October is conference month, it seems. This week I spoke at two conferences, and next week is bookended by two more. First up is one that may be of interest to you, if you live or work in the Baltimore-Washington region.

The B2B Green Forum is being held at the gorgeous Engineering Club in downtown Baltimore (I used to live near there and there is really nothing comparable to its beautifully designed interior), and attracts participants interested in green business practices and the policies that support them.

Among the speakers will be leaders of sustainability from Johns Hopkins and Delaware Universities, the head of sustainability for Baltimore County (one David Carroll, for whom I worked many moons ago at Maryland's Department of Environment), someone from Baltimore City's Sustainability Office, as well as officials from the environmental protection departments in Maryland and Virginia and the EPA, and a host of business entrepreneurs.

I'll be talking about green fleets policies, including President Obama's remarkable new Executive Order requiring that federal fleets cut oil use by 30 percent, saving as much as 65 million gallons of fuel a year by 2020. There are several other sessions covering recycling, green building design, and current federal and state programs and policies that can help businesses in the mid-Atlantic to make a difference while making a profit.