CSR Minute: Boar’s Head Campaign + American Heart Assn; Report on Microfinance in India

Corporate Social Responsibility News: Boar’s Head Campaign + American Heart Association; Companiesandmarkets.com’s Report on Microfinance in India

CSR Minute Report: Berrett Koehler Publishers

CSR Minute Report: Berrett Koehler Publishers

CSR Minute Report: Adam Werbach, Global CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi S.

Adam Werbach, Global CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi S., talks about integrating sustainability into business practice

CSR Minute Special Report: Greg Schneider, CEO, 3BL Media

Greg Schneider, CEO, on the mission and methods of 3BL Media

Accelerating the Conscious Capitalism and Working for Good movement at the 2009 Net Impact Conference

‘The time is now and we are the ones called upon to make a difference while making a living,” claims Jeff Klein, President of the Conscious Capitalism Alliance and author of Working for Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living, the week of the 2009 NetImpact Conference at Ithaca College. “NetImpact members and conscious MBA students are important members of the emerging movement to create healthier, more sustainable businesses, that serve all of their stakeholders and the greater good.”

In that spirit, the MBA Oath begins with these words: “As a manager, my purpose is to serve the greater good by bringing people and resources together to create value that no single individual can create alone. Therefore I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term.” (See www.mbaoath.org)

According to Klein, “The increasing acceptance of the MBA oath is a powerful indication of the shift in perspective on the role of business in society and our responsibility for creating conscious businesses. The Oath addresses the themes of integrity, authenticity, service, sustainability, accountability, and more. It is deeply aligned with the principles of conscious business that we are articulating and promoting through the Conscious Capitalism Alliance, which are Deeper Purpose, Value Creation for all Stakeholders, and Servant or Conscious Leadership, all of which I address in Working for Good.”

Klein wrote his new book, Working for Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living, to support conscious entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, leaders, and change agents at work to develop the skills of awareness, embodiment, connection, collaboration, and integration, which are essential to conceiving and creating conscious businesses and to working together in conscious teams.

“Young people today are seeking for meaning and purpose in the work and their lives. They demand that the companies that they buy from, work for, and otherwise engage with are responsible citizens and serve society beyond the value of their products and services, My colleagues on the Working for Good team and I want to inspire and support young entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to pursue their passion for making a difference in the world while making a good living, and we provide them with models and tools for doing so.”

About Jeff Klein: As CEO of Cause Alliance Marketing, Klein designs and facilitates collaborative cause-related marketing programs. He currently serves as President of the Conscious Capitalism Alliance—an organization dedicated to “liberating the entrepreneurial spirit for good” co-founded by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market. In this role, he recently produced and hosted the 2009 Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism Summit at The Crossings in Austin, Texas.

Jeff was one of the visionaries and driving forces behind Private Music, the career of Yanni, Spinning, Seeds of Change, and ChiRunning, and has consulted for the Esalen Institute, the National Geographic Society, GlobalGiving, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, among others.

He is currently creating a Cause Alliance Marketing program for O.N.E. Natural Experience to increase awareness of the health benefits of coconut water and to drive the use of coconut water in the place of other, less healthy beverages.

PRESS CONTACT: Julie van Amerongen  EMAIL: julievanam@gmail.com 541.228.4099

Amazon link: http://3bl.me/9c4t3s
Barnes & Noble Link: http://3bl.me/953t5x
Facebook: http://profile.to/jeffklein
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/workingforgood
Twitter: http://twitter.com/babajeff

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Sulusso Becomes Exclusive Online Retailer of Okomido Sustainable Jewelry

Sulusso, the best online source for sustainable designer jewelry, will be the exclusive online retailer of Okomido jewelry.

“I am so pleased to be partnering with Sulusso to sell our jewelry. Sulusso shares our deep commitment for social and environmental responsibility, so it seemed like a natural fit,” said Midori Wayne Ferris, Okomido designer and founder.

Okomido was conceived from the idea that the jewelry we wear reflects our values.  Now more than ever, it is apparent that consumers are seeking products that demonstrate a connection to the earth and its inhabitants.

The company’s commitment to sustainability and eco-conscious design, translates into no new mining.  Without exception, all the materials used in the Okomido jewelry are completely reclaimed, from sterling silver and 18 karat gold to vintage gemstones resurrected from antique jewelry.

Painstakingly hand-crafted by artisans in Sonoma County, California, every piece of Okomido has a history, incorporating vintage elements that contain their own stories of wearers past.  This historical connection brings additional meaning to the collection and provides yet another reason to treasure the jewelry for future generations.

About the Designer
Midori, which means “green” in Japanese, grew up in Pondicherry, India and California. While working at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, she was inspired to collect antique and vintage jewelry. From there she developed a successful practice of creating one-of-a-kind pieces for specific clients.  Her passion for history and environmental stewardship coupled with her love of art eventually led her to developing Okomido.

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Fair Trade Textiles Support Women in Africa and Afghanistan

Here’s another of our weekly features on people who promote social justice through enterprise. Today we applaud Ellen Dorsch, founder of Creative Women. www.ElegantRoots.com/blog

Some people are blessed with a bounty of energy and intellectual verve. Ellen Dorsch is clearly one of the lucky. At 60, Ellen changed careers from the non-profit public health sector to starting her own international business. She tackled a steep learning curve and overcame some interesting bumps along the way.  Now, Ellen’s Creative Women, a member of the Fair Trade Federation sells wonderful Ethiopian, Swazi and Afghan textiles throughout the USA and Canada. www.elegantroots.com/Ethopian-Silk-Scarves-by-Creative-Women-p-16.html

Ellen has a Masters in public health, planning and developing.  Her work with a non-profit public health organization took Ellen to Africa. In Ethiopia she found an economy wracked by years of instability. She quickly recognized that the wonderful people she met needed medical support but also a better means of earning a living.  Ellen saw that many talented women were economically marginalized and that Ethiopia’s exquisite hand-embroidered textiles were under-marketed internationally.www.elegantroots.com/Handcrafted-Ethiopian-Totes-by-Creative-Women-p-15.html

Ellen’s business and humanitarian idea sprang to full life when she met Menbere Alemayehu, a fashion designer who owned an established dress-making business, Menby’s Designs. Both women knew that they could make a positive difference if they were able to create more employment opportunities for Ethiopian women.  To meet that goal, Ellen partnered with Menbere to launch Creative Women. ” I founded Creative Women because I love beautiful things; I want to make a real difference in women’s lives; and I’m fascinated by travel. Creative Women allows me to do all three…by buying directly from women-owned businesses, by expanding markets for hand-woven textiles, and by paying fair prices for our goods.” www.elegantroots.com/Swaziland-Mohair-Lap-Throw-by-Creative-Women-p-18.html

The heart of Creative Women remains Ellen’s well-founded conviction that long-lasting improvement in people’s lives results from commerce—job creation through viable business. Since its beginning, Ellen, with the support of her husband Bill, has used that humanitarian principle to grow Creative Women and its positive impact on the economic lives of African and now Afghan, women by forming additional partnerships in Ethiopia, Swaziland, and Kabul.

Read more: www.elegantroots.com/blog/

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CLIF® BAR GreenNotes; VolunteerMatch: Helping musicians and fans turn awareness into action

With eco-awareness and the green movement reaching new heights these days, the connection between sustainability and service has never been more apparent.

Many people who care about our planet are balancing reducing one’s environmental footprint with getting out and volunteering time for an organization working on environmental issues. Recently we’ve been helping CLIF® BAR with a project that’s making it easier for music fans to do both.

Click here to read more…

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Tuesday Tracts: Social Enterprise, A Fish Story

Ordinarily, we write Tuesday Tracts to feature people who promote social justice through enterprise. www.elegantroots.com/blog/

Today, though, it’s about the nature of social enterprise. Social enterprise blurs the distinction between “not-for-profit” and “for profit” entities. For-profit social enterprises, though organized to realize a profit, are not organized to maximize profit. Rather, the moving force is the notion that commercial viability through the opening of markets for economically marginalized people creates a strong, resilient and vibrant level of security and stability that improve all facets of life: nutrition, health, independence, education, etc.

The elegant notion at ElegantRoots.com, from which we take our name, is that a people’s traditional arts when applied to a commercially viable design create a win-win for artisan and recipient. But only when a market can be opened and maintained for the resulting product, the artisan wins, enjoying a traditional lifestyle and a growing independence, rather than being forced into the ever growing but not sustaining large urban sprawls. The purchaser wins by having a nonpareil product from the touch of an artisan’s hand.

Creating a market for these products extends the benefits of globalization to people who have been otherwise left out.

But I promised you a fish story.

You know the old proverb: give a person a fish and you feed her for one day, teach a person to fish and you feed him for a lifetime…. Well, social enterprise pushes this further: Buy fish from a person at a fair price and you improve lives in a community immeasurably in innumerable ways beyond a full stomach.

Especially when you apply the long tail of the internet. E-commerce is the perfect way to create a market big enough for these wonderful, specialty products.

Read more: www.elegantroots.com/blog/

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Socially Responsible Business Supports South African Women

Elegant Roots Blog

Today Elegant Roots (www.elegantroots.com/) launches a new weekly blog feature, its Tuesday Tracts, by profiling Nadine Storyk Curtis who creates sustainable improvements in the lives of many women. Plaudits to Nadine. And welcome to you to the first of our series on people who deploy the power of socially responsible business.

Be Sweet is a company that exists to do good. Founded to build; to support. Is it ironic, or thoroughly expected that the impetus for it was an act of an altogether opposite cast?

Nadine Storyk Curtis and her husband were married in late August 2001, she from Northern California and he from South Africa. They were living in the States, but savored a dream to live someday in South Africa. On September 11, 2001, Nadine’s father was scheduled on United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco. He did not board that flight on 9/11. But that tragedy and the personal near-miss helped Nadine realize the importance of living life to the fullest.  Within months they had packed up their life together and moved to Cape Town, South Africa.

In Cape Town, Nadine was enthralled with the mix of cultures in the area and fell in love with the beautiful handcrafted textiles created by women’s empowerment groups. www.elegantroots.com/Be-Sweet-mid-7-p-1.html She began to look into the whole process of mohair textiles. She wanted to help support these worthwhile endeavors and Be Sweet was born to tap the power of ethical business and her spirit of social entrepreneurship.

www.elegantroots.com/blog/ to continue reading

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