Nubius Organics, Innovative Product for Eco-Conscious Living, Relaunches Their Website

Nubius Organics, a Santa Cruz, CA based on-line business, is re-launching their website today in an effort to better meet the needs of our customers by offering eco-friendly products and resources in a user-friendly format. Nubius Organics attracts like-minded people who share the belief that we can make a difference every day by making the right choices in terms of what we buy and who we buy it from.
 
The folks at Nubius Organics envision a healthier planet and a cleaner future, and since 2005 they have made it their mission to offer hundreds of product ideas for affordable green living so consumers can shop conscientiously and throw away less. Their small staff consists of moms, activists and artists, all with a love for the environment, and all products are Fair Trade, stylish and functional.
 
The history and ongoing mission of Nubius Organics was summed up best by Catherine Viglienzoni, in a recent Santa Cruz Sentinel article,

“The birth of Elizabeth Borelli’s first child opened her eyes to more than just motherhood. She wants to do her part to take care of the planet, too, and show others how to do the same. The Soquel resident became more environmentally conscious, she said, when her first daughter Hayden was born. Borelli said she felt the environment was getting worse, and people felt powerless to do anything about it…” Read the full article here. http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/community/ci_13237303
 

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Incentivize Your Giving Program: Experts Talk About Where ‘Dollar for Doers’ Fits into Their CSR Programs | 3BL Media

Connecting your corporate giving program with your employee volunteer program can be a powerful way to energize both and dramatically supercharging your overall CSR program. Yet even with many early success stories, most companies have been slow to recognize the draw of these so-called “Dollars for Doers.”

Join VolunteerMatch on Thursday, October 8, for an encore presentation of our recent Best Practice training calls about launching, managing and trouble-shooting Dollars for Doers programs. In addition to having several national leaders on Dollars for Doers implementation and management on the call to talk about their experience, the live Web event will also feature a full Q&A session with our speakers about their unique programs.

Are you interested in launching a Dollars for Doers program? Are you having trouble making the case to your internal team? Are a CSR or employee volunteer program consultant looking to get an advanced understanding of tomorrow trends today? Join this free Webinar to gain insight and solutions for launching and sustaining a successful program.

Bea Boccalandro will kick-off the session with an overview of the Dollars for Doers landscape, followed by presentations from Julie VanDeLinder of Nationwide, and Michelle McConnell of Exelon Corporation.  

More about speakers:

Bea Boccalandro – Bea Boccalandro helps businesses design and evaluate their community involvement programs. She is the author of Mapping Success in Employee Volunteering: The Drivers of Effectiveness for Employee Volunteering and Giving Programs and Fortune 500 Performance. She serves as a faculty member at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, where she teaches in the areas of corporate-nonprofit partnerships and employee volunteering.

Julie VanDeLinder – Julie VanDeLinder is Manager of Nationwide’s nationally recognized On Your Side Volunteer Network, where she works with a robust employee volunteer program with several incentive components, including a Dollars for Doers initiative, time-off for volunteering, and awards for outstanding service.

Michelle McConnell – Michelle McConnell is a Corporate Relations Specialist with the Exelon Foundation. She assists with the facilitation of corporate volunteer projects and the Energy for the Community awards program, as well as manages the Dollars for Doers and Matching Gifts programs.
 
Title:  Incentivize Your Program: A Discussion on Dollar for Doers
Date:  Thursday, October 8, 2009
Time:  11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PDT
 
Space is limited. There is no fee to attend.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/953929545
 

VolunteerMatch for Corporations

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Food Information Oversimplification by Good Guide? Radical Transparency Yields Opacity.

This is the third in a series reviewing Ecological Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Part 1 and Part 2.

Ecological Intelligence should really have been titled “Radical Transparency”. The central theme of Ecological Intelligence is how radical transparency can and will change everything. When consumers can know the footprint of a product — not merely the carbon footprint — but the full enviro-footprint of every stage from extraction of materials, to converging of materials to production to packaging to shipping through use and disposal for every component of every product (at least for mass produced products) than consumers will begin choosing the better choices from an environmental perspective. Companies, to survive and thrive, will begin to respond to the consumer clatter and make better products. Hence, less impact on the environment.

 Goleman suggests the same will be true on other values — social justice like labor practices. And health issues.

This process, Goleman argues persuasively, is not only the best, most effective, most powerful way to effect change — it’s the only way to real change.

Goleman holds up as perhaps the most promising example of Radical Transparency at work,  the Good Guide, a beta site accumulating an impressive amount of data about many products — though it’s just a beginning — and assigning to a product an overall Good Guide rating based on three composite scores: Health, Environment and Society — roughly translated to Nutrition/Health, Environment, and Social Justice. All the issues of what is “Good” are reduced to three numerical scores on a scale of 100.

 Good Guide has done an impressive amount of work which yields impressive results, especially given it’s self-proclaimed “beta” status. And it envisions even more: Imagine strolling the supermarket aisles, using a phone app that scans a product bar code and instantly retrieves these three simple scores — or simpler yet, one overall score that tells you which is Good, which is Better, which Best.

 Sounds simple? Too Good to be true? My take: this is too much information funneled to such a fine laser point that one is simply blinded by the light.

Click here to read more

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Best Management Practices for Green Businesses – Collaboration

Best Management Practices (BMPs) are methods that organizations use to manage their impact on the natural environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains a website of helpful information about BMPs (EPA.gov/ne/assistance/univ/bmpcatalog.html). These practices are useful for owners of small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). One publication by Harvard University and the EPA’s New England Division illustrates the value of BMPs. In this publication on Preparedness and Security, Harvard University discusses the workings of the Cambridge Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC). The key concept behind this committee is collaboration.

Collaboration and Your Company Culture  
A 2002 Corporate Values Survey by the American Management Association (AMA) revealed several insights related to collaboration and company culture. The #1 corporate value stated by AMA survey respondents was customer satisfaction (77%). Other company values related to collaboration reported were teamwork (47%), positive work environment (42%), and social responsibility (33%).

Your focus on building environmental management into the company culture will depend upon creating a positive environment. Employees will use teamwork to establish and accomplish environmental goals, an important aspect of social responsibility. 

    

• Collaboration is a BMP to help your organization accomplish business goals more effectively such as coordination of environmental management activities. The idea of getting people to work together toward the achievement of common goals is a core concept of management. If you cannot achieve collaboration and goal achievement, it will be hard to manage with green business principles.  
• Collaboration begins with getting employees to subscribe to a green business model. Employees are strong resources for achieving objectives and making sure company operations run smoothly. Their contributions to writing an environmental management plan and carrying out its objectives are crucial to green business management. You can make employee participation in environmental management planning mandatory or voluntary depending on your management style. To make participation mandatory, consider writing environmental duties into job descriptions and holding employees accountable through the evaluation process.
• Collaboration works best in a positive company culture. Integrate other aspects of your management program with the goal of becoming a greener business. For example, your personnel, financial, and customer-driven practices affect company culture. How much have you paid attention to the total management approach toward creating a positive culture lately? Hopefully, you are satisfied with your answer. If you built the company from the ground up, your personal stake in the company culture is huge. Look for HR and management strategies that help you to build a better culture around sustainable business practices.
• Collaboration is an ongoing process. Once you establish a desirable culture with a green focus, ensure that employees maintain a focus on environmental collaboration. For example, this means including in policies and procedures periodic updates for the environmental management plan, recognition for employees who save resources like energy, and being accountable to your consumers for your environmental impact.

Positive outcomes of collaborative environmental management include other rewards for your business. Use the concept of collaboration in all areas of the business to manage your workforce. When you are not sure how to go about it, consider enrolling in management development courses or seminars from many U.S. training providers, or contact your local small business development center for educational information.

About the Author:
JD Carr, CGB – is a serial entrepreneur and consultant with over 14 years experience building Internet and digital media businesses. JD is a Certified Green Broker® and specializes in commercial building sustainability and finance with Greenergy2030.com. A vocal advocate for environmental issues, JD writes and lectures frequently on the subject and is committed to helping entrepreneurs realize the positive goals their organizations can achieve through sustainable business practices.

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