A new greener economy will be shaped by both large and small businesses. Our StartUp category, usually published on Friday as part of the Startup Friday theme features new companies, small entrepreneurs, and sometimes just hair brained business ideas all of which are aimed at solving some kind of environmental of social problem – through business. Enjoy.
In this interview, Sourcemap founder Leonardo Bonanni shares his quest to shed light on supply chains and to make them more sustainable.
Rubies in the Rubble is a social enterprise providing employment to the needy and reducing food waste by making chutney and jam from surplus fresh produce.
Saudi Arabia will seek investors interested in a $109 billion plan to generate power from solar energy. The ambitious plan calls for a long term goal of generating an entire third of the nation’s electricity from solar power by the year 2032.
Zurich-based group designs a rooftop fish farm that can also grow vegetables – is this the future of local, sustainable, seasonal, and organic food?
Last Friday I had an experience many of you may share: wandering around the optical shop after an eye exam, eyes blurry and cartoonishly dilated, looking at potential glasses for the first time. Though I could barely see, I saw something was extremely off: the prices of the glasses themselves. A basic level pair was [...]
A recent RelayRides car accident is bringing attention to some of the liability issues associated with sharing economy borrowing arrangements.
A prototype wind-powered system from France’s Eole Water has been producing as much as 800 l/d of clean water in desert conditions near Abu Dhabi.
With the recent passing of the JOBS Act into law, crowdfunding that allows people to be actual investors in and gain financial rewards from companies as participants is set to become legal in the US. As the SEC irons out the details in the next 9 months, several would be crowdfunding sites are planting their stakes.
At this week’s Fortune Brainstorm Green conference, I had a chance to talk briefly with Jeff Miller, Founder & CEO of Wheelz.com – a peer to peer car sharing startup based primarily on college campuses. A classic access economy company, Wheelz took their primary funding from Zipcar and pride themselves on the ease of automobile [...]
At this week’s Fortune Brainstorm Green conference, I had a chance to talk briefly with David Edmondson who is founder and CEO of a company called eRecyclingCorps. It’s a company the average consumer may have never heard of, but it’s quite likely that if you’ve ever returned an old cell phone to your service provider, [...]
Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood will soon be home to a 100,000 square foot, multi-acre rooftop farm that will produce a million pounds of produce per year – enough to feed 5,000 people – without using any dirt. The farm will be built by BrightFarms, a new company with a unique business model that finances, builds, and operates hydroponic greenhouse farms for supermarkets and other retailers who purchase the produce.
An Israeli entrepreneur has come up with a plan to make paper from human waste. This might sound unsavory, but Rafael Aharon sees an untapped business with plenty of potential.
The Jump-start Our Business Start-ups (JOBS) Act recently received the Senate’s approval and would help small companies raise capital, if enacted. As business students looking at alternative funding mechanisms that can contribute to our local economies, we have identified Direct Public Offerings (DPOs) as an existing method to access public financing for companies too small to use the traditional Initial Public Offering (IPO) process.
An outdoor snuggie for the homeless.
Unilever has a vision of a better future for our world and its business and it needs your help to make it happen. The company unveiled a new Open Innovation website to gather and assess ideas from external resources, inviting “anyone who has a fresh, serious approach to new thinking” to pitch in. What do you get in return? The opportunity to make a difference to millions of people’s lives and a financial reward if Unilever decides to pursue your idea. Some would say it’s a great way to generate the sort of innovation Unilever needs to meet the ambitious goals it set in its Sustainable Living Plan. Others would argue it’s a waste of time and the company should look inside and not outside for solutions. So which one is it? Or in other words, can crowdsourcing really work for Unilever?
By Lorna Li If you want to discover what corporate responsibility really looks like, interview 100 of the top CEOs in the world and ask them what they’re doing about our planet’s social and environmental problems. That’s what Nikki Pava did as a marketing and communications professional for many years, working with corporations in Bangkok, [...]
Launch is a one-of-a-kind public-private partnership between NASA, USAID, US State Department, and Nike to use the “power of prizes” to encourage startups to develop an innovative solution that addresses the needs of the developing world. Next up: waste issues.
Upcycling is a hot new trend that is good for business and good for the environment. So why are Zero Waste advocates so critical?
Both GE’s size and scope of its manufacturing have grown exponentially beyond the company’s manufacturing plant expansion in Schenectady, New York 110 years ago. Beyond the size of its manufacturing facilities across the globe, the company has had an enormous impact on just about every manufactured item we can see or touch today.
While there are many examples of RICs that have failed, LA has one example of a successful government backed incubator.
Expired food at supermarkets is a huge source of waste. Zero Gachis is an app that would allow merchants to set discounted prices on soon to expire product, that nearby app users would be alerted of, and in the process, accumulate points that will equal cash donations to area food banks.
A former ad-exec in North Carolina, Nancy Welsh wants to stop the tear-down epidemic and use the resource of America’s boarded up homes to help solve the housing crisis. Her group Builders of Hope has repeated the recipe in several US cities.
Two companies may have found a solution, creating drop-in jet fuel from biomass. Not only have the companies created the jet fuel, but the fuel has also passed rigorous military testing.
AeroFarms is state-of-the-art controlled growing environment that enables local communities and farmers to grow over 250 leafy greens without sun, or soil and with 90% less water.
Health data liberation is catalyzing entrepreneurs to create products and services to help consumers, patients, doctors, nurses, and other health professionals both seek and deliver better care. The data is also enabling tools that help doctors get a sense of patient population trends, that help journalists identify key report worthy issues such as health disparities and that help officials see food deserts so they can craft better policy.
Three startup companies, including one backed by Bill Gates, are developing technology to extract carbon dioxide from the air and help solve the climate crisis.
One by one, states are adopting new legislation that gives corporate directors legal protections for making decisions to maximize stakeholder value in addition to shareholder value. These new corporate structures are spawning an ecosystem of entrepreneurs and investors eager to build firms that simultaneously scale profits and social or environmental impact.
It looks like GM is playing an important role in the growth of RelayRides, which announced earlier this month that it is expanding its service nationwide. And the question that comes in mind is why GM is doing it? Did the company forget it makes money from selling more cars, not less? Here are four possible explanations for GM’s growing involvement with the peer-to-peer sharing service.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate approved legislation that will legalize crowdfunding and allow the general public to make equity investments in start-up companies and small businesses.
Best Practices in Corporate Volunteering
Communicating Corporate Responsibility with AHA
The Future of Fair Trade with Fair Trade USA
Bard College MBA in Sustainability
Sustainability Ratings and Key CSR Topics
How to Invest for Income and Impact
Energy Options: Pros and Cons from Solar to Nuclear
[coming soon] The Green Beer Series 2012
San Diego: June 4-7
Sustainable Brands 2012: Join us as the Sustainability, Brand Strategy and Innovation Communities convene to shape the future. Discover and participate in the sustainable brand revolution by collaborating to shift consumer demand, drive heretical innovation, and evolve the business case. 20% Reader discount with code "nwtripsb12".
Webinar: June 5
Running an Effective Corporate Volunteer Program with AngelPoints: Key clients discuss how they put the AngelPoints Volunteering solution to work for them. Attend this webinar to learn best practices, tips & tricks - and how to get an effective volunteer program off the ground at your organization.
Seattle: June 11-12GRI Certified Training: Demand for sustainability experts is growing rapidly as companies look for proven professionals. For companies, GRI trained employees mean faster implementations and better use of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework. Join our partner ISOS group for this two day session. Early bird discounts apply!
Portland & Seattle: June 13 & 14
Sustainable Industries Economic Forum:
NYC: June 27-28Responsible Business Summit USA: Discover how to fully embed and integrate CSR in your organization. Learn how to collaborate with key stakeholders and establish competitive edge using proven CSR strategies. Hear best practices from GAP Inc, Timberland, Lockheed Martin, Life Technologies, Campbell Soup and many more.
Minneapolis: July 19-20GRI Certified Training: Demand for sustainability experts is growing rapidly as companies look for proven professionals. For companies, GRI trained employees mean faster implementations and better use of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework. Join our partner ISOS group for this two day session. Early bird discounts apply!
Boston: Sep 13-14GRI Certified Training: Demand for sustainability experts is growing rapidly as companies look for proven professionals. For companies, GRI trained employees mean faster implementations and better use of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework. Join our partner ISOS group for this two day session. Early bird discounts apply!
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