Recent Articles
Economic Prosperity vs. Environmental Stewardship in China
Courtesy of Associated Press
A few days ago, on my way home I was listening to NPR and I heard about yet another chemical spill in a river in China. It turns out that seven people had been detained in connection with the toxic metal (cadmium) spill in a tributary of the Pearl River in the Guangxi province. The spill threatens the livelihood of 1.5 million people in the city of Liujiang. As China continues to enjoy its economic prosperity – being the second largest economy in the world – how can it also become a leader in environmental stewardship?
China has an estimated population of 1.3 billion people according to the latest report from the CIA. A spill impacting 1.5 million people or 0.1% of the Chinese population would have been impacting almost the entire population of the state of Idaho! Such a spill would be considered a major crisis in the US, especially when one understands the dangers associated with cadmium like kidney failure and cancer. Cadmium is an extremely toxic metal commonly found in industrial workplaces, particularly where any ore is being processed or smelted.
Getting Hospitality to See Green
By Eric Flamer
The US Green Building Council reports that as of March 3, 2011, 91 hotel properties have achieved LEED certification, with an additional 1100 projects registering with LEED and working towards certification.
From my employment experience in the Washington, DC convention hotel market, the truth is that most of the buildings dedicated to hospitality were constructed in the era preceding the green revolution, and are sorely lacking in any type of energy efficiency. What are some ways the industry can align guest satisfaction, bottom-line reduction, and green values successfully?
Recently I came across a LEED gold-certified property during some volunteer work in East Baltimore, MD: Marriot’s Fairfield Inn and Suites takes pride in being Baltimore’s first green hotel.
After examining the Fairfield’s greening strategies, there are some points to consider in examining the overall trend towards a greener hospitality industry:
Training for the Sustainable Supply Chain
By Stephen Huie, MBA 2012
In recent years, organizations have developed increasingly creative and large scale supply chain initiatives to deal with increasing energy costs, a recessionary environment, and consumer demand for sustainable processes.
To capitalize on this evolution in practice, academic institutions must also make a conscious effort to train the next generation of supply chain managers to build upon these best practices and identify further opportunities to improve.
Bridging the Gap Between Food Insecurity and Food Waste
By: Kathryn Cai
Part of the reason why I love the summertime is that I’m so happy and carefree. I can bask in sunshine all day long and play outside surrounded by growing things. However, it would be silly to overlook the contribution that food brings to my happy, healthy mentality. In the summer, my consumption of fresh fruit and produce gets alarmingly large. I am fortunate to have food security and have access to high quality food.
The Food Security Assessment of the USDA (measuring food security in developing countries for the coming decade) estimates that approximately 882 million people are classified as “food insecure,” a designation that refers to an inability to access food that would fulfill adequate nutritional value. “Food security” encompasses “the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods” as well as “an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.” The study predicts that the current level of food insecurity will only decrease by an aggregate 1% over the course of the decade, and that the situation in sub-Saharan Africa is particularly dire.
However, food insecurity is hardly an issue confined to the developing world. Prosperity in the United States itself is far from evenly distributed, and over 50 million people in the U.S. are food insecure. In the Smith School’s own backyard, the District of Columbia experiences food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than the national average, with most recent average values of 11.1% of households food insecure in D.C. versus 9.7% nationally.
Better World Books: Bringing Sustainability to the Printed Word
By Kathryn Cai
As a reader I cherish the complete experience of reading a book: the weight of it in my hands, the smell of the pages, the permanence of the words, and most especially, because every good book claims a little part of me, the knowledge that I can reopen the same pages and return to the self I was when I was first so captured by its words. Even in light of my (creepy?) love affair with print books, the advent of e-book readers made me briefly wonder if I should abandon paper and ink for a more sustainable way to feed my literary habit. As it turns out, however, there there’s a sustainability alternative: many booksellers are begining to integrate both social and environmental concerns into their business models.
Equal Exchange, Fair Trade Execs on Certification, Consumption and Change
By Becky Eisen, MBA Student at the University of Maryland, Smith School of Business; President, Smith Net Impact Chapter
As Leslie Lammers put the finishing touches on Organic Eggs Not Created Equal, Says New Scorecard, I spent the day at the Just Means Certification, Consumption and Change Conference at the National Press Club in Washington DC, listening to certification veterans like Fair Trade USA, Equal Exchange and the Forest Stewardship Council discuss the current state of the certification industry with a host of newer organizations that have recently formed or joined the certification movement and a smattering of USDA and other federal representatives.
First Panel: Scaling Ethical Certification; Opportunities and Challenges.
I hate starting with a complaint, but I have to report that the speakers were overly polite and skipped around the hot button topics. While some made the occasional, well-cloaked jab at particular labeling scheme, most speakers overwhelmingly read from the same script: “What is a best practice now will not be one in five years. Standards are always changing, the bar is getting higher. You need independent monitoring of compliance with standards. We should all work better together.” It was as if during a pre-conference convention they brainstormed winning campaign slogans and peer pressured each other to stick to the talking points, regardless of the panel topic or audience question.
The Mission-Profit Continuum: A Lesson from Executive Shadowing
By Stephen Huie
This past Friday, I visited Community Wealth Ventures and Share Our Strength as part of the Smith Net Impact Club’s Executive Shadowing Program. Other students visited Noblis, a non-profit scientific and engineering research center.
I learned a lot, especially about the role of mission in circumscribing the limits of earned income social ventures.
Community Wealth Ventures
Community Wealth Ventures is a for-profit firm that provides management and strategy consulting for non-profits. CWV was created as a social enterprise by Share Our Strength to assist other non-profits in developing earned income ventures. Examples include homeless shelters providing gardening services, Goodwill creating a janitorial service firm, and environmental groups creating wood certification and verification. These social ventures must deal with the competition and managerial challenges of running a business.
EPA’s National Sustainability Design Expo: A Glimpse At Our Better Future
By Guillermo Olivos
Yesterday I had the honor of joining a select group of ambassadors and corporate executives to get a sneak preview of the EPA’s National Sustainability Design Expo and P3 Competition. The event is designed as an annual event for (directly from the brochure) “teams of graduate and undergraduate students to design solutions for environmental and sustainability challenges worldwide. P3 stands for People, Prosperity, and the Planet. Fifty five of the best and brightest teams of students will showcase their work to create a greener future.
There is some pretty amazing stuff to be seen, and if you are in the DC area this weekend I encourage you to attend (yes, it’s rainy, but it’s in a tent!) You might take a look at the Rowan University team’s steel-based model of a machine that turns peanut shells into briquettes for burning— an idea that might be especially helpful for a country like Gambia that is lacking in natural forestry but can claim 8.9% of its GDP from its peanut production. Reusing waste to solve heating problems, save individuals time searching for scarce firewood, and improving quality of life? Yes sir.
Using Consumer Insights to Thin America and Fatten the Bottom Line
This post is part of a series on sustainability in the health and wellness industry, curated by Becky Eisen, Dana Ledyard, Izabel Loinaz. Follow along with the series here.
By Stephen Huie
Just because the growth rate of American obesity has slowed down to reach 34% of the adult population from 30% ten years ago, there isn’t any reason to begin letting loose again. Obesity may be plateauing for adults, but the number of obese children tripled to 17% over the same time period (CDC – 2010).
Food producers have been watching these “mega” trends in obesity and their counterpoint, health and wellness, for many years now. Food companies recognize that their customers’ bodies are changing and that buyers are responding by modifying what they choose to buy and eat.
But, how do you design and market healthier food products to a mass audience, especially when you’ve been producing products high in sugars, sodium, and fats for so long?
Taking the Entrepreneurial Plunge: Stories from the Social Venture Field
By Sara Herald
One of the sessions at the Social Enterprise Symposium held at the University of Maryland last Thursday featured tales and advice from four social entrepreneurs: Janessa Goldbeck from STANDnow, Steve Ma from Live Green Inc., Josh Nesbit from Medic Mobile, and Robyn Nietert from the Women’s Microfinance Initiative. What do these individuals working on the front lines to solve a variety of social problems have to say about the future of social entrepreneurship? That the world needs fewer generalists and more specialists who can tackle specific ills. What does that mean for the group of eager college and graduate students in attendance? Pick an area of interest to study and then focus on how the skills learned can address social problems.
That theme echoed throughout the Net Impact National Conference back in October, and it was really interesting to hear it repeated by people who have started successful businesses, both non- and for-profit. Echoing Green fellow Nesbit was pre-med at Stanford and became fascinated with mobile health and its implications in rural Africa while studying in Malawi. What kind of people is he looking to hire for Medic Mobile? Those with technical skills in software development and healthcare. It’s important to be passionate about the organization’s mission and a proven commitment to rural healthcare, but bottom line is that passion alone isn’t going to get you a job.
Find a Career that Gives You Passion in Six Easy Steps
By Zachary Olson
Everyone’s been lured into those seminars that are supposed to teach you THE SECRET to something, like finding happiness and blah blah blah, but then you end up just wanting to leave as soon as possible because they’re telling you things that seem like just common sense. But then sometimes, if you’re lucky, the speaker asks you to actually do one of their exercises, and your ego completely deflates as you realize you’re not actually doing these simple things. I had one of those moments in Dr. Mrim Boutla’s session about choosing a socially conscious career at the 2011 Social Enterprise Symposium. This is basically how the session started:
“Align your career with your passions!” Really? I should choose a job that I like doing? What a mind-blowing concept. 47 minutes left until I can leave and get some free food.
“Write down your top 6 passions.” I like my job, thanks. …If I were to do it, though (which I’m not), I guess I’d list things like web design and development and something to do with economic development or education and something about being outside and travel… None of which I get from my new internship (queue animation of ego shriveling up into a prune).
What Makes A (Social) Entrepreneur?
By Mike Levitsky
Simply seeing the panel “Social Entrepreneurs: Stories from the Field” at the UMDs Social Enterprise Symposium recently, has shown me that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and forms. A diverse panel allowed for different perspectives and experiences, each with unique contributions to what social entrepreneurship really means in our society. But, whether fighting against genocide in Africa, making green living the norm, helping women find financial help when no one else would, or bringing a new technology to become the standard in healthcare, these entrepreneurs have presented several traits and tidbits they feel are necessary for “entrepreneurial” success:
- Audacity is great. Don’t be afraid to go big early.
- Always go where you will have the most impact
- Passion makes up where skills lack
- A great TEAM is essential to success
- Be idealistic!
- “I got a great idea….now tell me what’s wrong with it”
- You don’t need anyone’s permission to do what you want to do
- Failing is good
- Entrepreneurship should be learned late in life! only after technical skills are learned should entrepreneurship be studied, so that these skills can be applied in new ways.
So…
It seems this “social entrepreneur” needs to be risky, goal oriented, passionate, idealistic, and rebellious. They need to have the ability to surround themselves with a good team of critics that won’t hold back, and to be able to accept failure time and time again.
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like I’ve heard this before….in any business class that has tried to define entrepreneurship. So what is it that makes these people SOCIAL entrepreneurs?
Nothing, except changing times and trends.
The social conscious-ness of society of changing. We have more than we’ve ever had before. Resources, responsibilities, relationships. For one reason or another, we care more about how our actions impact the earth, others, and ourselves. The trend is impossible to ignore. More companies are claiming to be “socially responsible” through CSR programs to try to strap you to their bandwagon. We can even try to connect this trend to the growing needs of Gen Y’s in the corporate workplace. Simply put, times are changing.
Our generation can make a difference (realism has been replaced by idealism.) In a society experiencing innovation at rates never seen before, with technology making tasks and actions more efficient, while resources become more readily available, the new class of entrepreneurs has shifted its focus towards widespread impact. This, combined with the increased interconnectedness of people around the world due to the growing popularity of social media has allowed for MOST entrepreneurial ventures to be “social.”
No longer is the goal to create some new invention or gadget for its use or functionality. The new goal is to create something that will change markets, change the availability of resources, change how people live.
So join me in making the world a greener place. Save some paper, and lets simply call it “entrepreneurship,” whether it’s social…or it’s social.
Calling All Female Would-Be Entrepreneurs
By Sara Herald
Although rates of entrepreneurship among women in the United States have been growing steadily, 60% of new businesses are still founded by men. However, if Natalia Oberti Noguera, Julie Lenzer Kirk, and Amy Millman have their way, that percentage will decrease significantly in the coming years. These three women, all entrepreneurs themselves, have made careers of helping other women start and grow businesses.
Oberti Noguera founded the Pipeline Fund, “a social venture fund that invests in women-led for-profit social ventures and trains women to become angel investors.” She’s passionate about gender equality in the business world, and she wants all aspiring female entrepreneurs to know that “it’s okay to fail, because each failure is just a step closer to success.”
Bank of America Knows Money Isn’t the Only Green That Matters
The Bank of America Tower
By Taylor Muckerman
This past week, I ventured to New York City with some fellow finance MBA’s from the Smith School to visit with some alumni at their respective jobs. The final day of our trek included a visit to the new Bank of America Tower on the Avenue of the Americas. Our visit here turned out to be more than just a Q & A with an alumn. After our lunch and informational interview session with a Managing Director of the Global Wealth Management division, we were treated to a virtual tour of this grand facility designed by Cook+Fox.
The new building, which opened in 2008, has received LEED Platinum certification. The Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) rating system aims to identify the best practices, materials, and systems for environmentally friendly buildings. This rating is well warranted due to the vast array of eco-friendly features this skyscraper houses:
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