Cosmos Ignite, Belu Water and British Social Entrepreneurship

Here's The Independent's (UK) Six Finalists for the title of Social Entrepreneur of the Year, 2007. It's a nice perspective on social entrepreneurship from across the pond, and the finalists represent a cross-section not only of focus areas but also of business structure. Cosmos Ignite is a for-profit company focused on making safer lighting and electricity products for developing regions that currently depend on more dangerous methods (like kerosene.) Belu Water donates 100% of its bottled water profits to funding clean water projects.

The Optimist normally focuses on for-profit ventures (like Cosmos) and largely ignores the burgeoning world of non-profits, like Finalist MEND, a childhood obesity program. It's not for lack of interest or respect; if anything we don't think we could do justice to the entirely unique challenges of running a non-profit: it's every bit as competitive as a for-profit these days with the proliferation of charitable organizations, and there's every bit the same requirement of running a profitable and accountable organization. It's just that...we barely have what it takes to cover "Profit and Purpose" businesses- let alone venturing into the non-profit world.

Oberlin College: The Greenest...and City Wheels

More great news out of North Central Ohio:

The Sierra Club named Oberlin College American's most environmentally friendly school. Supporting evidence ranges from local sourcing of much of the school's cafeteria food to the two Priuses for rent on campus through CityWheels, a Cleveland-based, family-owned car-sharing business.

Hope Wine

Business Week does its annual salute of America's Best Young Entrepreneurs. My personal favorite is our neighbor, Number 15, Jake Kloberdanz (24!) of Newport Beach, California. His simple business model (I didn't say Easy!) is to contract out wine production, market it and distribute it under the Hope Wine label, and give half of all profits to AIDS, Breast Cancer and Autism charities. Congratulations to this young leader and his peers.

Ethos JWT, and a side rant on subscriber content

Nice little Wall Street Journal clip (and it is a clip, since most of their illustrious content is still free in preview only) on Ethos JWT- the arm of massive ad conglomerate WPP that initially handled non-profit work before finding a lucrative market in helping companies tout social responsibility efforts.

Note on WSJ's "subscriber content:" about 8 years ago I had an internship with a magazine, and a great boss who shared me his WSJ log-in. I got all ethical a few years later and stopped using it to access WSJ long after my internship was over. And now it appears that the movement is firmly afoot to tear down the "subscriber walls" at the web's best news sources, as Web@Work notes the NYTimes did with columns and other archived content in September. Note: I'm not saying what I think the media companies should do; in fact, I'm completely conflicted, because even as a blogger and an advocate of "citizen journalism" I'll always yield to the higher authority of bona fide reporters, who need to get paid somehow (and I ironically don't believe that serving ads is always the answer), and yet I'm a cheapskate and almost completely unwilling to subscribe to an online newspaper.

Arrived: The Inevitable Green Backlash

Recent front page news on my iGoogle gives me more current foretelling of the inevitable backlash against Green. I suppose that's how you know a movement has gained enough momentum or "critical mass" to have legitimately arrived- when critics start cropping up and saying, "Yeah, but..."

I'll always come back to the Michael Crooke comment, "It's not enough to be eco-groovy." It's not a justification of lower standards on what defines "green" improvement but an admission that we'll take incremental steps- each supported by a viable business model- on our way to being truly green.

Still, it's worth checking out the flipside:

Fast Company ponders whether carbon offsets are a cop-out and then concludes, "Ditch the guilt. You aren't a sinner for buying offsets."

Better still, Fast Company explores the commercial exploitation of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and concludes with Rob Watson's (the "father" of LEED) statement that it's time to "redouble our efforts" in defining LEED. Great story by Anya Kamenetz

Inc., currently my favorite business rag, astutely (ahem) surveys job seekers and finds they are none too concerned about the green-ness of their employees. (By the way, Seth Godin puts surveys in their proper perspective.)

And BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin uncovers green corporate pioneer Auden Schendler's mounting frustration in the crusade to make "corporate sustainability" both a good and a profitable thing, with his employer, the Aspen Skiing Company, as his living lab.

PS: Great magazines like Fast Company and Inc. are ALL OVER Green (see Fast Company's 50 Ways To Green Your Business , also this month), so the stories above are really nothing more than objective counterpoints to one of their favorite topics.

Bon Appetit and "The Joy of Local Sourcing"

Here's a nice CSRWire release on Bon Appetit, an onsite restaurant company that is uniquely going beyond its mission of serving great food (I eat it at my employer every day, which is why this story caught my eye) at organizations, schools and corporate offices.

Bon Appetit's Eat Local Challenge inspires the chefs at each of the company's 400+ locations in 28 states to cook up the day's menu on September 25 using all local ingredients originating from 120 miles of the site.

EEStor and a Better Battery

Optimist reader Brad in Royal Oak, Michigan, points us to Mlive.com and an A.P. story by Grant Slator profiling Austin, Texas company EEStor's ultracapacitor- a battery stuffed with wafer thin metal sheets whose inventors believe will hold enough charge for 500 miles of electric vehicle drive time.

EEStor is well-backed by Kleiner Perkins and Zenn Motors of Toronto, which has already licensed the technology.

Treehugger was first on the story in March 2006 and again in January

More Dairy Do Good: Ben and Jerry's

If you like rich ice cream with clever flavors named for (mostly hippy) inspirations (like Cherry Garcia) OR the music of the best guitar/bass/drums/ fiddle/sax quintet (that isn't really a quintet since it also has a piano) in rock and roll OR both, and are concerned about the environment and global warming, then you'll love "Lick Global Warming", Ben & Jerry's collaboration with the Dave Matthews Band and SaveOurEnvironment.org.

The program sports a number of educational tidbits and calls to action, like letters to Congress or support for renewable energy efforts like myclimate and NativeEnergy.

CSRWire, Callaway and Furniture Row

CSRWire is what it is: a venue for inherently self-promotional companies to tout their corporate responsibility achievements. Which also makes it a great place to find news on companies large and small and their involvement in philanthropy, research, and all other things Optimist.

How hard is it to come up with good, simple premises for your business, or one of your products, in support of a worthy effort, even if it does have a basic marketing component to it?

A recent batch of good news via CSRWire:

Callaway's Limited Edition Driver supports the company's Women's Cancer Initiative

Furniture Row sets aside $20 of each sofa for homeless children in Mexico via World Vision

Newly launched Ethisphere magazine follows up its first annual World's Most Ethical Companies issue with a webcast explaining their methodology and a call for nominations for next year's edition.

One other interesting tale via the Wire: Biota water, purveyors of water in corn-based bottles that biodegrade in only 80 days, takes to an aggressive PR campaign against UPS Capital (arm of UPS), railing against UPS Capital's financing tactics and explicitly (in a press release that reads like a lawsuit) pitting itself as David against Goliath.

Premier Soccer Academies and the Good World of Soccer

Early on we posted about Eurosport's Passback program. Simple, effective, awesome.

I used to get three or four soccer catalogs growing up as a young footballer: Acme Soccer and Widget Works, TSI, and of course Eurosport, which has outlived the other two and a slew of competition, rightly earning its url (www.soccer.com). They've succeeded strategically and along the way done some good with a awesome program that rounds up used gear from footballers (who seriously love their gear) and gives it to kids who need gear.

It won't be the last time we post on the good business side of soccer. The Beautiful Game lends itself to a spirit of giving. A few potential reasons: 1) the truly global nature of the game, which fosters an ambassador-y attitude among those who love it and a cultural kinship between soccer (futbol, etc.) lovers everywhere 2) the underdog position of the game in this country, which maybe motivates companies to support the sport as though it were a charity 3) growing recognition of soccer as a quintessential learning experience for kids: multicultural, team-oriented, fitness-intensive 4) the great, giving personality of those who love the game (an admittedly biased option.)

Whatever it may be, here's another example: Lorain (OH) Morning Journal writers Jennifer Bracken and Alan Ingram cover the opening of the new $8M Premier Soccer Academies in Lorain, Ohio, which is going to be a life-changing experience for a diverse group of young student-athletes.

The Great Lakes town, known for sailing, Ford, and iron ore-receiving near the end of the St. Lawrence Seaway, may not have been where you'd expect to hear about of one of the most deluxe soccer academies to be established outside of Florida's IMG Academy or The David Beckham Academy at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles- until you realize that Brad Friedel, one of the United State's most accomplished international soccer players, a longtime fixture of our national team and the goalkeeper of Blackburn Rover in the English Premier League, grew up just up the road in Bay Village.

To bring it full circle, Friedel's Premier Soccer Academies are supported by Star Trac, CenturyTel, adidas, and the Cleveland Clinic, further perfect examples of strong corporate support for the Beautiful Game.

BONUS: A phenomenal book about soccer as a reflection of nationalism, religion and culture all over the world: How Soccer Explains the World, by Franklin Foer. It's as rich with world history as it is with history on some of the international game's most legendary clubs.

Weekend Roundup: Start-ups and Big Companies Doing Good

Dane Carlson points to FloodFight, a start-up whose self-inflating sand-bags use not sand but a material that expands when wet to help control floods.

Every time I haul a plastic bag full of garbage, including empty plastic bottles and aluminum cans, which my town supposedly separates out at of unsorted waste , I can't help but imagine pioneer days of riding in to town for some provisions. Certainly a frontiersman didn't walk out of the town general store with a station wagon full of overly packaged food; I picture a burlap sack with a bunch of raw ingredients in it (a handful of eggs, a lump of lard, and a big clay jug of Diet Dr. Pepper)...anyway, packaging seems to be stuck in an recycling mentality era, when maybe the focus should be on changing and reducing it. Tetra Pak is one packaging innovator trying to just that, in conjunction with municipal governments like St. Paul, Minnesota.

Ikea joins the ranks of companies whose corporate leases are going Prius, says Treehugger.

The Dave Thomas Foundation announces the 100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces in the U.S., led by Citizens Financial Group (Rhode Island).

Greenprint not only sells a software that reduces the amount of paper you (or your company) use when you print; they also offer a font (Evergreen) that saves more paper AND they give you a tree when you buy the software. In terms of the economics of using Greenprint, remember that it's not just the paper you're saving, but more importantly the expensive ink.

NAU has a fantastic blog.


Take the SURVEY: 2o Questions About Considerate Consumers and win TOMS Shoes!

Ethisphere

MediaBuyerPlanner reports on the launch of a new magazine covering all things corporately ethical: Ethisphere.

It's a timely idea, but, named like an inflight magazine and targeted at only directors and CEOs, it could struggle to make the broader influence that a magazine grading the responsibility of corporate leadership could. Why not send it out to lower level employees: those dealing with the workforce, choosing suppliers, preparing financial reports, creating packaging, and otherwise getting their hands dirty with the aspects of business that are most commonly called into ethical question?

Google: Doing Good, Locally

Google. Do No Evil. Google.org. There are so many "Optimist" facets to one of the most fascinating and fastest growing companies out there (and one with unbelievable brand-building momentum, according to Interbrand.) Here's another:

If you believe that small business is the life blood of this country, which we do, then this project, Google Local Business Referrals, is an example of a technology company doing good while probably also doing well. Google is enlisting paid local representatives to take digital photos and collect information about local businesses for integration with Google Maps (with the participation and permission of the business, of course.) This is a win for the small business, the end user looking for a solid referral, and certainly, in some way, Google.

If promoting small business doesn't meet your definition of doing good, consider:

• Free AdWords advertising for non-profits through Google Grants
• The business world-leading solar installation at the Google campus (see BoingBoing)
• How Googlers and non-Googlers like the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum have teamed up to use Maps to track Darfur and the genocide tragedies of the region (also see StopGenocideNow.org)
• Google releasing a version of the Apps suite for non-profits and educators
• Google planning to go Carbon Neutral by next year (see Shiny Shiny)...

...and of course, the legendary treatment of its employees, from work-life balance to the fabled amenities to a stipend for buying a hybrid, all well-document on the Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For list and even on Oprah...

...and underlying it all, Google.org, the philanthropic arm which, lead by the legendary Dr. Larry Brilliant and endowed by Google cash and equity, is focused on public health, climate change, and global development, and supporting or launching great programs from the Acumen Fund (supporting entrepreneurial pursuits against poverty) to RechargeIT.org, which targets auto emissions.

(Equal Opportunity: Yahoo! For Good is a great program for using Yahoo tools to make a positive impact. No one could say it simpler or better than that!)

Critics point to privacy concerns, click fraud, or other standard criticisms, but that's not what this is about; they may also scoff that any company with Google's cash position could do such good things.

To which we say, to all other huge companies with lots of money, "Great, so do it like Google does it."

Disclaimer: The Optimist Company doesn't reflect Google's position and in no way are they connected; the only things they have is a vision that companies can make money while doing good. Even though The Optimist isn't about journalistic integrity (which I respect as a trained journalist) and instead simply celebrating companies that make money while doing good, this bears mentioning, because I can't go much further without mentioning Google.

Shaq, Obesity and REI

I'm not ashamed to say that I was absolutely absorbed by Shaq's Big Challenge, which wrapped last night on ABC. I'm a hoops connoisseur and sometimes Shaquille O'Neal apologist, admittedly, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed the show. But I didn't expect to get goosebumps during the finale, even though I do goosebump easily.

What was so compelling about? It's realism? The kids weren't dropping 100+ pounds like the full-grown candidates on other weight-loss shows, like Biggest Loser. It would probably have been a warning sign if they were dropping more than the 25-75 lbs. they seemed to drop, given that they're growing teens.

It's completeness? They attacked childhood obesity from every angle, with after school workout regimens, the President's Physical Fitness Test, school lunch improvement, and a trip to the governor to get a commitment to support it all (leading to the only frustrating moment: a footnote that the governor's office was "exploring paths" to implementing Shaq's Wellness Wheel and other programs. How governmenty!)

Shaq? Always likeable, and convincingly fit without being unachievably svelte (a knock he's heard once or twice in the later years of his career). But most compelling: why would he do the show? To make money? Doubtful. The Diesel came off as genuinely interested in reversing the epidemic, and who better to get through to kids? Some remote and irrelevant President's Fitness Test, or one of the most admired athletes out there?

All told, a very entertaining miniseries (let's not curse it with the reality label) that, hopefully, will inspire more local action.

Bloggers react:
Burning The Scale
MediaLife Rev
BuddyTV recap

BONUS CLIP on children and activity: A CSRwire news release about REI's Passport to Adventure, a program that organzies hikes and bike-hikes recommended by store employees for kids and their parents. It's nice community involvement (that probably also drives sales) from a company that is also notorious for passionate employees, hands-on shopping, and localized classes, training sessions, etc. It's also perfect alignment, a great outdoor program from a great outdoor retailer.

Green Beans Coffee: Serving and Supporting Servicemen

As seen in this month's Entrepreneur, Green Beans Coffee Company was launched by Jason and Jon Araghi in Saudi Arabia over 10 years ago. The mission was to give service men and women a coffee shop home away from home, and the military quickly backed the venture and brought numerous locations to bases around the Middle East. The company, also committed to sustainable operations, donates to several charities supporting veterans and is getting ready to franchise in the U.S.

General Mills and Box Tops 4 Education

General Mills has been an Optimist Company since long before it was trendy to integrate philanthropy into a marketing plan. The Box Tops 4 Education website doesn't even brandish the General Mills logo or any trademark cereal characters. The program is so entrenched that it's apparently not sexy enough to warrant much mention in the blogosphere (although here is one mom blogger's plug for it, plus a newsletter post from an Alaskan school). Yet it's so effective that General Mills has given $200M to primary schools in a simple purchases-for-cash program in 11 years.

GreenMachineShop and Green Computing

The hardware world is another trend-spotty place to throw the "green" tag around, but with the big makers throwing their advances into the media mix, all exposure is probably good exposure.

Here's some Treehuggger coverage, including an astute quote form Arizona State professor Eric Williams that maybe the greenest idea in computing is to simply extend product lifespans. The thought goes along well with the disgusting image on the Treehugger post, as counter intuitive as that thought may be to the marketing strategies of most hardware markets.

Here's a SiliconBeat story on the legit success of Dell, CTL and Valley neighbor HP in producing environmentally friendly AND high quality computers (remember the Michael Crooke quote: It's Not Enough To Be Eco-Groovy), plus a link to EPA's epeat effort to help buyers choose on "environmental attributes."

And on the start-up side here's GreenMachineShop.com of Ann Arbor, touting the benefits of green computing beyond the environment, including a better experience for those suffering Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome. GreenMachine, get your branding together! It's not clear from your site that you're actually making the EcoCenter and LifeBook lines, which is awesome (if you are!)

Alternative Transport in the Sky: The Boeing Green Jet

Boeing has received a lot of press recently on its first new jet in 13 years, the 787 Dreamliner.

Last week Boeing unveiled the massive aviation innovation with a green spin, touting the green jet's carbon composite construction and other fuel saving efficiencies Check it out at Discovery.

Alternative Transportation Week: Wrapping Up

You'd think that our first Alternative Transportation Week would last...about a week. But there's so much good stuff going on in this world, that would be irresponsible. So here's a grab bag of extra cool stuff:

Commuter Cars is importing the Tango, the closest thing I have seen yet to a vision I had of essentially a covered motorcycle. This one, though, is battery powered with a range up to 160 miles, a perfectly shaped commuter vehicle. It weighs just over a ton and a half, a third of which is battery.

The only thing I am unsure of about it is that CC advocates Tango's benefits in lane-splitting, or driving between two cars in tight traffic. As a Southern California driver it makes me extremely nervous when motorcyclists do this, yet it could be a major incentive to get people into much more efficient vehicles. It highlights the need for some kind of true "CommuterCar" lane to incent drivers to make the big switch.

Or even for something grander, like the network of slim, elevated tracks that would be required to make SkyWeb a reality. It doesn't look like much has happened lately with SkyWeb, or Taxi2000, whatever the companies name is behind this ultra-futuristic "personal rapid transit." But it's another idea that gets right to changing the infrastructure of ground travel. There's an old press release (2005) about installing SkyWeb on Microsoft's Redmond campus. A big, deep-pocketed company with a campus-like headquarters and a workforce of early techno-adopters seems like an ideal place to test the concept.

Here's another alternative fuel maker to put up there with BioWillie: Altra Biofuels, an LA-based developer of cellulosic ethanol fuel.

And here's a fantastic Bruno Giussani article in Business Week about the OSCar Project, or the Open Source Car Project. Based in Europe and "maintained" by Markus Mertz, OSCar is trying to do for automotive hardware what has been done for countless open source software projects, from Linux to Firefox: virtually assemble a group of talented and passionate minds to come up with a better design to "reinvent mobility." An awesome, if slow-evolving (the group wrote its first "manifesto" in 1999 and not even Mertz is able to be committed full-time to the effort) approach.

If you can't get behind any of these more advanced technologies or start-ups, at least seriously consider NuRide, one of several increasingly prominent ride-sharing concepts out there. This one offers rewards and incentives for ride sharing. And look at the passengers in the convertible- they look so happy!

Finally, and look for a full disclosure from me in the near future on anything I write about them, is Google's RechargeIT initiative. Google's philanthropic venture arm, Google.org, is funding development efforts for a hybrid plug-in car to the tune of $1M.

News and What They're Saying:

Futurist Jim Carroll on the Google Car
NY Times' Katie Hafner on Google.org and Dr. Larry Brilliant
Morning Paper on the Google Car
WorldChanging on NuRide
AutoBlog on OSCar's debut
Richforking on SkyWEb
Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions on NuRide
Great Green Gadgets on Commuter Cars and the Tango
SoCalTech.com on Altra's huge debt fundraising round

Alternative Transportation Week: The Bicycle

On the Fourth of July, let's celebrate Independence as a nation, and when possible, independence from our automobiles.

With the huge disclaimer that I drive, as I've disclosed before, a fairly large Detroit automobile, and I drive a lot, I can also honestly say that I spent the Fourth cruising up and down Newport Beach's Balboa Peninsula on my bike. I didn't touch my SUV all day, an unbelievable luxury considering the madness that was traffic on the peninsula.

My Giant Boulder SE

It's the simplest alternative transportation: ride a bike! (And wear a helmet while you're at it.)