An entrepreneur is an individual who manages a new enterprise (very often a business) of their own creation, whilst assuming the risks of this new venture.
A social entrepreneur, then, is an entrepreneur who drives for social change and progress. Social entrepreneurs have innovative ideas and solutions to the social problems in society. They are capable of identifying the social problems at hand and are driven to create positive social change within society.
Unlike business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs seek the value in changing the societal problems of a community and furthermore society overall. Social entrepreneurs seek the value of social change, as opposed to business entrepreneurs who seek the value in profits. Social entrepreneurs spearhead innovative methods of helping those who are disadvantaged and marginalized, and with the impact of social entrepreneurs, the means to successfully effect social change in a society are realized.
Social entrepreneurship conferences, or social enterprise conferences, are comprised of a variety of individuals, including professionals, students, and speakers, who seek to educate, learn about, network, and collaborate on social entrepreneurship ventures. Social enterprise conferences are a great tool for any social entrepreneur to expand their knowledge about social enterprise and network with other social entrepreneurs.
Social enterprise conferences are beneficial to anyone working on a socially responsible business idea, seeking a career with a non-profit working on social change, or otherwise using innovative ideas to promote change to society’s social problems. At a social entrepreneurship conference, social entrepreneurs can learn about ways to establish effective social change. No matter what stage of social entrepreneur you are, social enterprise conferences will prove to be beneficial to you.
Social entrepreneurship conferences help beginning entrepreneurs gain knowledge and tools to successfully start social enterprises, help social entrepreneurs already working with a business or non-profit to learn about the best practices to successfully effect social change, and help advanced entrepreneurs to network with others, learn from each other, and gain support for their social enterprise. By building a connection with others at a social enterprise conference, social entrepreneurs can advance social enterprise and gain access to additional capital, opportunities, and resources.
The following social enterprise conferences are excellent for all levels of social entrepreneurs to attend, learn from, network, collaborate, and share ideas. These social entrepreneurship conferences host an abundance of information and resources to spread the ideas of social change and to help social entrepreneurs to advance their innovative socially conscious ideas.
The Social Enterprise Conference features over 100 speakers and panelists sharing a wealth of information and knowledge on addressing social issues and advancing as a social entrepreneur. The conference participants, which number over 1,000, include professionals, students, and alumni. The participants have a chance to network with other social entrepreneurs, learn from experts in the field, and explore career opportunities. The Social Enterprise Conference has workshops and small group lunches with leaders in non-profit, public, and private fields, as well as the Social Enterprise Career Fair and the Pitch for Change competition, in which entrants submit proposals and pitch their ideas for new social enterprise ventures. The Social Enterprise Conference was last held on February 27th and 28th 2010 at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Social Enterprise Summit and World Forum is a 3 day conference of panels and sessions that brings together social entrepreneurs from over 30 countries around the world. The hundreds of people attending the Social Enterprise Summit and World Forum learn about social entrepreneurship, share ideas with other social entrepreneurs, network, and make connections. There were over 40 panels and workshops at the 2010 Social Enterprise Summit and World Forum held April 28-30 in San Francisco, California. There were also tours of social enterprises based in San Francisco, as well as the Social Enterprise Leadership Awards to honor the most inspirational social entrepreneurs. In 2011, the Social Enterprise Summit and World Forum will be held in Chicago, Illinois.
The Columbia Business School Social Enterprise Conference brings together thought and industry leaders along with industry professionals, including social sector and business leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors, to continue maturing the field of social enterprise. The 2010 Columbia Business School Social Enterprise Conference is a one day event held on October 8th in New York, New York, and the focus of this year’s Social Enterprise Conference is “Redefining Return: Financing and Scaling Social Innovation.”
The Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference seeks to advocate economic development and social enterprise locally in Miami, Florida, where this conference for social entrepreneurs takes place. The 2011 Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference, which will be held April 4-6, 2011 at the Miami Beach Convention Center, focuses on the theme “Get Connected,” connecting to such things as knowledge, capital, the best practices, metrics, and the Latin American/Caribbean Diaspora, which is connected with the Miami area through social enterprise leaders, capital, and organizations. At this 2011 conference for social entrepreneurs, there is expected to be at least 1000 leaders from over 40 countries, connecting on social enterprise issues, tactics, and ideas.
Emerge is one of the leading conferences on social entrepreneurship for students and it happens every year at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. It is organized by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Oxford University and StudentHubs and is open to all students everywhere. Emerge brings leading social innovators to Oxford to inspire and inform students through their stories of impact. The event supports students pursuing careers in social entrepreneurship with workshops and networking opportunities.
Emerge also features an Ideas Competition, which identifies budding social entrepreneurs and helps launch their ideas into viable businesses. Emerge 2010 will be held November 27-28th in Oxford.
This conference for social entrepreneurs connects the Social Venture Partners annually. The Social Venture Partners are a collection of individuals who use philanthropy to make the world a better place for everyone by promoting positive social change. The 2010 Social Venture Partners Conference will take place from October 21-23 in Long Beach, California. This social entrepreneurship conference helps attendees collaborate, connect, and network with one another to promote collective positive social action amongst non-profit organizations through breakout sessions, plenaries, and keynote speakers.
The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship is a joint venture between the Skoll Foundation and The Skoll Center For Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. The Skoll World Forum seeks to encourage collaboration among social entrepreneurs, social investors, and other thought leaders in the quest for effective solutions to the world’s most serious problems. In addition to the speakers and panelists, the Skoll World Forum hosts the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. 2010 Awardees included the founders of Telapak, a social enterprise working to fight deforestation in Indonesia, Imazon, an independent monitoring system for the Amazon Rainforest, and the One Acre Fund, an enterprise working to empower rural farmers in Africa. The 2011 Skoll World Forum will be held March 30-April at the University of Oxford.
The Global Social Venture Conference is a two day conference held in Berkeley, California and organized by the University of California Haas School of Business. The event combines a social enterprise conference with the awards ceremony for the annual Global Social Venture Competition, a student-led business plan competition that provides financial rewards, publicity, and mentoring for winners, such as Re:Motion Designs, a company that provides high performance, low cost prosthetic limbs to amputees in the developing world. In addition to the awards dinner, the conference includes a symposium, panel discussions, and speakers. The 2010 conference was held April 22-23, 2010.
The SHINE Unconference for Social Entrepreneurs seeks to provide a “mini business school” to beginning and experience social entrepreneurs alike that will provide practical tools and advice, mentorship, and networking opportunities to help social enterprises succeed. A unique feature of the conference is its one-on-one advice sessions, pairing new entrepreneurs with experienced mentors to work on topics such as marketing, funding, investment, and more. The 2010 SHINE Unconference was held May 13-15, 2010 in London, England.
The Satter Conference on Social Entrepreneurs features experts from the fields of academia, non-profit, and for-profit business discussing knowledge, theories and strategies for social enterprise success, with a focus on measuring social impact and fundraising. The conference emphasizes practical, hands-on solutions and instruction for attendees and will be held starting November 5, 2010 at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Voice10 is the annual conference of the UK-based Social Enterprise Coalition. The 2010 conference, which was held February 1-2 in Cardiff, Wales, attracted nearly 1,000 delegates and exhibitors to a wide variety of panels, discussions, and breakout sessions exploring everything from the basics of starting and setting up a social enterprise to expansion, mergers and acquisitions, and more. Voice10 also offers free “surgery” sessions for social entrepreneurs seeking customized business, financial, or legal advice.
Social Capital Markets, commonly known as SOCAP, is an annual conference focusing on “the intersection of money and meaning,” including social investing, corporate philanthropy, and social entrepreneurship. The schedule features seven “tracks,” including tactical philanthropy, mobile technology, food systems, innovation in international development, impact investing, new money, and metrics and systems thinking.
SOCAP10 will be held October 4, 5, and 6th in San Francisco, CA.
This social entrepreneurship conference connects leaders, change makers, and other participants from the field of social entrepreneurship as well as the fields of global health and international development. The Unite for Site Global Health and Innovation Conference consisting of over 2,000 participants from over 55 countries connects individuals who seek to use social entrepreneurship to identify global issues and create positive social change. This 2011 conference for social entrepreneurs will take place on April 16th and 17th in New Haven, Connecticut.
Welcome to Week 11 of the Green Business Blog carnival, a traveling series of green business news, commentary, and insight which has, so far, made its way across 9 terrific green business blogs, and growing. Here’s a roundup of some of the top green business news of the day.
While consumers have become increasingly conscious of the environmental impact of their lifestyle, at the end of the day, its businesses going green that truly moves the sustainability needle. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are reporting on the sustainability of the product or service they sell, with consumer goods companies benefiting the most from the greening of their brand.
However, many companies have found that the greatest opportunity for reducing their environmental impact and increasing social stewardship lies within their supply chain. B2B companies are in a prime position for using sustainability initiatives to attain and retain their customer base. In fact, sustainability may be a more powerful tool over the long term for B2B companies than B2C companies. Check out Triple Pundit’s Sustainability in the B2B World on how B2B businesses are going green.
If you ever went to business school, you may have heard of Net Impact. Net Impact is an international nonprofit organization that aims to inspire, educate, and equip individuals to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. Net Impact just came out with a comprehensive report profiling 95 MBA programs from around the world that focus on sustainability. So if you are interested in getting a Green MBA, be sure to check out the Net Impact Business As UnUsual 2010 Report.
If you are a green business owner, you may have found that the times are tough in this recessionary economy. The good news is, bartering services are now available to cash-strapped green businesses, courtesy of Green America Exchange. What’s even better, Green America’s new Exchange bartering program allows green business to trade services… without running afoul of the IRS. Read Jeff McIntire-Strasburg’s post on how green business bartering works.
Buildings use a great deal of energy, especially commercial buildings, where equipment, lighting, ventilation, etc run 24/7. Over at Cleantechies, Chuck Colgan tells us that sustainability and profitability can be achieved through energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements to a commercial building.
Can you balance profits and sustainability in an ever-changing world? If you don’t believe it is possible to reduce CO2 emissions while running a business, you may want to check out CEO2: The Green Business Game. In this post, Calfinder reviews their experience of pleasing investors, researchers, consumers, and environmentalists while keeping the company out of the red!
It’s easy for tech professionals to become silo-ed in their industry, to the point where their message is completely lost to the average Joe. Over at Matter Network, Jeremy Shere shares with us great tips on How to Tell the Renewable Energy Story Too often an energy story is dominated by facts, figures, and other technical details that, while clearly relevant, can leave the non-industry insider cold. He reminds us that we need more stories about energy on a human scale, stories that give the average person a sense of what’s at stake and why he or she should care.
Plastic bags are everywhere, but how much do we really know about them?
Check out the Curse of Immortality and Plastic Migration, which features two films that give new insight into the feelings and struggles of plastic bags. The film from Futurestates is poignantly narrated by Werner Herzog, and the second is a mocumentary presented by Heal the Bay.
Kick back and imagine yourself traveling through the vast, wide world, as a plastic bag…
If you’re a green blogger, one of the best way to gain exposure and readers for your blog is to become a guest blogger. Guest blogging is the act of writing posts for blogs other than your own.
How Guest Blogging Helps Green Bloggers
For many new bloggers, especially those with outside jobs or other responsibilities in addition to blogging, the idea of guest blogging can seem strange. If you barely have time to write your own blog, why would you spend time writing for somebody else’s?
The truth is, though, that guest blogging is a mutually beneficial arrangement for both the guest blogger and the host.
For the host blog, guest bloggers offer the opportunity for a break from the regular grind of posting. As a bonus, guest bloggers bring fresh perspectives and new insights to the blog, and many hosts specifically seek out guest bloggers who are experts on aspects of the niche that the host is less familiar with, to offer a more complete and well rounded experience for readers.
For guest bloggers themselves, the benefits of guest blogging include:
Becoming a Guest Blogger
Before you become a guest blogger, it’s important to have some high quality content on your own blog in order to give visitors from the host blog something to read when they arrive. The better the content on your own blog, the more likely they are to subscribe to your feed.
However, you don’t necessarily need a lot of content before you begin guest blogging. Some successful guest bloggers have started with as little as five or ten high quality posts on their own blog.
Once your own blog is ready for a wider audience, start looking for blogs to guest post on.
As a green blogger, you have an advantage over many other niches because there are two excellent green blog directories to browse for guest blogging opportunities.
Other ways to search for related blogs include:
In order to maximize the benefits of green blogging, aim to write guest posts for blogs that have both steady traffic and readers with interests that overlap with your own. For example, writing a guest post for a popular internet marketing blog and linking back to your green blog on alternative energy may get you exposure to thousands of readers and subscribers, but only a few of those thousands will be interested in both internet marketing and alternative energy.
It is also important to vary the blogs you write for. If you write guest posts repeatedly for the same blog, you will eventually reach the point where any of the blog’s regular subscribers who might be interested in subscribing to you will have done so, and you will attract few new readers by continuing to post for the blog. Google and other search engines also place more value on a handful of one-way links from one site to another than many such links.
Arranging Your First Guest Post
The process of writing a guest post varies a bit depending on the host blog.
Some blogs have procedures and standards for guest posts posted publicly. (Check out Green Marketing TV’s guest posting requirements for an example.)
If the blog does not have guest posting requirements posted publicly, you will have to contact the blogger. If you’re not sure if the blog accepts guest posts, it’s important to establish this first. If you know the blog accepts guest posts, then the best practice is to introduce yourself briefly and suggest an idea for your guest post. If the host blogger likes your idea, he or she will accept it and you can write the post. If the host doesn’t, then he or she may suggest a alternative, or may refuse the guest post entirely.
An alternative technique, if you know that a blog accepts guests posts, is to send out a short introductory note with a finished post to offer them as a guest post. If the host blogger accepts the post, this speeds up the process considerably; if he or she doesn’t, you can then offer the post to someone else.
How To Write a Great Guest Post
Whether you agree on a topic with the host blogger before writing or send out full posts from the start, it’s important to write high quality content.
At minimum, guest blog posts should be:
Remember, the more outstanding your guest posts, the more benefit you will get from them. Look on your guest posts as your portfolio – the better it is, the more new readers and subscribers you will attract, and the more willing other bloggers will be to accept your guest posts for their own blogs.
Guest posting is one of the most valuable tools for green bloggers to gain traffic and subscribers. With these tips, you should be well on your way to success as a green guest blogger!
Discarding your car for a bicycle is one of the easiest ways to go green. Besides going green, bicycles are fun, and they offer a budget means of transport. By riding a bicycle to and from work every day, an individual gets more exercise compared to driving. Bicycles save money seeing that they do not need gasoline and they are affordable to maintain. Again, they do not emit carbon; making them safe for the environment.
Given the numerous benefits of owning a bicycle, most people are going for them, especially in urban areas where people can ride to work. The number of cyclists is thus increasing and is expected to grow even more. Governments have also helped in the situation by installing bicycle lanes on major roads and passing laws to favor cyclists. This is in a bid to reduce traffic congestion on roads and reducing air pollution. The growing number of cyclists increases the need for bicycle repair shops.
Any individual handy with tools and knows something about bicycles can start a bicycle repair business. It is a great green business that requires less startup capital.
One of the main reasons to start a bicycle repair shop is to reduce environmental pollution. By using bicycles, carbon emission is reduced. Kept in the right order, the bikes will be safe for the environment and for the user. By starting a bicycle repair shop, you offer people a chance to repair their broken bikes instead of purchasing new ones.
Bicycle repair shops encourage the community to engage in cycling and adopt bicycles as a means of transports which goes a long way in making the environment safer. The good thing, starting a bicycle repair shop does not need a large start-up capital. This is why it is easy to start the shop in your home garage.
The easiest way to start your business is to repair bicycles for friends and family members as you tell them of your startup. They will spread the word for you and clients will start trickling in. If there is a cycling club in your community, you need to join and engage in all activities that the club undertakes. You can talk to the club members about your services or offer them business cards. Even better, you can join a local social network online dedicated to cycling such as Bicycling.com.
You can also market your business by partnering with local green business. For instance, you can request a local green coffee shop to place your business card on their counter or hang a poster of your business on your wall. In exchange, you can spread the word on the green coffee shop to your clients.
It might take a few months to get established depending on how aggressively you market your business. Once you are established, you can sponsor or partner in a race or any other community event that helps you promote your business further. This will help you expand your services and maybe even start a different shop. You can expand to start buying and selling bikes and offering winter bike storage or explore other options available.
The business operates in Seattle offering bike repair and maintenance. Those who want to start their own bike repair shops or learn how to repair their own bikes are also offered classes at the shop. Besides, they offer a bicycle repair co-op where cyclists pay a small fee and are given access to all the tools they need to repair their own bikes. Co-op members are charged relatively low for repair and maintenance classes.
Bicycle Station operates in New York. The business was started by Mike Rodriguez, who has been offering bike repair services for more than thirty years. They offer bicycle repair and maintenance on all types and brands of bikes, and also sell bicycles and bicycle parts.
This is a San Francisco bike repair and retail shop. They offer all services from the basics such as tune-ups to bike overhauls all at a great price. The shop is located near Caltrain station, making it convenient for bike owners to drop their bikes for repair when they go to work and pick them in the evening. They offer free bike parking as well for their clients.
Biodiesel is a clean-burning alternative to petroleum fuel that is easy and inexpensive to make.
Biodiesel can be used in any diesel engine with no modifications. It reduces carbon emissions by up to 78% over traditional petroleum diesel, and can even be carbon neutral, because the plants used to make the oils converted to biodiesel may absorb more carbon dioxide than burning the biodiesel gives off.
Biodiesel emissions are 90% less toxic than petroleum diesel emissions, and biodiesel itself is readily biodegradable and non-toxic. It is safer to handle and transport.
Biodiesel gets about the same gas mileage as petroleum diesel and may actually be better for your engine, due to its superior lubrication qualities.
Finally, biodiesel is often made from used cooking oil, a waste product that can otherwise make its way into the sewer system, causing disgusting clogs of fats and grease that are difficult and expensive to dislodge. Because it recycles a waste product, biodiesel does not raise food prices like some other types of biofuel.
Manufacturing biodiesel is so easy that many users do it at home. However, commercial-scale production requires a license from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Another important early step is to find sources of used cooking oil to convert to biodiesel. Many biodiesel manufacturers do this by approaching local restaurants and offering free or low cost oil collection services.
Once your biodiesel is made, you have several options for selling it. If there are a large number of diesel engines in your region, you may be able to offer it at retail prices as an alternative gas station. Other biodiesel manufacturers deliver their product wholesale to companies or organizations running diesel engine trucks, buses, boats, or other vehicles. Biodiesel can also be used for heating or in some electrical power generators.
The National Biodiesel Board offers a member directory that is a great way to build awareness of your product. It also offers discounts on web hosting and design services to members, in addition to many other benefits.
Tri-State Biodiesel (TSB) is a social enterprise dedicated to providing a sustainable alternative to petroleum diesel for the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut region. TSB offers a free used cooking oil collection service for restaurants, with record keeping to help restaurants seeking green certification and prevent fines for improper oil disposal. TSB also offers biofuel deliveries for home heating and fleet fueling, as well as a Buyers Club for retail quantities of biodiesel for individual vehicles.
Newport Biodiesel, located in Rhode Island, is committed to providing a sustainable source of locally produced, environmentally friendly fuel for southern New England. Newport Biodiesel partners with more than 500 Rhode Island and Massachusetts restaurants to provide free waste oil collection services. The company also offers restaurant partners a co-marketing program to build awareness among patrons and the local community about what the restaurant is doing to improve the environment and increase American energy independence.
San Diego-based New Leaf Biodiesel seeks to provide the highest quality sustainable fuel to the San Diego area and has partnered with schools and community organizations to raise awareness about the environmental benefits of biodiesel. New Leaf Biodiesel’s fuels are sold locally by Pearson Fuels, the nation’s first alternative fuel gas station. They offer free waste oil collection for local restaurants.
Adopting green marketing practices is one avenue where businesses can both lower their ecological footprint while basking in the good PR karma of becoming a greener business, if their efforts to uphold sustainability principles are sincere, measurable and verifiable. A failure to understand what green marketing is, as well as the inability to demonstrate improved sustainability measures, while making efforts to portray one’s business as green is simply another example of corporate greenwash. So how can a marketing professional avoid the pitfalls of greenwash while embracing the principles of green marketing? Let’s begin with the definition of green marketing.
Green marketing is the promotion and selling of services, products, or a combination of the two, that are assumed to be safe for the environment. Green marketing, also called eco marketing or environmental marketing is used for products and services that are presumed to have little or no effect on the environment, which is thus seen as an advantage to consumers. By making their advertising campaigns green, businesses can then reach additional customers by spreading the word of their green products or services.
A green advertising campaign, or green marketing campaign, is used to show how a business’s products or services are green, or environmentally friendly. To do this, a green advertising campaign showcases the eco-friendly features of the products or services. For example, green advertising may show that a product is organic, or made from entirely natural ingredients, without any synthetic proponents. A green advertising campaign may also note that a product uses environmentally friendly packaging. A green marketing campaign shows how the business’s services or products are presumed to be environmentally sound and safe, thus appealing to customers and increasing your business.
Have your product or service eco certified. By having your product or service certified green, you can prove to your customer base that your goods or services are green and reach additional customers. Some certifications you can get for your product or service include getting organic certification, fair trade certification, green business certification, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, or Green Seal certification. All of these types of green certification will help you green your marketing campaign.
Use marketing that doesn’t add waste. By choosing to use e-marketing, television marketing, or any other form of marketing that isn’t wasteful, you’re greening your marketing campaign. Using wasteful forms of marketing such as flyers and brochures adds to the waste of your business and therefore, is not green. However, if you still want to market your product using paper advertising, you can green your marketing somewhat by using recycled paper and environmentally friendly ink.
Make your product or services greener. By making your goods or services greener, you can make your marketing campaign greener. To do this, consider using more recycled materials in your products, making sure your products are energy efficient, or making your products more easily recyclable. To green your services, you can use natural and organic products, make sure your location is energy efficient, use renewable sources of energy, and reduce waste while increasing recycling. A successful green advertising campaign will keep getting greener by showing consumers how the business is constantly greening their products or services.
Consider stewardship programs and industry partnerships. Industry partnerships and stewardship programs are great for green marketing campaigns as they increase the life cycle of your products. By using a stewardship program or industry partnership, you can reduce the harmful output you put out through the manufacturing of your product, as well.
Use greener manufacturing. There are a number of ways to employ greener manufacturing processes when creating your products that help to green your marketing. Find manufacturing processes that use less energy, create less waste, use less harmful materials, and create less waste.
By keeping these green marketing tips in mind, you will be well on your way to truly greening your marketing campaign, rather than embarking on a greenwashing campaign instead.
An architectural salvage yard is an ideal venue to find eco-friendly construction supplies, besides unique and vintage building materials.
To deconstruct a building in a manner that allows materials like fixtures, flooring, and joist reuse will not only conserve resources, but also reduce wastage, pollution, and create skilled job opportunities for workers.
In most instances, reclaimed construction supplies cost cheaper compared to new ones, and make quality building supplies affordable among a wider portion of the population.
More and more property owners and real estate entrepreneurs are practicing green remodeling and building techniques, thereby creating a growing market for quality reclaimed building supplies.
Should you possess expertise in restoring and reclaiming used building supplies, excellent green entrepreneurship opportunities exist for you in an architectural salvage yard.
You can venture into either general architectural salvage yard entrepreneurship or specialize in catering for one of the numerous niches in the industry, depending on your interests and skill sets.
Some architectural salvage yards focus on, for example, a specific section of a building, such as flooring, or windows, while others focus on a particular material, like glass or wood.
Some yards in the industry, such as Habitat for Humanity ReStores, have focused on affordable building materials, while others have specialized in quality antiques required for period restorations and reconstructions.
Other architectural salvage yards undertake the deconstruction themselves, while others venture into purchasing materials from locally based recycling outfits and demolition contractors.
BMRA, the Building Materials Reuse Association, an organization dedicated to the promotion of eco-friendly building customs through reclaimed materials, presents accreditation to deserving building deconstruction practitioners, going a long way in establishing their expertise and reputation.
In addition, the BMRA member directory and similar websites are excellent marketing tools that enable architectural salvage yard customers to find your practice.
Three Eco-Friendly Architectural Salvage Yard Examples for the Perfect Green Building
Petaluma, California based Heritage Salvage has everything from barn doors and bar tops to old growth reclaimed redwood lumber and various reclaimed building materials on their more than three-acre yard.
In addition to restoring and salvaging building materials, Heritage Salvage also designs traditional furniture, among other pieces, from salvaged wood. Heritage has committed themselves to waste reduction through salvage as one of their green initiatives.
Another is protecting their numerous stacks of wood with former billboards purchased in bulk by entrepreneur Michael Deakin, against the Northern California rain, which is both a recycling and a durability exercise.
Heritage Salvage Yard is home to organic beehives and gardens in addition to its large collection of salvaged construction materials. Deakin is working on a water catchment scheme too.
ReNew Salvage, a non-profit Brattleboro, Vt based architectural salvage yard specializes in construction waste reduction and assisting low-income families put up affordable but high-quality housing. The proceeds go to support various programs that include workshops about green building, on-job tutoring for at-risk youth, and deconstruction services.
The Seattle based Second Use came into being in 1994 once an environmentalist contractor becomes frustrated with the huge amounts of wastage resulting from building demolition and construction, with the firm committing themselves to reusing and reclaiming building materials, thereby creating beautiful and unique eco-friendly buildings, while reducing wastage.
Second Use hosts free workshops where property owners, contractors, and other people interested in reclaimed building materials can interact, besides offering demolition services and operating a big salvage yard.
Social marketing is one of the ways through which you can change the society. Put simply; social marketing seeks to change the social behaviors of people by keeping them engaged using the same techniques used in commercial marketing. Your efforts might be related to changing the environment, enhancing safety and health and community development among others.
Philip Kotler and his research partner Gerald Zaltman are celebrated as the architects of social marketing. They published an article, Social Marketing – Planned Social Change in 1971 in the Journal of Marketing. Since the publication of this article, marketers all over the world have been coming up with different strategies to influence social behavior changes. Public health and environmental conservation are the main issues in social marketing.
Social marketing is a field that deals with engaging in activities that make the society better such as encouraging people to quit smoking. It should not be confused with social media marketing or sustainable marketing. Social media marketing refers to the promotion of goods or services on social media sites such as Facebook while sustainable marketing refers to goods or services promotion that shows the social responsibility of a corporation.
Social marketing always places the good of the society first above everything else. Nevertheless, corporations can engage in commercial marketing with a social agenda such as advertising recycled water bottles, advertising eco-friendly cars and much more. However, the primary purpose of these ads is to sell and not change the society.
Social marketing involves a few strategies and concepts as shown below:
• The primary objective is to influence social change.
• Change can only be seen if the audience is convinced that the benefits received are worth more than incurred costs.
• Social marketing strategies are only effective if the perceptions of the audience towards proposed change are first understood.
• The target audience’s special needs must be understood and the marketing efforts delivered in segments.
• The social marketing strategies must incorporate the 4P’s of marketing – the product (package of benefits), the price, the places and opportunities.
• The exchange program should be promoted with creativity
• Competition among recommended behaviors should be understood and addressed.
This is a campaign that has been running since 1998. The campaign is the brainchild of Georgia Department of Medical Assistance. The campaigns aim at making healthcare affordable to children by getting insurance for all health concerns. Insurance coverage costs $7.50 per month per child and $15 per family.
The campaign rolled out their idea by advertising the program on radio, TV, outdoor ads and transit stop. The adverts sought to make the idea easy for parents to understand. After vigorous advertising, the campaign kicked off with 80,000 applicants and 57,000 enrollments. Up to now, the campaign still receives applications.
True to its name, this is a campaign towards an AIDS-free world. It was initiated by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health in conjunction with the Swiss AIDS Foundation. Initially, the campaign focused on the gay community, but later switched on to AIDS.
The campaign has had great milestones. They started by encouraging men between 17 and 30 to use condoms. From 1987 to 1990, the sales of condoms increased hugely, and condom use increased from a meager 5 percent to about 50 percent.
Over the years, the campaign has focused on offering all the information there is about AIDS and discerning the truth from misconceptions. They touch on sex, needles, and drugs, among other practices related to AIDS.
This is a drive towards better working conditions. The campaign comes as a 30-second video clip commissioned by the Belgian Advocacy Group. This video makes known the ignored rights of workers.
The video was spread on all social media sites and posted on YouTube. It sought to get the attention of people on the basic issues plaguing workers on a daily basis. The campaign was recognized as one of the top social advertisements of today.
1. Choosing a team
The first step towards running an effective social campaign is to gather a team of like-minded people who understand what you are up to and are willing to help. Ensure the team members have no intentions of making money from the campaign.
2. Develop trustworthy strategies
Trust will determine whether your strategies bear fruit or not. A trustworthy brand does not struggle to sell. If people have trust in what you are trying to sell, they will promote it. You need to work honestly to gain trust.
3. Understand the perceptions of the audience
Besides understanding what the audience needs, it is important to understand their perceptions towards your business. This lets you develop a simple and sustainable strategy towards achieving your goals. For instance, if you are spearheading a campaign on drugs, you need to understand how drug users feel.
4. Choose the right Platform
There are different social media platforms to use when you need to spread the word about your campaign. You can use all the networks including Facebook, Twitter, and others. With so many platforms, you are able to focus your social marketing efforts on the group that will benefit the most. Start by analyzing where your target audience is and then craft a campaign that reaches out to people in those specific places.
5. Create Good Content
If you have no message for your audience, there is no way you will influence them to make a change. If you have the very same message they have heard for years, you will also not achieve anything.
Create content that addresses your audience directly, addresses their emotions and feels intimate. You can achieve a lot with just words. The content you post should be engaging piquing the interest of your audience and triggering conversations. Build long-lasting relationships before you even think of making a change. This is successful, influential marketing.
For many years, lunch trucks have had a reputation as a great source of food that is cheap, but not necessarily that tasty or nutritious. Recently, however, lunch trucks have undergone a bit of a renaissance, and an increasing number of cities and towns are now being served by lunch trucks offering gourmet food that is fast and inexpensive.
One growing niche market within the lunch truck industry is for lunch trucks offering fresh, local, organic foods. As more and more consumers become aware of the environmental and health benefits of eating locally grown, organic foods, the market is expanded to continue to expand, and lunch trucks are well placed to take advantage because they are often able to offer lower prices than traditional restaurants, allowing them to bring organic foods to a wider audience.
Choosing organic, local foods isn’t the only way a lunch truck business can go green! A few more ideas include running the truck on biodiesel or used vegetable oil, using compostable disposables to serve food, and printing menus and marketing materials on recycled paper.
Lunch trucks have relatively high start-up costs, typically $80,000 or more to purchase and/or retrofit a truck, but the costs are lower than starting a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant.
A bigger challenge for many new lunch truck businesses is the issue of permits and parking. Lunch truck regulations vary widely between different cities, and in some cases even different parts of the same city. In some cases, even if the truck has appropriate permits, it can be asked to move in response to complaints from nearby restaurants.
Fortunately, modern technology has made it easier than ever for customers to find their favorite trucks, even following an unexpected move. Social media is especially useful – many lunch trucks now have Twitter and/or Facebook accounts allowing them to offer up to the minute location information to fans and followers.
The Los Angeles-based Green Truck offers gourmet meals made from fresh, local, organic ingredients. Green Truck’s commitment to environmental responsibility goes far beyond its choice of food: Green Truck’s commissary is solar-powered and its truck runs on used vegetable oils from the Green Truck itself and other local restaurants. Food is served with compostable and biodegradable dishes, containers, and cutlery. In addition to its street food business, the Green Truck also offers gourmet green event catering and food delivery services. The ever-changing menu includes breakfast and lunch treats such as banana pancakes with coconut-agave syrup, citrus-marinated tilapia skewers with red onion and baby eggplant, falafel wrap with cool tzatziki, and the signature “Mother Trucker” vegan burger with beet relish.
TruckWashington, DC-based On the Fly is an eco-lunch truck offering fast and delicious meals with a social conscience. On the Fly “smartkarts” are American-made, zero emission electric trucks. On the Fly uses primarily local and organic foods, and serves its meals with eco-friendly packaging. On the Fly also operates several “smartkafes” around the DC area, which offer the same great food and eco-friendly business practices in a non-mobile setting.
Two social entrepreneurs have recently introduced simple, yet astoundingly effective systems that can be used by women living in developing countries to collect and carry clean water. Many women and children living in water-stressed African regions are forced to travel an average of 3.5 miles (5.6 km) daily with up to 15 liters (5.3 gallons) of water on their backs. That’s an incredible physical burden and an extreme drain on productivity. Having better water-carrying solutions can minimize both the physical pain and the time waste these women and children face.
Wello is a social venture focused on finding ways to effectively deliver clean water in developing regions. They have chosen to reframe the issue in terms of an opportunity to reinvent the wheel. Their goal is to develop a system that is both an income-generating tool for families living in poverty, as well as a highly effective way to collect and transport potable water.
Designed by social entrepreneur, Cynthia Koenig, the Wello WaterWheel is essentially a barrel with a handle for pushing or pulling. The barrel can carry up to 25 gallons (94.6 liters) of water – a volume that weighs 200 pounds (90 kg) and is up to five times more than the average woman can carry on her head. Not only does the WaterWheel make it much less painful to transport clean water, it also frees up more of their time which they can use to be productive in work or school. And because it is ruggedly built, almost anyone can use the WaterWheel over even the toughest terrain.
Wello is just a few weeks away from releasing WaterWheel 2.0 after nine months of research and countless trips to fetch water. Watch their website for more information! In the future, they hope to add features such as filtration systems and add-on drop irrigation kits. There’s even talk of creating a cell phone charger that would use the wheel’s rotation to charge a battery!
WaterWear backpack social entrepreneurs 300×199 Social Entrepreneurs Create 2 Amazingly Simple Water Carriers Developed as a collaboration between social entrepreneurs and an industrial packaging manufacturer Greif, the WaterWear backpack is a safe, easy way for people to transport their water. One of the concerns addressed by Greif is that people living in the developing world often inadvertently use secondhand containers that previously held poisonous compounds. Exposure to these substances through water stored in the used containers can cause severe health concerns. Greif also wanted to create a design that was both collapsible and lightweight so that the carrier would be easy on the body, unlike some other water carrying devices that put too much strain on the upper portion of the back.
Greif’s CEO, David Fischer, is a cancer survivor and a former chemical industry professional. He had this to say about the dangers of contaminated products:
“These containers used [to transport water] oftentimes have been used with paint, fuels, pesticides. Being from a packaging company, I know those packages with tight-knit enclosures on top are impossible to get clean.”
As part of the Clinton Global Initiative’s water action group, Greif wanted to develop an affordable, safe water carrying solution, and they’ve done just that. The WaterWear backpacks cost somewhere around $5.50 to $6 to distribute for disaster relief, with 2,000 packs already handed out in four communities in Haiti, and another 1,000 headed to Guatemala. They come in 20 liter (5.3 gallon) or 15 liter (3.9 gallon) models.