuels for all of their planes and their trucks, so it’s not sustainable. Brune also said that it’s fair to say that buying used goods on eBay is better for the environment, but let’s not get carried away and say this is the greenest thing since recycled paper.

Large corporations like General Electric and BP have run advertisements for years promoting their environmental efforts; EBay is a relatively new entry in this block.

Andre de Fontaine, of Pew Centre on Global Climate Change who helps businesses create programmes for addressing global warming said, eBay deserved credit for involving employees and the public, and for the new building; however the company must be clear about how high its emissions were, and how exactly its environmental measures reduced them.