The Center for Retail Research undertook a report for the online shopping comparison website, Kelkoo, and found that sales of environmentally friendly products currently account for just 2.3% of total retail sales.

Why? Because green items such as energy-efficient light-bulbs and hybrid cars are just too expensive, with many retailers charging premium prices for such products. That price hike currently stands at around 44% for “green” products.

“Green products will not become commonplace until suppliers give consumers better price incentives in-store and online to follow their consciences,” said Bruce Fair, managing director of Kelkoo U.K.

However, despite premium prices putting off potential customers, the Center for Retail Research forecast that sales of green products are set to double in Europe by 2015. In turn, they expect the “green premium” to drop forecasting a decrease by up to 19% to 36% by 2012, particularly in the energy efficient electrical goods market.

“The average European household currently spends over EUR386 per year on Green retail goods and we predict this will rise to EUR751 by 2015,” said Fair. “The fact that consumers can save around 11% on non-food items by doing their shopping online, compensates for Green premiums and will help drive sales over the next few years.”

I ran an organic food home delivery service about eight years ago and faced the same barriers, especially in the Winter months when the costs of organic food would triple on average.

It’s not easy being green, but health clubs are finding that being good to the planet may also reward their bottom line. National fitness chains and boutique clubs alike are retro-fitting old centres and building greener new ones.

“Health clubs worldwide are continuing to adopt greener practices,” said Kara Shemin, of the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), the industry’s not-for-profit trade association. Despite the weak economy and rising unemployment, the health club industry is in good shape. An IHRSA survey found that total industry revenues rose 2% in 2009, to USD 19.5 billion.

And experts think health club attendees, who increased to an all-time high average of 102 days last year, will opt to put their money where the ecological grass is greener. “As people progressively become more aware of their carbon footprint, and integrate ways to reduce it daily, they will have an expectation that other places they frequent, like their health clubs, will do the same,” Shemin said.

“All of Club One and Frog’s Fitness’ 19 California-based chains have recently been remodelled to be more eco-conscious,” said spokesperson Kari Bedgood. She said renovations include rubber flooring made out of used car tires, roof-top solar thermal water panels and bio-degradable cleaning products.

And Equinox, the nationwide chain of luxury fitness centres, took care to build its new 31,000-foot (9,448 meter) club in Bethesda, Maryland, with the environment in mind. Due to open in the autumn, the four-story facility is certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the US Green Building Council.

LEED is recognized in the United States and other countries around the world as the standard for measuring building sustainability. “It’s a major focus to make all of our clubs LEED certified,” club manager Rachel Sernitsky said.” All our new clubs will be LEED certified.”

Perhaps no one has gone farther down the green road than Robert Kravitz, who opened Go Green Fitness, a boutique club in Orange, Connecticut, last December. “I was managing the building (which also includes a shopping centre) when the economy turned a few years ago. We had two bankruptcies and tenants left,” he explained. “Go green Fitness came about because I wanted to bring the building back to life.”

To that end he created a state-of-the-art fitness center that harnesses the energy produced from his spinning classes. Gotta love that, sort of like the Flintstones!

These guys need to be caught, green-handed! Cyber thieves used a classic phishing scheme to gain access to $4 million in carbon emissions credits, sending out e-mails to businesses asking them to log in to a fraudulent Website posing as the German Emissions Trading Authority (DEHSt).

German newspaper Der Spiegel said employees of numerous companies in Europe, Japan and New Zealand visited the bogus site and entered sensitive information that gave the hackers access to their accounts. The hackers then transferred the companies’ emissions allowances to other accounts.

As a result, carbon trading came to a screeching halt across a large portion of the European Union as officials worked to sort out the mess. All DEHSt transactions were suspended for several days. So far, nine fraudulent transactions have been identified — but not the hackers.

If the schemers aren’t found, the companies tricked by the phishing e-mails will be out of the money, which in the case of one medium-sized German company reached $2.1 million.

A warning on the DEHSt Website gives businesses tips on how to identify phishing sites, stating “if you received e-mails containing the request to visit a homepage via a link and to enter your user data of the registry, we ask you to not further take notice of it.”

This isn’t the first time the carbon trading market has been used for fraud. The New York Times’ Green Inc. Blog reports that a loophole — now corrected — once allowed crooks to add E.U.’s value-added tax to the price of carbon permits sold to businesses without ever actually turning it over to the government.

I wish there was a way to crack-down even tougher on these green slime-balls.