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Taking a cue from retail warehouse buyers' clubs, residential solar photovoltaic (PV) system buyers across the country are realizing substantial cost savings by joining group efforts to purchase and have rooftop solar PV systems installed.

By buying in bulk, the more than 60 participants who signed up for the Salt Lake City (Wasatch) Rooftop Solar Challenge team's program -- one of 22 regional teams participating in the Dept. of Energy's (DOE) Rooftop Solar Challenge –- have saved 40 percent on the total installed price of their PV systems, the DOE announced in the January 16 edition of its SunShot newsletter.

Rooftop Solar: Cutting the red tape

Looking to spur residential PV installations nationwide by cutting through the red tape and streamlining the process of having them installed, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu launched the DOE's Rooftop Solar Challenge in December 2011, awarding $12 million in funding to regional Rooftop Solar Challenge teams.

The DOE followed that up a year later, announcing a second, $12 million round of Rooftop Solar Challenge funding opportunities. Twenty-two regional teams are now up and running. The DOE estimates that the population encompassed by their geographic range of coverage includes some 51 million Americans.

“Up to 40 percent of the cost of installing solar panels onto your home or business isn't related to hardware at all, but rather due to complications from 'soft costs,' like permitting, zoning, and hooking your system up to the power grid,” according to the government's Rooftop Solar Challenge website.

“In fact, according to a report released earlier this year by SunRun, local permitting and inspection processes alone add more than $2,500 per residential installation nationwide. To add to the problem, permitting and other processes are often complicated and vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In order to make solar energy competitive with other types of energy, it will be critical to reduce these barriers."

Homeowners benefit by accepting the SunShot Rooftop Solar Challenge

The DOE's initiative is producing results, and they're sharing their experiences via the SunShot Resource Center in order to speed the spread and adoption of best practices.

The more than 60 participants in the year-long Salt Lake City (Wasatch) Rooftop Solar Challenge have been able to take advantage of bulk buying discounts based on pre-determined tiered pricing offered by local contractors chosen by the Utah Community Solar Program steering committee to save 40 percent on the installed cost of their rooftop PV systems, according to the DOE's SunShot newsletter report.

Participants were able to choose the solar PV system that best suited their needs among three options offered.

Installed PV system costs declined as more people signed on to the program. “After the final commitment deadline, all participants received a substantial discount, with systems ranging in price from $3.35 to $3.50 per watt, which included a U.S.-made option.”

By way of comparison, the average installed cost of a residential solar PV system in Utah was around $5.90 per watt, according to state data, the DOE notes.

“We knew this model worked in other places, but we weren’t exactly sure how it would be received in Salt Lake County. Our goal was to add 175 kilowatts of rooftop solar through this pilot program, so we were thrilled with the huge interest from the community and the 232 kilowatts of solar committed through this program,” commented Sara Baldwin, a senior policy and regulatory associate with Utah Clean Energy and project lead for the Wasatch Solar Challenge. “Now the goal is to replicate this model in more communities with a toolbox of information, resources, and lessons learned.”

Benetton Group is the latest global apparel company to join Greenpeace’s Detox Program. The Italy-based retailer, which operates 6,500 stores in 120 countries, is another coup for Greenpeace. With its commitment to eliminate the release of toxic chemicals into water supplies and out of factories, Benetton joins apparel firms including Nike, Puma, Marks & Spencer and Zara.

Similar to other fashion companies who have signed Greenpeace’s pledge, Benetton promises to end the release of hazardous chemicals throughout the company’s global supply chain by 2020. This latest move by Benetton follows on the heels of other changes to which the company committed in recent years, including the switch to liquid wood clothes hangars, more eco-friendly white kraft paper bags printed with only water-based ink, reduced packaging and the increased monitoring of emissions throughout its operations.

As is the case with many global companies, such changes will not occur overnight. Nevertheless, Benetton is moving quickly and will soon publicly disclose the chemicals applied throughout its supply chain while phasing out their use. By April, the company promises to publish a more updated “restricted substances list.” Benetton will also instruct suppliers that APEOs (alkylphenol ethoxylates), commonly found in detergents and other chemicals textile and leather processing companies use, must be replaced with safer alternatives by June. The company will also eliminate other toxins such as perfluorocarbon (PFC) and will update its chemical use policy to ban the use of new chemicals as new evidence about their impacts become available.

Seven years may appear to be a long time, but revamping a company’s tangled supply chain is often an arduous process. With such companies as Adidas experimenting with waterless drying techniques while H&M and Marks & Spencer are among companies that launched clothes recycling programs, the fashion industry in general has made impressive steps the past couple years. And now with Benetton the latest company to impose stricter manufacturing standards on how their clothes are made, watch for other holdouts within the fashion industry to join this movement as sustainability becomes a competitive, not inconvenient, issue.

Leon Kaye, based in Fresno, California, is a sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com. He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business; his work has also appeared on Sustainable Brands, Inhabitat and Earth911. You can follow Leon and ask him questions on Twitter or Instagram (greengopost). He will explore children’s health issues in India next month with the International Reporting Project.

[Image credit: Benetton Group]

By Andy Fyfe (Community Development at B Lab)

We’ve all heard of crowdfunding and the passing of the JOBS Act is certainly exciting to watch as it develops. However most crowdfunding opportunities do not offer return on investment. (But they may offer a fair trade soccer ball or ethically made hammock in return.) So how can crowdfunders, who aren’t high net worth individuals, actually purchase stock or other kinds of securities and make a return on their investment?

Emails were turning into lengthy questionnaires and phone calls were turning into long conference calls. After all was said and done, the number of rejections was far outweighing the amount of capital raised. Enter the struggle of a start-up seeking capital.

Brahm Ahmadi, CEO and Co-Founder of West Oakland’s People’s Community Market, was seeking capital for his business. Brahm originally sought out Investors Circle, Slow Money, connections at SOCAP and angel investors, but was unsuccessful. He raised about $150,000 but wanted around $1M. Knowing the return of investment in the grocery industry is not as attractive, even less so for a grocery startup not looking to scale beyond one store (for now), after six months of searching, Brahm decided to look elsewhere.

In the meantime, crowdfunding opportunities sprouted and continued to develop and Brahm had hoped there was a way he could take advantage for People’s Community Market. At the same time, his community was reaching out to him. They wanted to support the market, with their money. However, they did not know the way in which they could since most of them were not accredited investors.

He then knocked on the door at Cutting Edge Capital in February of 2012. Cutting Edge Capital, a Certified B Corporation, helps entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations solicit non-traditional sources of funding in a way that fits with their unique business model and long-term goals. Jenny Kassan from Cutting Edge Capital spoke with Brahm about a Direct Public Offering (DPO).

According to Jenny Kassan, it is possible to raise money from the public legally by doing a state-level securities registration and identifying an appropriate exemption from federal registration requirements, a process called a Direct Public Offering.

People's Community Market was a perfect fit for this method of raising capital. Non-wealthy 'retail' investors often have lower expectations for financial returns than wealthy professional investors and are more likely to factor in non-financial community benefits in their investment decisions. Plus, there are a lot more of them out there!

A less traditional source of funding, a DPO allows businesses and nonprofits to raise money from community investors. A company can reach out to hundreds and possibly even thousands of people in the community and offer them investment opportunities such as stock, notes, and revenue sharing agreements. Depending on which federal exemption a company qualifies for, there may be no cap on the total that can be raised, though, in some cases, there is a $1M cap.

Brahm was thrilled by the idea of allowing the community to invest in People’s Community Market. Instead of focusing on high return rates and exit plans, Brahm could now focus on value-alignment and community building. Brahm said, “Since being inclusive and accessible is an important value to us, we’re very pleased to see that ‘average folks,’ in addition to more affluent investors, are investing in us and becoming shareholders.” Instead of fearing the need to sacrifice control for capital, Brahm said, “It allows us to sell a story that we get to write.” More than half of the people who are now investing in People’s Community Market were never in their network before.

With community investors, the risk is more modest since the amount each one is investing is relatively low and the tone of the conversation starts with excitement rather than skepticism. Rather than selling shares through a broker, People’s Community Market is directly offering preferred shares to California residents. They launched the program in October of 2012, and have since raised around $10,000 a week ranging from $1,000 investments to over $10,000. In total they have raised almost $200,000. But with the opportunity to advertise publicly, they’ve tracked about three "hits" per day and have been graced with increased traffic.

Brahm has been pleased with the process. “Our theory in launching this community investment campaign was that lots of people are ready to participate in supporting alternative ways of creating locally-owned, mission-driven business.”

Another company working with Cutting Edge Capital to raise capital through a DPO is Farm Fresh To You. Farm Fresh To You, a Bay Area produce home delivery service and also a farm, sought capital through accredited investors as well. They found about $1M over five years but wanted to find a way to include their customers in their financial development. Yet 99 percent of their customers were non-accredited investors. They asked their lawyers how to get their customers involved and they shrugged their shoulders. In came the support from Cutting Edge Capital and in five months, Farm Fresh To You’s Marketing and Sales Manager, Noah Barnes and Jenny Kassan set up a DPO. According to Barnes, “It was a win-win. They get better than market rate on their investment and they can get more fresh produce from us.” Farm Fresh To You can even pay the interest back with produce credits through their Green Loan Program.

Accessing VC, angel investment, and even bank loans is very difficult, especially when you are running a triple bottom line business. In fact, this type of investment makes up a very small percentage of what is available out there. Where’s the rest? In the community. Not only is funding difficult to access, but taking on VC funding can also be scary for mission-aligned business owners. More often than not, the investor will expect the business to focus on maximizing profit because they want high return, fast. By inviting the community to invest in your business, you continue to call the shots without sacrificing your mission. Additionally, you can advertise DPOs publicly. Check out People’s Community Market page and you can see just how they do it, and invest.

Andy Fyfe is the Community Development Coordinator at B Lab in the San Francisco office. B Lab is a nonprofit, certifying and supporting B Corporations: companies that are competing to be not just the best in the world but the best for the world. 

The following is part of a series by our friends at CSRHub (a 3p sponsor) – offering free sustainability and corporate social responsibility ratings on over 6,500 of the world’s largest publicly traded companies. 3p readers get 25% off CSRHub’s professional subscriptions with promo code “TP25.″ 

As previously seen on the CSRHub blog.

By Bahar Gidwani

It seems to be my fate to explain corporate social responsibility (CSR) to all of my friends (and to a number of strangers).  I suspect that my eyes sometimes glaze with messianic fervor and that some of my listeners start looking for the nearest exit.

The most frequent question I get when I pause for breath is “Who is interested in CSR?”  Of course, I have my own favorite answer (“EVERYONE!”), but I thought I’d offer a little more concrete data.

Our friends at CR Magazine run one of the biggest and broadest CSR events each year—Commit!Forum.  They recently put out a multi-page document to solicit sponsors for the 2013 Commit!Forum.  (Yes, they try to make money, running these things.)  As part of proving the case for why a company should spend up to $332,633 (the price for a “Platinum” marketing package) to be part of the event, CR offered some stats on who showed up in 2012.

 

This data seems to suggest that the c-suite (the biggest slice) above is heavily engaged in sustainability.  Attendance rose 8 percent in 2012 over 2011, despite a slow economy.

CR also offered some data on the industries that were represented.

 

 

I thought it was interesting to see that corporate managers, lawyers and PR types were mingling and interacting with NGOs, government employees, and academics.  I’ve participated in Commit!Forum for the past few years as both a sponsor and via panels and seminars.  A lot of companies are making a serious effort to improve their performance and meetings such as these illustrate this.

If you have other examples of the “demographics” of our industry, please point them out to me.  We’ve done our own research (which we’ll share in the next post) and it comes to a similar conclusion.  A broad swath of organizations and industries is interested in sustainability.  You now have even more facts with which to bore your friends, and any strangers unlucky enough to have to listen to you!

 

[csrhubwidget company="SunPower-Corporation" size="650x100" hash="0f2d0b"]

 

 

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Bahar Gidwani is a Cofounder and CEO of CSRHub. Formerly, he was the CEO of New York-based Index Stock Imagery, Inc, from 1991 through its sale in 2006. He has built and run large technology-based businesses and has experience building a multi-million visitor Web site. Bahar holds a CFA, was a partner at Kidder, Peabody & Co., and worked at McKinsey & Co. Bahar has consulted to both large companies such as Citibank, GE, and Acxiom and a number of smaller software and Web-based companies. He has an MBA (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School and a BS in Astronomy and Physics (magna cum laude) from Amherst College. Bahar races sailboats, plays competitive bridge, and is based in New York City.

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on nearly 7,000 companies from 135 industries in 82 countries. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.

CSRHub rates 12 indicators of employee, environment, community and governance performance and flags many special issues. We offer subscribers immediate access to millions of detailed data points from our 200 data sources. Our data comes from six socially responsible investing firms, well-known indexes, publications, “best of” or “worst of” lists, NGOs, crowd sources and government agencies. By aggregating and normalizing the information from these sources, CSRHub has created a broad, consistent rating system and a searchable database that links each rating point back to its source.

 

A recent Wall Street Journal article questioned whether this the end of the soft drink era. The answer is: yes. The following 2013 megatrends are pushing sugary soda back to being a special treat rather than a beverage consumed at almost every meal.

Moms fighting obesity

Moms increasingly believe their loved ones are being endangered by industrial and fast foods including the "Super Size Me" sugary beverage. Obesity is now one of their major health issues with almost one of three Americans being overweight. Obesity is fueling a national diabetes epidemic with the CDC projecting a 50 percent increase in Type 2 diabetes among children. Confronted with this health threat, moms are responding by buying fewer sugary drinks for themselves and their loved ones.

Being fat is not cool to the Millennial generation

The Millennial generation is rejecting sugary sodas in favor of water, coffee and energy drinks. They are rejecting the boost they get from sugary drinks because it comes with the price of gaining weight. Overall, the Millennial generation is turning away from fast foods as being unhealthy. They might eat it because of its lower price, but their preference is to eat healthier food. For the Millennial generation "good food wins."

Soft drinks cost more

Corn syrup is the major ingredient in sugary soft drinks. Global warming's impact of more and more intense droughts has driven corn prices higher. In addition, the cost of water that is used in producing soft drinks is also going up. Then, there is the higher petroleum costs of manufacturing and delivering soda, including plastic bottles. A business driver behind Coca-Cola's introduction of plant-based bottles is to cut their plastic bottle costs. Even with the cost containment efforts of soda companies, the net consumer result is that buying a soft drink is no longer cheap and the price is going up.

Sugary sodas have hit the sustainability wall

The bottom line for sugary soft drinks is that they have hit the "sustainability wall." Their costs are going up because their supply chain is exposed to less sustainable agriculture, manufacturing and delivery. Their consumer revenues are being threatened by growing awareness among consumers of the long term health impacts of daily consumption. Soda companies now face more competition from price competitive and healthier beverages. The end of the soft drink era is being replaced by the dawn of sustainability.

Bill Roth is an economist and the Founder of Earth 2017 He coaches business owners and leaders on proven best practices in pricing, marketing and operations that make money and create a positive difference. His book, The Secret Green Sauce, profiles business case studies of pioneering best practices that are proven to win customers and grow product revenues.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a trucking industry challenge to rules that Los Angeles adopted five years ago designed to curb truck emissions at the nation’s busiest port.

The case (American Trucking Associations vs. City of Los Angeles) will determine the constitutionality of certain provisions of the Clean Truck Program at the Port of Los Angeles. Similar rules are also in force at the nearby Port of Long Beach. The question centers on whether cities and states have authority to limit pollution from trucks moving long-haul cargo.

The answer to that question would seem obvious, especially in environmental circles, but the ATA contends that the local clean truck regulations run afoul of a federal law that deregulated motor carriers. So, it gets complicated. There is a provision in the law that preempts any state or local measure that is "related to the price, route or service of any motor carrier." The purpose of that provision is to speed the free flow of trucks, buses and other shippers and to prevent local or state rules that would add costs to those movements.

So far, the Los Angeles regulations have fared well in the lower courts, according to a news report in the LA Times. A U.S. District Judge in Los Angeles, Christina Snyder, rejected the trucking industry's preemption challenge in 2010.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision and upheld all the regulations, except a provision restricting independent contractors. The provision stipulated that drivers must be employees of the companies they haul goods for and not independent operators, which until that point, the vast majority of truckers were. The appellate judges found the rules at issue were not like ordinary laws governing motor carriers in Los Angeles, but rather special rules involving vehicles operating in the city's port facility. So while the appellate panel found that the port couldn't require thousands of port-servicing independent truckers to become trucking firm employees, it split 2-1 in favor of the port on four separate truck plan issues also opposed by the ATA, including an off-street parking provision, financial capability requirement, maintenance provision and placard requirement.

Those four rules “have nothing to do with improving air quality,” ATA President and CEO Bill Graves asserted in a statement.

Some could argue that requiring proper truck maintenance, financial capability, monitoring where idling trucks park and placarding have a lot to do with air quality. But Graves denies that the ATA challenge is being pursued because it opposes the environmental aspects of the Clean Trucks Plan.

Maybe so. The ATA certainly will not mind seeing those environmental aspects—the real purpose of the rules—scrapped on basically doing-business economic technicalities.

“Our objections to the port's program have always been business-related, and not, as certain reactionary groups have asserted, out of a desire to cling to polluting ways.”

One of those “reactionary groups,” the Natural Resources Defense Council, countered, “This continues to be a hard-fought battle against an industry clinging to its polluting practices,” said Melissa Lin Perrella, a lawyer for the NRDC who was quoted in the LA Times report. “The Clean Truck Program at the Port of L.A. has dramatically reduced harmful air pollution,” she continued, “but it won't stay that way unless the trucking companies step up and shoulder the necessary costs of upkeep and care.”

ATA has fought the Clean Truck Program every inch of the way since 2008, which sure doesn’t sound like stepping up.

So, the Supreme Court will hear the case this spring and rule by July.

[Image: Supreme Court by scottlenger via Flickr cc]

John Mackey, the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods describes himself as an enthusiastic proponent of the First Amendment who believes “business leaders should speak out openly when they believe it is appropriate to do so.” Mackey certainly likes to exercise his First Amendment rights, whether it is in books (see his latest one – Conscious Capitalism), public appearances, or even on Yahoo Finance's message board under the pseudonym Rahodeb.

Many times his controversial opinions on issues like unions, climate change and Obamacare get him into trouble. The latest example was last week when he told Mother Jones that “climate change is perfectly natural and not necessarily bad,” seemingly suggesting that climate change might be even a good thing as “most of humanity tends to flourish more when global temperatures are in a warming trend.”

As you can imagine, this wasn’t the first time Mackey expressed a controversial statement on global warming. Actually, this wasn’t even the first time he suggested climate change might not be such a bad thing. In 2010, Mackey told the New Yorker that he agrees with the assertion that “no scientific consensus exists” regarding the causes of climate change,” adding that “it would be a pity to allow hysteria about global warming” to cause us “to raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn, lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty.” Finally, he said that “historically, prosperity tends to correlate to warmer temperatures.”

Comparing both interviews, there’s actually some progress in Mackey‘s position. In 2010, he thought “no scientific consensus exists,” but in 2013, he claimed that “climate change is clearly occurring.” Nevertheless, he persists in claiming that climate change is a natural phenomenon and it might not be as bad as we assume it is.

If these positions sound odd coming from the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, you need to remember that Mackey is a libertarian, and this view on climate change is not uncommon among libertarians. Libertarians, in general, have a hard time accepting that global warming is a serious problem. Why is that?

Prof. Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University  and Matt Bruenig provide some good explanations, as well as George Monbiot who tried to simplify the argument, which is based on the procedural justice account of property rights as follows: “In brief, this means that if the process by which property was acquired was just, those who have acquired it should be free to use it as they wish, without social restraints or obligations to other people. Their property rights are absolute and cannot be intruded upon by the state or by anyone else.”

So you can see why harmful manmade greenhouse emissions might be at odds with the libertarian view of the world – after all, as Matt Bruenig explains, “Greenhouse gas emitters have not contracted with every single property owner in the world, making their emissions a violation of a very strict libertarian property rights ideology.”

Yet, while questioning the contribution of humankind to global warming or the rejection of any government intervention or regulation are common among libertarians, the notion that climate change can actually be positive is rare. Still, it didn’t stop Mackey from stating in his interview with Mother Jones that “in general, most of humanity tends to flourish more when global temperatures are in a warming trend and I believe we will be able to successfully adapt to gradually rising temperatures.”

If there’s something Mackey is afraid of, it’s not climate change but rather regulation or intervention. “What I am opposed to is trying to stop virtually all economic progress because of the fear of climate change. I would hate to see billions of people condemned to remain in poverty because of climate change fears.”

This view is at odds with almost any study of climate change risks - OECD, IPCC, Goldman Sachs or PwC to name a few. Mackey might also want to take a look at the 2012 report, Physical Risks from Climate Change: A guide for companies and investors on disclosure and management of climate impacts, which explains how “virtually every sector of the economy faces risks from the short- and long-term physical effects of climate change—impacts across the entire business value chain, from raw materials through to the end users.” And did we mention Hurricane Sandy?

Does it really matter what Mackey thinks about climate change? The answer is that while Whole Foods is a public company, not Mackey’s company anymore, it still very much reflects his position and point of view. Therefore, it's no surprise that Whole Foods has no climate change policy and I doubt if you can find the words ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ on its website.

It means that while Whole Foods is a leader on some sustainability issues, it lags behind on climate change and will probably continue to as long as Mackey calls the shots on this issue.

Does it change your opinion on Whole Foods? Please feel free to comment.

[Image credit: Whole Foods Market]

Raz Godelnik is the co-founder of Eco-Libris and an adjunct faculty at the University of Delaware’s Business School, CUNY SPS and Parsons the New School for Design, teaching courses in green business, sustainable design and new product development. You can follow Raz on Twitter.

The New York Times is closing its environment desk in coming weeks, assigning its seven reporters and two editors to other departments and eliminating the positions of environment editor and deputy environment editor. While the paper has insisted that the closure will not affect its environmental coverage, many remain unconvinced.

"This change to our environmental coverage is purely a change in the architecture of the editing," Eileen Murphy, Vice President of Corporate Communications for the New York Times Company, told TriplePundit in an email.

The Times’s environmental coverage has generally outpaced other media outlets in recent years. A recent analysis by The Daily Climate found that media coverage of climate change has steadily declined since 2009 even as the incidence of extreme weather events has dramatically increased.

The U.S. paper of record said it decided to close the desk because environmental stories are always related to other news categories -- national, foreign, economic, and so on -- and so "it makes sense to have reporters on all relevant desks covering a wide range of environment issues," according to Murphy.

The Times has not said if it will shutter its Green Blog, which is edited from the environment desk, and Murphy insisted that the closure of the environment desk will not make the paper's environmental coverage any less aggressive or comprehensive.

Still, environmentalists and several members of the media have expressed concern that the Times's closure of its environment desk, which has been lauded for excellent coverage of climate change and other issues, sends the wrong message to the public and the media.

"When you abolish a standalone beat, it sends a strong message to every career-conscious reporter and editor that chasing environment stories is not a path to advancement," Peter Dykstra, publisher of the Daily Climate, told ThinkProgress in an email.

Dykstra was let go from CNN when that news outlet closed its environment department four years ago, and while the Times is merely reassigning its reporters, others in the media say that environmental coverage at the paper is bound to suffer.

Dan Feign, a professor of journalism at New York University, posted a comment on Facebook about the closure that is worth quoting at length:

...[W]ithout a designated staff your editor would have to rely completely on borrowing reporters from other desks, and editors on those desks would get no credit from management for any environmental stories their borrowed reporters produce. Meanwhile, the reporters themselves would feel the pressure from their desk editors -- the editors who do their evaluations -- to stay on their own desks. It sets up an adversarial system that has already failed in many newsrooms. The best solution is what the Times has sadly dismantled: a small dedicated staff with diverse skills AND the ability to tap other expert writers when appropriate.

Dr. Robert Brulle of Drexel University echoed this sentiment, saying, "The decision by the New York Times to close its environmental desk accelerates the disappearance of climate change from our public discourse.”

"Despite their official statements to the contrary, this move will reduce the paper’s institutional focus and capacity to report on environmental issues," he added.

While such criticisms have been commonplace in the wake of the paper’s announcement, Andrew C. Revkin, a frequent Times Op-Ed contributor who runs the popular Dot Earth blog, pointed out that the paper’s environmental coverage was excellent even before it opened an environment desk in 2009.

Moreover, much of the Times’s best environmental reporting originated on different desks even after the environment desk was open, Revkin noted.

Ultimately, the effects of the closure remain to be seen. Al Gore probably had it right when he wrote recently, “While I am sad to see this dedicated desk come to an end, I hope that its tremendous reporters can, as the newspaper’s leadership promised, continue their crucial work and can help influence the general newsroom by incorporating important environmental perspectives throughout the paper.”

[Image credit: jphilipg, Flickr]

 

Coworking may not be the first thing to come to mind when thinking about the “sharing economy,” but it ought to be, particularly if you consider the statistic from the Freelancer’s Union that one in three of us in the U.S. is an independent worker. If it wasn't for workspace sharing, creative ideas would be cooped up at home, missing the chance to intermingle with one another to create innovation.

Office sharing—and everything that comes along with it—has grown dramatically in the last several years of economic funk. According to Deskmag, a site that tracks and promotes coworking, there are more than 2,000 coworking spaces globally, up from 600 in 2010.

Coworking spaces come in all shapes and sizes, but what many have in common is a hip, modern design that aims to encourage collaboration through a wide open space full of workstations (instead of offices), ample natural light and an ambient décor.

Most coworking spaces encourage collaboration among members, but some make it their priority to foster serendipitous innovation by bringing together people from specific industries or with complamentary skill sets.

One such example is The HUB, an international network of independently run coworking spaces designed specifically for mission-driven businesses, or for “people who want to build a better world,” as Jeff Shiau, a program manager at The HUB Bay Area, puts it. It was founded in London in 2005, and today has nearly 50 locations and 6,000 members in cities like San Francisco, Madrid, Singapore, Tel Aviv and Johannesburg.

“Every location has its own founding team, but [The HUB] is not cookie cutter like a franchise,” explained Shiau, who is employed by the parent company of The HUB Bay Area, which has working spaces in San Francisco and Berkeley and produces the annual SOCAP conference, exploring the intersection of business and social impact. Two more Bay Area HUBs—Silicon Valley and Oakland—are opening later this year, Shiau said.

Although each HUB is independently run and structured (some are nonprofits others are for-profits), it is part of a global association of HUB founders and adheres to global brand guidelines. Each one also pays dues—determined primarily by its membership revenue—to HUB Company, a nonprofit that coordinates logistics for the organization. Every year, HUB founders get together in a different city around the world for strategy talks on issues of governance, programming, and space design.

Currently, the group is trying to figure out how to quantify its impact, Shiau says: “We have the pulse, but not at a surgical level.” The first item on the organization’s agenda is to determine which impact metrics to use: how many jobs it’s creating vs. how much capital it’s directing towards specific ideas or sectors vs. the impact it’s making on local communities, for instance.

If it counts the impact of members and partners, the results could be quite impressive. The HUB Bay Area attracts some heavy hitters in the sustainable business space, including the Presidio Graduate School and B Lab—the nonprofit certifier for B Corp (HUB Bay Area is certified)—both with permanent offices at the San Francisco location.

Providing an opportunity to rub elbows with organizations like these certainly makes membership alluring for early stage impact startups that can draw on the expertise of these more established members and the impressive speakers The HUB Bay Area secures. Speakers have included Matt Flannery, co-founder and CEO of Kiva; Leila Janah, founder of Samasource, and Jeff Raikes, CEO of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

There are additional business-school-like benefits of membership, including access to a large variety of useful workshops and a startup accelerator program called HUB Ventures. And, of course, there are ample social activities to ensure that members meet each other and that the sharing of ideas ensues. These include a HUB softball team, weekly public lunches and waffle Mondays.

The people behind this organization view The HUB’s role and potential impact as extending far beyond the sharing of space and resources. They consider The HUB a home for like-minded change agents, "a global movement,” Shiau proclaims in true Bay Area entrepreneurial fashion.

“My goal is that by 2015 all HUBs around the globe will be so mobilized, we’ll be able to influence the U.N. on issues.”

I wouldn’t put it past them.

Follow me on Twitter: @kuurlyq

In most industrialized countries these days, being diagnosed with a metabolic disease like diabetes is no longer a life-or-death matter. A written prescription for a medicine like insulin and some stern advice from your doctor to eat well and exercise regularly is often what it takes to keep the disease under control.

Unless, of course, you live in Syria.

With the Syrian civil war now in its second year, purchasing life-saving drugs like insulin takes much more than a trip to the pharmacy or a script from the doctor. The medical system is in shambles; many of the country's pharmaceutical factories (which at one time manufactured 90 percent of the country’s medications) have been destroyed, and access to pharmaceutical products from world suppliers like Novo Nordisk, has all been cut off.

That’s why the company has taken steps to recognize its Syria team with its 2012 TakeAction award for the team’s on-the-ground efforts to replenish and protect the country’s supply of insulin.

According to Novo Nordisk, getting the insulin supplies into hospitals and clinics required months of advance planning as well as “personal risk” by its employees. Shipping routes constantly had to be devised and revised just to get the medications through the front lines to the clinics. In order to store them during Syria’s blistering summer heat, new equipment often had to be shipped in as well.

Shipping 3,700 vials of human insulin to the city of Dara’a, a particularly volatile area of the conflict in southwest Syria, took 45 days of planning and repeated delivery attempts. And when team members weren't attempting to make deliveries in conflict areas, they were holding seminars in Arabic to teach patients about ways to manage their diabetes in “extreme environment(s)” like war zones and unpredictable weather conditions.

The TakeAction award is accorded to Novo Nordisk employees who demonstrate exceptional initiative in a volunteer capacity. The Syria team was picked from a total list of 72 activities represented by 2,425 employees worldwide.

“While people were fighting out there, we decided our must-win battle was to make our products available,” said Novo Nordisk General Manager Eyad Al Safadi.

Insulin is critical to the successful management of diabetes mellitus (Diabetes I). The hormone is normally manufactured by the human body, which uses it to metabolize the sugars found in foods. Patients who have diabetes mellitus often do not produce enough insulin in the body and require injections several times a day. Therefore, clinics and pharmacies often maintain a ready supply of human insulin, which must be refrigerated.

According to the International Diabetes Federation, Syria has the ninth highest incidence of diabetes in the Middle East, with 898,203 known cases. More than 8 percent of the population suffers from the disease, which can be fatal if not treated with insulin and medical attention. A recent report by the International Rescue Committee notes that the ready supply of insulin, cancer treatments and other forms of life-sustaining medical treatments remain at risk due to the ongoing civil war.

Images courtesy of FreedomHouse.