(This is from our July 23rd newsletter. Enjoy!)
We work tirelessly to develop amazing sustainability frameworks for our business. Our companies embrace social responsibility by giving back to the community. We focus our efforts on creating products that are toxin-free and do not create waste. There's still a very important component to this picture: our own personal sustainability.

What does personal sustainability mean to you and what are you doing to educate yourself?

Here are a few suggestions for resources that might be useful to you:

• Make smart choices about your personal products: the Environmental Working Group is an organization full of scientists, engineers and a whole bunch of other smart people who conduct tests on products that might be harmful to your health. Do your research before you make your purchase!


• With The Good Guide, you can research information on 65,000 "healthy, green and socially responsible" food, toy, personal care and household products. The company uses a comprehensive methodology and ratings system so that you can easily and quickly find information that is most useful to you. You can even see if a specific company is a socially responsible business!

We hope these sites support you so that both your business and personal sustainability are in alignment with one another.

Wondering what other EcoTuesday participants do to ensure that their personal sustainability reaches high standards? Ask them this month in person at one of our 9 events across the country! This month sustainable business leaders will meet on July 27th. As usual, we have incredible speakers in each city that will share about their area of expertise. Afterwards, you can share about yourself so that an entire roomful of people will know about the sustainability-related projects you're working on. Be sure to join us and please RSVP beforehand.

Take care, Nikki Pava

When it comes to energy reform on Capitol Hill, there’s a lot of maneuvering going on right now.  So far this year, seven different pieces of legislation from both democrats and republicans have either been introduced, passed Senate committee or passed in the House.  Melaine Nutter, an aid for Congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated very clearly at a recent Business Council on Climate Change meeting that Pelosi has made climate legislation one of the flagship issues of her leadership.

With Pelosi at the helm, the House of Representatives as passed one of the seven bills, called the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). It would include a cap and trade on carbon emissions, require the EPA to set vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards, increase incentives for plug in vehicles, bring more efficiency to buildings and promote performance standards for coal fired power plants.   In addition, it would require the country get at least 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030. 

However, it’s up the the Senate to finish the job of putting a price on carbon emissions and building a new, green and cleaner energy economy.  As it stands today, the American Power Act, introduced by Senators John Kerry and Joe Liberman is likely to be the foundation with which the Senate forms is version of climate and energy legislation. This month the Congressional Budget Office scored their bill and said that it would cut the deficit by $19 billion over the next decade via cap and trade revenue. This bill calls for increased off shore drilling as well as many of the programs in the ACES bill. It is slightly more lenient in terms of a renewable energy procurement, requiring only 15 percent of energy produced in the US come from renewable sources by 2020, as opposed to the 20 percent in the House ACES bill.  However,  the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions mirror that of ACES- a 42 percent reduction by 2030.

Once the Senate gets around to passing its own version of climate legislation, it will have to be rectified with the House's ACES bill. Time will tell whether the comprised legislation has enough teeth in it to put a dent in carbon offsets,  reduce climate change and accelerate our path to a cleaner energy economy. At that point some may argue the bill isn't worth President Obama's signature. Then again others might be happy with the incremental improvements we get.

I'm Steven Van Yoder, founder of Global Initiative to Advance Entrepreneurship (GIVE), a nonprofit 501c3 I founded a few years ago to address poverty in the developing world. My organization targets the poorest of the poor, boosting entrepreneurship in targeted countries via an innovative model that emphasizes business skills training for microentrepreneurs, and community economic development that meets local needs.

I was inspired to found this organization after several trips to developing countries. The most poignant moment came when visiting Bali, Indonesia in November 2001 (two months after the 9/11 attacks). I saw the effects on the local economy that resulted from a downward dip in tourism. As a marketing consultant, I also appreciate how local businesses, lacking marketing savvy, set themselves up for unnecessary challenges.

 

At this time I met and became friends with a bright, motivated taxi driver while on that trip. I spent a week with him touring the island and sold him on the benefits of promoting himself as a local tour guide, rather than a dime-a-dozen taxi driver.

 

I taught him basic marketing skills, such as keeping in touch by email with clients. I helped him print his business cards and design a simple website. In subsequent visits, I saw how mentoring had helped his business flourish, and appreciated how the poor often benefit more from acquiring intellectual capital rather than handouts or loans.

 

Making Microfinance Better

Since GIVE's inception, microcredit has become a household word, due in part to Mohammad Yunus winning the noble prize in 2006, and microlending website Kiva growing in popularity. Though this recent spotlight on poverty is promising, it's also helped microcredit become seen by many as a panacea for poverty, an oversimplification to a complex situation.

 

Microlending is seductive because it's seen as an alternative to charity that encourages personal responsibility and dignity by helping the poor gain needed credit, rather than handouts. Unfortunately, many studies challenge microcredit has been oversold, showing that small loans, by themselves, are not truly lifting the poor out of poverty.

 

The microfinance industry tends to measure its success in terms of loan payback rates and general social improvement, not the degree by which poor borrowers build successful businesses. Moreover, modern the modern microfinance industry has not implemented strategies to ensure their borrowers' businesses grow and prosper while measuring the degree that borrowers move out of poverty.

 

GIVE plans to step in and bridge this gap. By working through established Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and poverty-focused groups, GIVE seeks to strengthen their impact and bring needed ideas, resources and training to partner staff and borrowers.

 

A Holistic Model for Poverty Alleviation

GIVE pursues a client-centered approach to poverty alleviation that complements and strengthens the impact of our microfinance partners.

 

Through entrepreneurship training, general financial education, mentoring, and building alliances between local and international businesses, GIVE seeks to alleviate poverty in the lives of individual microentrepreneurs and throughout entire local communities.

 

GIVE pursues a holistic poverty alleviation model for providing nonfinancial services, including business skills training, community economic development and family wellness and social development. Our programs are designed to assist the poor with a more effective model for growing small businesses in poverty-stricken parts of the world.

 

GIVE is currently forming a microfinance institution partnership network in SE Asia and piloting several projects throughout the region. Our goal throughout 2010-2011 is developing a working model for providing comprehensive services to the poor that can then be scaled and expanded globally so that microentrepreneurs will be able to receive the skills they need for real success, not just loan repayment.

 

GIVE's Entrepreneurship Center model constitutes the flagship from which other GIVE programs will be delivered. Entrepreneurship Centers are modeled on successful business support centers that now exist in the USA, such as the US Small Business Administration (SBA), and provide a range of nonfinancial services to our field partners and their borrowers.

Want to Join Us?

GIVE is seeking volunteers and advisors for key areas of its new programs. We need a wealth of expertise and welcome inquires from anyone interested in helping us expand this working model for twenty-first century poverty alleviation.

 

Moreover, to support our efforts at financial self-sufficiency, GIVE is developing an Adopt A Community sponsorship program that will be marketed to small businesses and multinational companies with a stake in targeted communities, and to individual and companies, both small and large, that would like to support GIVE community programs as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts.

 

If you are interested in learning more or getting involved as a partner, volunteer or supporter, visit our Get Involved page.

 

Finally, you can keep up with GIVE, and learn more about our current programs, by subscribing to our blog.

I'm pleased to announce our July Sponsors in San Francisco! I've loved visiting their site. The online store has high quality products that promote recycling and the use of sustainable materials. The site is easy to navigate, the photos are clear, and the product descriptions are very informative.

They will be at EcoTuesday in San Francisco in July, with a table to demonstrate some of their products. Also, there will be a few lucky winners within the EcoTuesday group that will win Runka prizes to take home! We hope to see you there! EcoTuesday is very happy to be working with Runka!

 

Here's a little bit more about Runka:
Runka.com is a new website that offers only eco-friendly, sustainable and recycled products.  The site was developed by five partners who have been involved in the recycling industry for over 20 years.  We are excited about the explosion of the green movement and the emergence of so many great products that are now available to the marketplace.

Runka.com travels the country to locate, research and gather items directly from the manufacturers.  We meet personally with each company to determine the quality, production methods and philosophy behind everything offered on our site.  This also allows us to bring many of these items to the consumer at discounted prices.

We strive to provide the customer with a trusted, "one-stop shopping" experience for green household items, gifts, apparel, pet products and other consumables.  It is our goal to make this process seamless and convenient.  The mainstream shopper often does not have the time to search out environmentally safe products even though, given the option, they would prefer to buy green.  The more socially aware consumer will find great deals on natural goods and will reduce their carbon footprint as well.  By visiting one website that has many of the products they use the planet benefits and green shopping is enhanced and simplified.

We invite you to visit Runka.com and take a look at our extensive product line.