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By Joe Latona

Finding startup funding — especially for socially-conscious companies — is difficult. Year-over-year growth is at its highest level in the past two decades, but it’s still below the historic norm.

Everybody knows failure rates among startups are high, and this risk profile leads to decreased investor tolerance across the board. At the startup level, investors still see a zero-sum game. The company will either succeed or fail. And an investor will show reluctance until he’s fairly certain the business is a winner.

This goes double for the growth phase, when companies are ready to move out of startup status and go bigger in the market.

Socially conscious companies in this phase have even steeper funding challenges than more traditional companies because investors are even less sure that these organizations will yield significant returns. Old-school venture capitalists tend to be wary of values-based investing, and they’re not alone. Many people are still unfamiliar with socially conscious companies, so they’re less likely to take chances on them.

Let’s look at the challenges posed by some of the standard investment structures:

Venture capitalists: VCs are great allies for young and growing companies because they bring money and vast investment networks to the table. Because of the risk they’re taking on, however, they often want a significant amount of equity and a strong voice in the company.

That can prove a major source of friction as socially conscious companies prepare to grow. The founders may want to ramp up emphasis on the social good aspect of the business, but VCs invest to make money. A VC may be skeptical of socially conscious companies going into the growth phase because he’s not clear whether the organization can turn a profit outside of its startup period.

Crowdfunding: Individuals typically back crowdfunding campaigns in exchange for access to the product. Depending on the socially conscious company’s business model, the business may risk alienating people with its particular cause. It may also be more difficult to strike a balance between delivering on products and on social promises as the company develops.

A startup that relies on reward-based crowdfunding must also beware of backlash if it sells the organization to a larger corporation. The stakes are especially high for socially conscious businesses because people have a stake in its values and may be particularly critical of a corporate deal.

Securities crowdfunding is also a double-edged sword because companies can use social media to build awareness, which under recently passed crowdfunding securities can help with the aggregation of capital. But if the enterprise fails, it does so heavily, quickly, and publicly.

Angel networks: These investors offer a faster turnaround on delivering funds, but they’re much more averse to risk than VCs or individual crowdfunders. Socially conscious businesses really need to prove their worth, and even then, angels may pass on investing. If there’s not a well-planned route to profitability, angels aren’t going to risk their money — no matter how worthy the social cause.

While these obstacles to attracting growth investment exist, they’re not impossible to overcome.

Beating the odds

Investors are often averse to working with socially conscious companies, so those businesses need to win their confidence. Prepare your pitch around the following three pillars, and you will likely find that investors look at you with greater interest:

1. Establish a clear strategy. Create a forecast for where your brand and your market are headed during the next 12, 24, and even 36 months. Wayne Gretzky once said: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” The same holds true in business. You need a data-backed, executable vision for what your business’s growth will look like.


2. Demonstrate scalability. Presenting your growth plan is important, but investors still want to see how it’s going to happen. Explain how you’re going to manage increased manufacturing and marketing of your product or service. Scaling a company is all about execution, and investors want to ensure that you have a hold on those details.


3. Stay agile. Assure investors that you’re prepared to iterate on your long-term road map. The beauty of entrepreneurship is that you have the freedom to pivot based on new market conditions and customer demand. Incorporate consumer feedback into your ongoing decision process, and investors will be more likely to bite.

A sea change is coming for socially conscious investing, and it’s largely driven by Millennials. This demographic prizes ethical investments and factors social impact into everything from purchasing choices to career decisions. While traditional investors still tend to be skittish around all but the most promising social organizations, we will see increased interest in the next several years.
Until then, socially conscious companies should keep their eyes on the bottom line (as well as their broader impacts). Having a balanced idea of where the business is headed and how it benefits both stakeholders and society at large is the kind of thinking investors want to see.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Joe Latona is the COO of GATE Global Impact, a leading electronic marketplace platform that’s helping the world’s leading organizations to standardize and accelerate impact investing. Joe is also a managing partner at Constellation Fin Tech and an industry leader in the development of electronic trading technology.

Ethical spending has continued to grow despite difficult market conditions, according to the Ethical Consumer Markets Report published by Ethical Consumer magazine and Triodos Bank.

The value of ethical sales grew by 8%, during a period when inflation barely rose above 0.5%. And the overall value of the ethical market grew from £35bn to £38bn. Sales of electric, hybrid and other tax-band A-rated cars grew by 40% to nearly £7bn, and spending on solar panels rose by nearly 25% to £716m.

The value of money held ethically fell by 2%, largely caused by accounts being closed or moved from the Co-operative Bank. All other elements in the sector - including savings and investments with Triodos Bank - showed year on year growth. Ethical investment grew by 9% to £13bn. Combined ethical money and ethical spending totals rose from £78bn to £80bn.

In the food and drink sector, 2014 saw the first ever fall in a value of Fairtrade sales (4%) since the scheme began. The authors suggest that this may have been caused by a combination of factors including falling market share at Sainsbury’s and the Co-op, Fairtrade’s biggest supporters in the retail sector, and growing sales at Aldi and Lidl, which have smaller Fairtrade ranges.

However, the ethical food sector grew overall with a revival in organic sales, strong growth in sustainable fish sales, and a good performance in other ethical food sectors.

Charles Middleton, Triodos Bank md commented: “Every one of has a role to play in tackling the pressing social and environmental challenges facing us, and making conscious choices about how we use our money is one of the most powerful ways each of us can make a difference. This includes the products we buy, the companies we buy from and the banks we entrust our money with.

"The report’s findings are a very positive sign for ethical consumption, demonstrating that despite continuing economic hardship, people are making conscious choices, and at a growing rate.”

You can download the report free of charge here. 
 

An outbreak of a norovirus, followed by strains of salmonella and E. coli, compounded the challenges facing Mexican grill giant Chipotle. But a more fundamental challenge may be surfacing -- and not just for Chipotle.

I’m talking about the risks of serving natural and fresh foods. The more “natural” and “fresh” foods are, the more prone they may be to picking up harmful bacteria.

Among the ways to minimize these risks would be reduce how fresh/natural/organic ingredients may be. And that may include treating foods and ingredients in ways that could undermine the message and value proposition that all of a company's marketing is based on and its profits and stock prices rely on.

So, what are restaurant chains to do when food safety becomes just as important as food quality?

The fact that these outbreaks happen so infrequently speaks volumes about the safeguards that most, if not all, restaurants have in place. But the ever-increasing array of options multiplies the risks and commensurate steps needed to protect the fresh, natural, organic and/or non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) foods we buy and the meals we order.

An illustrative protocol for protecting a restaurant chain’s food safety likely includes everything from certifying suppliers, to carefully monitoring and assuring the myriad modes of transporting packaging and handling foods. Add to that sanitation practices of all the workers all the way to the retail counter and serving table.

There is another possibility with Chipotle that may have less to do with its protocols already in place. One food blog, which is founded and written by a sometimes conspiracy theorist, is asserting Chipotle may be the victim of a deliberate bid to tarnish the growing non-GMO and organic food movement. The knee-jerk reaction would be to ignore any such claim. But in today’s world, it’s imprudent to rule anything out until plausible theories are disproven by credible authorities.

In his blog -- Natural News -- which fashions itself as a “truth new bureau, read by 7+ million,” Mike Adams asserts “Chiptole is a victim of corporate sabotage” by ‘food terrorists (who) are planting e.coli in retaliation for restaurant’s anti-GMO menu.”

Adams writes that Chipotle is the leading, and perhaps the only, national chain that has publicly denounced GMOs.

“This act of bioterrorism is entirely consistent with the known behavior patterns of the biotech industry which, for example, engaged in illegal money laundering in Washington state in order to destroy the GMO labeling bill there.”

Chipotle did not respond to emails on successive days this week asking for comment about the status of its cleanup efforts and the possibility of a deliberate attack.

For now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta hold all the cards. Chipotle, based in Denver, has been waiting for days now for the CDC to weigh in and hopefully declare the end of the outbreak. Instead, the CDC itself disclosed additional E. coli cases beyond the first wave. At last count, 53 people in nine states have been sickened by the outbreak which was first discovered in late October in Oregon and Washington state.

To its credit, Chipotle has spelled out an “enhanced food safety program” after a “comprehensive reassessment of our food safety practices” with a lab that included a “farm-to-fork assessment of each ingredient we use with an eye toward establishing the highest standards for food safety.”

The program components include:

• High-resolution testing of all fresh produce with a DNA-based tests


• “Initiating” end-of-shelf-life testing


• “Pursuing” improvements throughout its supply chain using data from tests of vendors and suppliers


• “Enhancing” internal training

Beyond the DNA testing, each of the other three steps seem the least of what should be done by a restaurant chain in full crisis-mode.

Chipotle reportedly did close its 43 restaurants in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle after the E. coli outbreak at 11 of those sites. It also closed one of its restaurants in Boston following an outbreak there.

Restaurant chains usually recover relatively quickly after food-borne disease outbreaks. One exception noted by food marketers and crisis management experts is how Jack in the Box almost went out of business in 1993-94. There, E. coli-contaminated hamburgers were linked to the deaths of four children and sickened about 600.

Whether Chipotle restores the trust the company needs to get customers eating and ordering at the affected, and perhaps other, stores and regain its darling status on Wall Street remains to be seen. And that can only begin once consumers believe the outbreaks have stopped and the cause or sources are determined.

Holman Jenkins, a respected columnist at the Wall Street Journal, poked fun at Chipotle’s travails as if to say the chain, and all purveyors of natural foods, had it coming: “Just possibly ... the company’s E. coli travails will have a socially redeeming impact. A new dawn of non-idiocy may be aborning, wherein lexicographers and the public rediscover that 'natural' and 'healthy' are not synonyms.”

If no source or culprit is determined for the outbreaks, the next question that looms is: Which company might be next? Is this a wake-up call the natural and fresh food industry should heed? Are similar or more aggressive and comprehensive safety protocols up to the task of preventing these outbreaks, no matter their origins?

Photo by Jim Pierobon

Earlier this year, 50 social good startups met at the Kairos Global Summit in Los Angeles. Here’s what some of the companies are up to now, and how they’re going to change the world in 2016.

1. A drone that saves elephants and zebras

In a time when hundreds or thousands of species are going extinct every year, it’s more important now than ever to be able to monitor wildlife so we can lend a helping hand when possible.

One startup, Dutch UAS, has created a drone that monitors land. It can measure wildlife such as rhinos and elephants, livestock such as cows and goats, and vegetation such as crops and trees. Let’s look at one case of how this works. In the past, people have tried to monitor animals by foot, car, plane or helicopter. For example, you might have two people in a helicopter counting the number of elephants and rhinos below.

The problem is that’s inefficient, expensive, time intensive and often unsafe. Instead, Dutch UAS is able to fly drones over land, create a map of the area, and have the drone automatically detect and count various types of animals. For example, it can look at the ground below and automatically detect that there are 20 impalas, one giraffe, 20 wildebeest and five zebras.

The company then analyzes the data on the number of specific animals per land segment, and it’s easy to compare animal populations from year-to-year and see the trends. Landowners can then quickly intervene when they see a potential problem.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/142753470

2. A mobile app that is a doctor

“700 million people in the developing world can't live a productive life because they don't have glasses. Glasses have become affordable, but caregivers can't provide prescriptions fast enough,” says the Eye Check website. “We exist because we are not comfortable with this fact. We exist because we can help close the gap between available services and desperate need using affordable imaging equipment in creative ways.”

It’s difficult for people living in rural areas to get to the doctor. That’s why Eye Check is bring doctors to people via their cell phone. Here's the way it works. First, the smartphone app is used to determine if the person needs glasses or if there are any other serious eye conditions. Then the phone’s camera and flash are used to take a detailed photo of the eye. This provides optometrists a general idea of what prescription is needed. The optometrists are then able to fine tune and give the patient a prescription or refer them to a doctor. Eye Check is already testing the app in India and is scheduled to launch in six months.

3. Grubs that eat grub

The U.S. produces 34 million tons of food waste. That food waste goes to landfills and releases greenhouse gases which damage the environment. Enter Grubbly Farms. It collects the organic waste from food processors, restaurant suppliers and farms. It turns the waste into slush that it feeds to a massive bin of black soldier fly larvae who find the slush delicious.

The larvae are hearty eaters and continuously dine on restaurant scraps, bakery waste and food processing waste. They don’t even stop to sleep. If an adult human ate as much as a larvae, he would eat 45 chickens per day … including the bones.

As the larvae chow down, they excrete a nutrient rich fertilizer that gardeners and farmers love to use. Once the dinner feast ends, the larvae which are full of protein, fat and calcium, are fed live or dehydrated to poultry or reptiles. The larvae are also sometimes processed into a feed ingredient for fish or poultry farms.

4. A robot that helps children with disabilities

It’s hard for autistic children to look at someone and understand what emotion that person is feeling. For example, a child with autism may look at a smiling parent and not know that a smile means the parent is happy.

That’s one reason the startup Leka invented an interactive robot that socially engages children with developmental disorders. The bot plays sounds and music, shows emotions and speaks, moves, and lights up and vibrates. All of these sensory features are used to encourage children to interact with parents and caregivers.

To help a child understand that a parent is happy, the robot, Moti, turns on a green light. This simple stimuli creates a communication bridge between the child and parent.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/VuszKcoJWBY

The company hopes to also use Moti to collect data for researchers and doctors in hopes that they will be able to detect patterns in the communication.

One “child in a hundred is living at the margin of our world. It’s time we let them in,” says the cofounder and CEO, Ladislas de Toldi.

5. A printer that builds living tissue from human cells

The BioBot 1 is a desktop printer that prints living tissues any size or shape you want. First you identify what body part you need. Then you put a three dimensional digital image of that part into the bioprinting software. Insert bioink, made from biological materials, into the printer cartridge. Then watch your living tissue print out layer by layer.

The ultimate goal is to create body parts that can be transplanted into a human. This would create a huge benefit for people who are on the transplant waiting list.

The founders of BioBots gave a discounted BioBot 1 printer to Dr. Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari, a transplant specialist and head of the 3-D Bioprinting Facility at the University of Minnesota. She is now creating a 3-D-printed esophagus and trachea to sew into an animal and test.

The BioBots website admits there are still many questions to answer, “There are still plenty of problems to solve. What kind of biocompatible material will be tough enough to hold sutures? Will it support cell growth? What’s the best way to seed cells on the piece? How thick can a printed part be?”

Despite the challenge, Dr. Panoskaltsis-Mortari predicts it will just be a few years before 3-D vessels, tubes, skin, and other relatively simple body parts are printed and implanted in humans.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LtypoSo_AsI

*All photos came from the websites for each company.

Coming out of COP21, there is a lot of excitement and a number of questions. At the very least, there are plenty of good intentions, committed to paper, with voluntary targets that 196 countries say they will strive to achieve. Can they do it? Will it be enough? Perhaps most important of all: How much is still unknown?

As one who spends a substantial amount of time investigating and writing about the numerous solutions pouring out of research labs and garages alike, it’s easy to be optimistic. On the other hand, climate science is careful to remind us of numerous positive feedback loops, lurking like dark shadows, that could make things much worse than what the consensus expects. So, while the problem could very well get worse, the prospects for addressing it could also likely get much better.

One thing that most people agree on is that it would be helpful if the carbon emission level could be easily measured in a way that allows for verification on a location-by-location basis. A recent report on EU energy governance, produced by the British House of Lords, says that “EU-wide binding 2030 renewables targets will not be delivered unless it is backed-up by a monitoring and enforcement mechanism that acts as a guarantor for the agreement.”

The House goes on to state: “Without an effective, transparent, accountable, and legitimate governance mechanism, the significance of the target is considerably diminished, the incentive to Member States to be ambitious is weakened, and any prospect of achieving the overall objective is jeopardized.”

It was Peter Drucker who said, “you can't manage what you can't measure," and that seems to apply here.

So, how are we to go about measuring carbon emissions?

Climate Alliance developed a carbon-monitoring tool with the Swiss company Ecospeed and Germany’s B&SU. Rather than an actual instrument, this is an online database containing energy and CO2 inventories, developed for specific location for estimating purposes. The tool is available in Germany and Switzerland.

The best way to directly measure CO2 could be from outer space. Space-based verification could take advantage of dedicated satellites like NASA’s proposed Orbiting Carbon Observatory to collect accurate measurements from countries across the globe to ensure whether or not they are meeting their targets. A study performed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, using ground-based surrogates, demonstrates that this approach is feasible.

But one company that worked for years in space-based instrumentation for weather satellites, as well as emissions monitoring, has developed a solution that is much closer to Earth.

Harris Corp., a communications, defense and information technology company, brought out some new tricks from its recently formed Environmental Systems Division -- pulled from its broad portfolio of technical capabilities, which includes satellite, airborne and ground-based instruments.

At COP21 in Paris, the company unveiled GreenLite: a laser-based system mounted on tall buildings capable of measuring the CO2 concentration in the air above the city in real time (video). The lasers use light at a specific wavelength that is absorbed by CO2. By comparing the amount of light leaving the transmitters with the light received by detectors across the city, the system can determine the amount of CO2 in the air. The technology was developed with funding from DOE and NIST and in partnership with AER.

Watching the levels rise and fall as rush hours come and go and power plants respond to demand peaks is a bit like watching the city breathe, said Eric Webster, VP of Harris Environmental Systems.

Because cities represent such a substantial portion of carbon emissions, systems like this can be extremely useful for monitoring and enforcement. Prior to this demonstration, Harris installed a system to monitor a carbon sequestration site in Decatur, Illinois.

Image courtesy of Harris Corp.

PepsiCo recently revealed plans to make an organic Gatorade in 2016. Yes, you read that right. As the soda market dwindles and consumers increasingly seek out beverage products with good-for-you ingredients and other health-related attributes, PepsiCo executives are hoping to capitalize on a market trend of non-GMO product sales reaching $800 billion by 2017.

“It’s a consumer interest,” Al Carey, the CEO of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, announced at Beverage Digest’s Future Smarts conference in New York. “I think they’re very interested in non-GMO [genetically modified organisms] and organic, and to the degree you can make it meaningful to the consumer — do it.”

PepsiCo has yet to reveal which ingredients in the sports drink will be reformulated and swapped for organic alternatives. Gatorade, estimated to command 77 percent of the U.S. sports drink market, already includes a variety of natural ingredients and flavors, Fortune reported.

Based on public perception and consumer interest alone, the question we beg to ask is: Is the reformulation of the often celebrity-endorsed, sugary, neon sports drink enough to sway consumer consumption? If you recall, Nabisco attempted a similar stunt in 2007 introducing organic Oreos that ultimately failed in the marketplace. When junk food goes 'organic' -- an adopted term that is shamelessly void of any legally-binding definition in consumer products -- brand perception and public health trends trump fancy marketing campaigns.

Yet, as the second-largest food and beverage company in the world generating more than $66 billion in revenue last year, PepsiCo’s actions are timely and competitive among the host of big food brands that recently committed to banning artificial colors and ingredients in their products, like Kraft, Chipotle, Panera Bread and Campbell Soup Co. There’s no debate that healthy eating trends are increasing globally, with consumers demanding greater transparency and natural ingredients in the products they consume. Obesity has been a long-standing global issue, and as consumers get smarter about their eating habits in a quest to get fit and healthy, they’re also keen on reading and understanding nutrition labels.

“There is a tremendous opportunity for food manufacturers and retailers to lead a healthy movement by providing the products and services that consumers want and need,” said Susan Dunn, executive vice president, Global Professional Services, in Nielsen’s 2015 We Are What We Eat study. “While diet fads come and go over time, innovative, back-to-basics foods that taste good, are easy to prepare and provide healthful benefits will have staying power. The first step is knowing where to put your product development efforts.”

In tandem with its 2016 healthy resolution plans, PepsiCo will also launch a line of non-GMO Tropicana products. Along with healthy brand lines Naked Juice, Pure Leaf Iced Tea, Quaker Real Medleys bars and Smartfood Delight Popcorn, the Tropicana products will be distributed in PepsiCo’s newly-reinvented vending machine called Hello Goodness.

The machine features a digital point-of-sale screen with product nutrition information, suggested healthy food pairing ideas and a cashless payment system. Several thousand units will be placed throughout the U.S. in 2016 in a variety of locations, including select healthcare, recreational, transportation, governmental, workplace and educational facilities.

Whether you like it or not, PepsiCo is working hard to be part of your health and fitness goals in the new year.

Image credit: PepsiCo Newsroom

By Pete Wheelan

There’s no debate that society thrives when students succeed. Families, communities, businesses, educational institutions and government institutions are all better off when students take full advantage of their time at school. Yet research indicates that our nation’s students are leaving college unprepared for what lies ahead.

A recent study found that 40 percent of college seniors don’t graduate with the complex reasoning skills needed for today’s workplace. Another study found that only 20 percent of undergraduates feel very prepared to join the workforce. A Northeastern University poll found that 73 percent of business leaders assert there is a substantial skills gap. And according to Gallup, only 11 percent of business leaders feel that higher education institutions are turning out graduates with the skills and competencies their businesses need.

Colleges and universities alone cannot solve this problem. Addressing the skills gap requires a coordinated effort between educational institutions, businesses, government and nonprofits.

What can each party bring to the table?

Different types of stakeholders bring different value to the equation, such as:

Institutions

• Expertise in curriculum development and instructional pedagogy


• Experienced instructors


• Cutting-edge research

Businesses

• Knowledge of the skills needed in the workforce now and in the future


• Internships and other experiential learning opportunities


• Technology and services to complement institutions’ student support and career-services offerings

Government and nonprofits

• Ability to bring parties together and apply resources to address problems at scale


• Capacity to serve as neutral arbitrators and ensure all parties are working toward a common good

By bringing all of the stakeholders together, everyone wins. Students gain the right skills to thrive in fulfilling jobs that map to their career ambitions, while businesses receive competitive and competent employees. Universities benefit from higher enrollment, retention rates and graduation rates, which can improve finances and brand reputation. Meanwhile, nonprofits and the government see greater returns on their investments in human capital development projects — and society gains productive citizens.

How schools and corporations can collaborate

Public-private partnerships generate opportunities for students to receive hands-on, real-world experience in their particular fields of study and to develop critical nonacademic skills, such as time management, communication and problem-solving.

Indiana’s 21st Century Scholars coaching initiative achieves many of these aims.

Through the program, six public institutions — Indiana State University (ISU), Indiana University, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana University East and Indiana University Kokomo — are collaborating with InsideTrack to provide nonacademic support (i.e., student success coaching to address “real life” issues outside of the classroom) for low-income, first-generation students.

Professional coaches assist students in adjusting to common stressors of university life, retaining scholarships, executing plans to graduate on time and building critical life skills. The program has already served more than 2,100 students in its first year with very strong results.

More than 62 percent of ISU students in the program advanced to a second year, which is 3.8 percentage points higher than the school’s average over the previous three years. And 61 of 100 IUPUI freshmen in the program also advanced to a second year. Even more impressive, 45.7 percent of coached freshmen at Ivy Tech were retained to a second year, 8.8 percentage points higher than its three-year historical average.

Another example of public and private stakeholders working together is Starbuck’s College Achievement Plan. This program offers full-time and part-time employees full tuition coverage at Arizona State University Online, as well as tutoring and a variety of human resources to help the students balance work, family, academics and finances.

So far, 4,800 baristas have enrolled in the program, and results show that the program is working. Employment applications at Starbucks increased by 600,000 in one year, and ASU reported a 5 percent higher student retention rate among the program’s enrollees compared to its core student body.

In fact, many university-business partnerships are underway and achieving great results. IBM has been involved with higher institutional learning for 70 years. Most recently, it partnered with 28 business schools and universities to create and revise big-data curriculum. Participating schools receive free access to IBM software tools, case studies and guest lectures from the company.

Clemson University also has a history of partnering with businesses. BMW gave it $10 million to fund two endowed chairs in systems engineering and manufacturing. Moreover, while collaborating with Fluor, the university developed an online master’s degree program in engineering with an emphasis on supply chain optimization and logistics.

Where to start

Socially-conscious business leaders looking to create sustainable talent pipelines can begin by identifying the educational institutions most directly affiliated with their businesses.

Find out where your employees went to school, which schools you currently recruit from, and which local colleges could be a great breeding ground for your next generation of team members. But don’t spread the love too thin — it’s better to create one fruitful relationship than several superficial ones.

Once you select an institution, explore the various ways you can engage with it. Don’t just talk to the president; set up meetings with the heads of the online or continuing education office, the career office and the alumni office.

If you’re looking to make an impact at scale, consider engaging with your state’s higher education executive officer. Just remember, these partnerships can’t be one-sided. Your company should focus on ways to collaborate so everyone’s goals are met.

With your goals aligned, take collaborative action to provide college students with a better, more comprehensive education that focuses on building the skills they’ll need in the real, post-graduate world. This will provide your company with solid competitive advantages as well — the kind of return on investment any socially conscious business leader can get behind.

Image credit: Pixabay

Pete Wheelan, CEO of InsideTrack, has dedicated his career to leading mission-driven, high-growth companies focused on helping individuals live up to their full potential. Before joining InsideTrack, he served as chief operating officer and chief revenue officer at Blurb, a groundbreaking leader in unleashing creative expression through self-published books.

One of Premier Inn’s newest hotels, the Premier Inn at Abu Dhabi International Airport, is the first to feature an innovative greywater recycling system which is already saving 60 litres of water per guest every month.

Devised by independent water management specialist Waterscan, the recycling system works by taking water used for showering and bathing across the hotel’s 300 rooms and treats it through an ultra-filtration membrane before feeding it back into the hotel for use in flushing toilets and for irrigation. The initiative is vastly reducing mains water consumption, already saving an average of 735,000 litres (24%) of mains water each month. 

Matthew Lewis, property development director for Premier Inn Hotels in the Middle East, commented: “Reducing our impact on local water supplies and acting sustainably in the areas we operate is a key driver for Premier Inn Hotels and the Whitbread Group. 

“With water scarcity a significant issue in Abu Dhabi, we wanted to take the lead and become the first ever building and the first hotelier to recycle greywater in Abu Dhabi. The system is producing great results, and we are now rolling it out across the Middle East, designing all our own new hotels in the region with this technology.”
 

Entries are now open for the 2016 National CSR Awards (NCSRA), which will celebrate the very best in CSR and sustainability in a high-profile ceremony and accompanying seminar programme, at The Crystal, London, on 12 May 2016.

Stuart Poore, Director of Sustainability at WWF, one of the event’s Supporting Partners, believes that the Awards give momentum to the CSR and sustainability movement: “As an increasing number of companies put environmental and social purpose at the heart of their strategies, the National CSR Awards are a superb way to celebrate the achievements of the business leaders who are inspiring change.”

With the introduction of three international awards - Best International Sustainable Community Project, Best International Conservation Project and Global Sustainable Transport – all 24 award categories* look to address the key business issues that are essential to creating a more sustainable future.

Launched last year to honour excellence in the CSR and sustainability space, Karen Sutton, Chief Executive of NCSRA, says that companies of all sizes should consider taking part: “The Awards are looking to reward and recognise business excellence. All entries have an equal chance of winning.”

The Awards will be judged by a high profile and wholly independent judging panel of experts including representatives from Cisco, Trussell Trust, Water Aid, IBE, 10:10, Forum for the Future, WWF, Siemens and ICCSR. A growing list of the judges can be found here.

Companies can submit their entries online here - and those applying before 29 January 2016 can take advantage of an early bird 20% discount.

Entries will be accepted until 11.59pm on 12 March 2016.
 

Value fashion retailer Primark is to partner with the Department for International Development (DFID) to improve working conditions for garment workers in developing markets.

The company says the partnership will combine the presence, networks and expertise of both organisations to improve the health and wellbeing of local workers, bolster national economic development and help alleviate poverty in five of its key markets: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma, Ethiopia and India.

From providing gender equality training in garment factories to training female nurses, a large part of the programme will focus on creating positive change for women working in the developing world.

Indeed, the partnership will concentrate on achieving transformative change across three key areas: women's economic empowerment, the creation of new ethical garment sectors in areas such as Burma and East Africa and the development of effective disaster response (sharing lessons from the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013). 

Paul Lister, responsible for Primark’s Ethical Trading Team, commented:  “We know that as well as ensuring worker rights are protected within the factories we work with, we can positively impact lives outside of the factory too. Whether it’s financial literacy, health education or helping workers understand their rights, we’ve seen that simple initiatives with local partners can make a huge difference.” 

“Our new partnership with DFID recognises the strength and depth of the work we have been doing across our supply chain. But, most importantly, it will help us use our expertise and resources already on the ground, to accelerate the impact of our programmes."