Tag Archives: social responsibility

College Students Leading Environmental Education

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Sprout Up Environmental Education

Sprout Up, founded and run by college students in Goleta, inspires elementary-age school children from all walks of life to value the environment. Sprout Up has been selected as a nominee in the education and mentoring category in the 2012 American Giving Awards (AGAs) sponsored by Chase Community Giving.

2 Million in Chase Grants will be shared among five charities voted for by Facebook Users and Chase Customers. The AGAs will honor these organizations for their great philanthropic work through a star-studded event hosted by Joel McHale (NBC’s “Community” and “The Soup”).

Chase will grant a total of $2 million to the five charities with the most votes in their respective categories. Fans of Chase Community Giving can vote for their favorite charity on Facebook, and Chase online customers can vote on www.chase.com/chasegiving during the voting period, which runs from November 27 – December 4. Of the five top vote-getters from each category, the charity with the most votes will receive a $1 million grant, the runner-up will be granted $500,000, a third organization will receive a $250,000 grant and two will be given $125,000 grants.

The twenty-five participating charities will represent one of five categories recognizing the “building blocks” of communities.

Thanks to UCSB Environmental Sciences student Aaron Bucka for referring this information.

SOPA: Why Business Owners and Content Sharers Should Care

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It’s next to impossible to miss today’s biggest news if you go onlinestop SOPA at any point or see a newspaper; several of the web’s most prominent sites are “going dark” in protest of SOPA and PIPA, the proposed anti-online piracy legislation.

What is SOPA?

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill that seeks to “crack down on copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that host pirated content,” according to a great report by CNN Money. These bills are supposedly aimed at websites – mainly overseas – known for their access to and promotion of illegal downloads of movies and other digital content.  While many agree that restrictions on privacy are needed, there are complicated consequences that reach much farther.  The proposed legislation would require U.S.-based search engines and other service provides to withhold or block services with sites that connect to these problematic sites, but many fear that the restrictions are the beginning of a slippery slope into censorship.

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To Catch a Dollar, Kiva.org: Turnkey Microcredit Models That Help Millions

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Sometimes, an idea is just so simple and good, it makes you slap your forehead and wonder why no one thought of it sooner.  Professor Muhammad Yunus, the “father of microcredit”, spent years developing the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh with a financial concept that turned business lending on its head:  lend self-selected groups of women up to $3,000 to get their small businesses off the ground.

The goal all along was to eradicate poverty, not to make a profit.  Yet the loans perform positively, with repayment rates in excess of 99%.  And this concept can work in any economy, and any culture, from its origins with 7.5 million Bangladesh borrowers to Grameen’s presence in 38 countries and over 100 million microcredit loans. Continue reading →

Why Go Green with a Captive Audience? Boston’s Logan International Airport Flies High…

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Awaiting my return flight from a trip to Boston, I heard an interesting logan airportannouncement as I was zipping up my boots after security screening.  It turns out that Boston Logan International Airport, New England’s largest transportation center, which serves over 20 million passengers each year and employs 12,000, is one of the nation’s most environmentally advanced transportation hubs.  In 2008, Boston Logan won the Environmental Management Award presented by the Airports Council International – North America (ACI-NA) in large part as a result of their efforts to improve emissions in and around the airport

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Socially Responsible Small Business: Cost or Cure?

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Whether it’s “people, planet, profit” or “ethics, environment and equity” or green businesssome other catchy alliterative phrase, corporations around the world are embracing the concept of the triple-bottom line (3BL):  it simply makes good business sense to invest in sustainable, socially responsible business practices.

Andy Savitz, author of The Triple Bottom Line: How Today’s Best-Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success — And How You Can Too, defines a sustainable corporation as “one that creates profit for its shareholders while protecting the environment and improving the lives of those with whom it interacts. It operates so that its business interests and the interests of the environment and society intersect.”   Anything not to like there?

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Military Buzz: Sport Clips Provides Free Calls for Service Personnel

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sport clips When you think of great mens’ haircuts, you may not always think of the closely-cropped  styles worn by military personnel.  But Sport Clips proudly associates with U.S. service members overseas through their “Help a Hero” program.   At Sport Clips, sports-themed outlets known as “the perfect place for a guy to get great service and a great haircut,” the mission extends beyond their banner-covered walls.

Through the generous support of Clients and Team Members across the country, Sport Clips has been the largest single corporate donor to the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Operation Uplink™ program.  Sport Clips’ Founder and CEO Gordon Logan, who is a veteran and lifetime member of the VFW, says, “More than 344,508 connections with family and loved ones were made last year through the efforts of our team members and Clients. They’ve generously given their time, enthusiasm, and means to sponsor free call days on Christmas, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Veterans Day.”

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The Rise of Conscious Capitalism

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megatrend conscious capitalismI am reading a truly inspiring book from the local library and I don’t think I want to give it back…is that a problem?  Megatrends 2010:  The Rise of Conscious Capitalism, by Patricia Aburdene, much like Megatrends, her earlier partnership with John Naisbitt, shines a light on key societal and industrial trends that shape our ideology.  Essentially, the book points out through numerous examples that the squishy side of social responsibility is inexorably linked to the quest for profitability.

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