CENTER FOR BUSINESS
AS AN AGENT OF WORLD BENEFIT

KBA, a landscape architecture and environmental design firm, practices “restorative redevelopment.” This holistic approach calls for reclaiming and renewing existing property, and promotes economic development, sustainable design and ecological restoration. The company encourages learning from past practices in order to improve planning and land development.

Deep Water Ventures’ president, Brad Ives, has turned his interests in wood, sailing and ecology into a thriving business. The company is committed to forest stewardship and the method of selective cutting, which preserves a forest’s biodiversity, provides long-term benefits to the local population, and generates profit without adversely affecting the region’s ecosystem. By association with an independent agency that carefully monitors logging operations, the company can assure its customers that the product they are purchasing comes from sustainable forests.

Carl Scianna, founder of PolyBrite International, has produced a breakthrough marriage of pre-existing Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) technology and PolyBrite's own clear, durable, biodegradable, and inexpensive polymer as a result of the inspiration he felt at the accidental death of his cousin, a state police officer. The technology has sparked a new industry and is having a transformational environmental impact.

Shorebank uses for-profit commercial banking to focus on inner-city urban development. It now has over $1.5 billion in assets with broad impact on inner-city communities, with $1.7 billion invested cumulatively in priority communities, which are selected communities with less incomes and housing values than the regional or state average.

Hair Innovations’ owner designs, makes, and fits wigs for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The service is provided free of charge, and patients are often served at their location (home, hospital). The business also offers support to local Boys and Girls Clubs, and has become a model for community engagement.

Blast Internet Services (Blast), a web development company, supports environmental issues, sustainable growth, family-friendly policies, and personal empowerment. Its community involvement activities range from sponsorship of an after school program to free web services to area non-profit agencies. Its headquarters has been built in an environmentally friendly building, and its employees embrace and practice the company philosophy of ecological responsibility.

Sustainability and social responsibility are at the very core of Seventh Generation's identity as a business. Today the company is the natural products industry leader in the paper products, household cleaning, and baby diaper/wipe market segments. Through its packaging, web site, e-newsletter, booklets and presentations by their CEO, Seventh Generation provides information on its products and answers questions consumer most frequently ask about household products and their impact on the health of both people and the environment.

William McDonough & Partners are architects who design buildings and communities worldwide that tell stories of sun, wind, water that surrounds them and of the people who inhabit them. Using a creative balance of nature and culture, they strive to create a sustainable environment that honors the relationship between the human community and the nature that surrounds them.

Great Lakes Brewing Company (GLBC) is committed to crafting fresh, flavorful, high-quality beer and food while remaining principle-centered, environmentally respectful and socially conscious. They have incorporated a "zero waste initiative" into day-to-day operations and cut operating costs at the same time. The objective is to make full use of the by-products generated from the brewing process.

TerraCycle has developed an innovative process for creating organic non-toxic fertilizers - the world’s first consumer product line that is not only made completely from waste but is also packaged in waste. The company follows ecologically sound, chemically-free methods for delivering a product that assures the superior growth of vegetation. In addition, TerraCycle has created innovative opportunities for local communities such as urban community gardens and school-wide recycling events.

Bamboo Hardwoods, founded in 1990, operates a successful and environmentally sustainable company that is working to slow the degradation of natural resources. By using bamboo (which is a grass) as an alternative source material for flooring, the company has demonstrated that deforestation of traditional hardwoods can be prevented. The company values its relationships with employees and suppliers, and actively promotes their well being.

Patagonia defines the quality of its company by the degree to which it can reduce its impact on the environment. To that end it has celebrated the cultural histories of the communities it is located in by recycling and restoring existing structures whenever possible. From 1996-1998 the company restored two buildings - one in Reno and one in California - and became more energy efficient with the goal of demonstrating that alternatives to conventional, waste-intensive construction practices and energy generation exist and yield structures that are more sustainable and in harmony with the environment.

In 1993, Patagonia adopted fleece made from post consumer recycled plastic soda bottles into its clothing product line, becoming the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to do so. Known as PCR® clothing, it created a positive step towards a more sustainable system. Today, the company uses PCR® fleece in about 31 products, and has saved some 86 million soda bottles from the trash heap and reports the addition of PCR® filament yarn to some products in its line. PCR® filament yarn contains 30-50% post-consumer feedstock and the remainder is post-industrial feedstock, allowing Patagonia to make both lining and shell out of recyclable materials.

In 1996, Patagonia converted its entire sportswear line to 100% organically grown cotton. This decision followed the findings from an independent research company commissioned by Patagonia to give an environmental impact assessment of four major fibers. The company learned that oil-based polyester and nylon were big energy consumers and sources of pollution, but nowhere near that of cotton. They made a decision in the fall of 1994 to take the cotton sportswear 100% organic by 1996, giving the company eighteen months to make the switch for 66 products – and only four months to line up the fabric.

In 2005, Mohawk Paper Mills purchased windpower for its newly acquired Beckett Mill in Hamilton, Ohio, making Mohawk the 2nd largest industrial consumer of windpower in the U.S. The family-owned paper manufacturer plans to use 45 million kilowatt hours of pollution-free wind power annually to run its two mills in New York and the new facility in Ohio. The company is the only paper mill in the U.S. to use wind energy to manufacture paper.

Russia, long known as a culture whose people - rich and poor - revere the arts in all its many forms, has also developed a reputation as an emergent economy that is solely driven by immediate profit, if not greed. Since the government provides no tax relief or other incentives for philanthropy, the story of Interros is more noteworthy. Interros has stepped beyond simply giving to providing sustainable development in the area of art, culture and education by supporting long-term social programs in education and culture.

PeaceWorks is a not-only-for-profit specialty food company that manages to combine production of condiments with peace building. Fostering coexistence through business, they unite people traditionally on the opposite sides of conflict via a shared goal. Together with people who are striving to co-exist, Peaceworks creates and delivers unique and exciting specialty foods. PeaceWorks currently does business with Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, South Africans, Turks, Indonesians and Sri Lankans.

Freeplay Energy Group of London has found a way to address global needs while making a profit for itself. Combining collaborative research and development with the desire to bring good to those at the bottom of the pyramid, the company grows its revenues while bringing tangible results to people in most remote locations. Freeplay has helped pioneer the windup radio. In 1996, Freeplay designed its first radio charged by cranking a handle so that Africans could listen to public-service broadcasts of health and agriculture information and school lessons. Freeplay has sold 3 million radios. In the West, where they sell for up to $100, they are popular among campers. But they're sold at a discount to aid agencies and governments in poor nations.

The Social Enterprise El Pan de Cada Día (Our Daily Bread) was born in 2003 as the first of its kind in Peru and the only enterprise of its kind to exclusively employ disabled persons (Personas con Discapacidad a/k/a PCD). The company rescues, recuperates and reinserts into society disabled persons of low economic resources that are totally abandoned and that live in extreme poverty in places like the province of Trujillo in La Libertad. The PCD are given dignified living conditions and the opportunity to work regularly for the first time in their lives. The bread and pastry Our Daily Bread produces is sold to approximately 15,000 persons every day in what Peruvians term the "D and E social strata". This segment of the population benefit from the cost and quality of the products created by Our Daily Bread. Working within that poor population the company is fighting against poverty by combining the employment of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid with producing an affordable product for the same.

GrameenPhone has a dual purpose: to receive an economic return on its investments and to contribute to the economic development of Bangladesh where telecommunications can play a vital role. This is why GrameenPhone, in collaboration with Grameen Bank, is aiming to place one phone in each village to contribute significantly to the economic uplift of those villages. Grameen Phone’s basic strategy is coverage of both urban and rural areas. In contrast to the “island” strategy followed by some companies, which involves connecting isolated islands of urban coverage through transmission links, GrameenPhone builds continuous coverage, cell after cell. While the intensity of coverage may vary from area to area depending on market conditions, the basic strategy of cell-to-cell coverage is applied throughout GrameenPhone’s network.

The Benetech Initiative is a non-profit venture that provides social benefits by harnessing the power of technology. It delivers these benefits using a new model of social entrepreneurship which combines market forces with philanthropic capital and entrepreneurial drive. Benetech focuses the efforts of technology and technologists to solve important problems facing society. A quick sampling of projects currently underway illustrates the power and promise of Benetech. Bookshare.org is a legal book-sharing community of people with disabilities, meeting the stringent copyright law exemption for providing accessible books. The Martus Project provides critical tools for the reporting and dissemination of human rights information, improving the effectiveness of the human rights sector worldwide. The Landmine Detector Project will transfer exciting new technologies developed by U.S. Department of Defense to applications to meet the needs of humanitarian landmine removal efforts around the world.

The Beach Solar Laundromat uses eight solar thermal panels to heat water for the Laundromat, potable water for the second floor apartment and for space heating in radiators. The building was built in 1939, and the mechanical retrofit took place in 2002 and 2003. Natural Gas consumption has been reduced by approximately 30% as a result of the energy initiatives undertaken. Revenues have grown 160% over eighteen months as customers actively choose the Beach Solar Laundromat because of its environmentally friendly energy initiatives.

The third largest cement manufacturer in the world, CEMEX, decided it needed to move from selling materials to selling solutions. Using low fixed prices, materials on credit, pre-costed housing designs, and supervised construction services for Mexicans, CEMEX developed its "Patrimonio Hoy" program to make housing affordable and possible for 70,000 of the poor in Mexico.

Billing itself as “the hallmark of Environmentally Sensitive Hotels”, The Orchid is a 245-room “ecotel” or Eco-Hotel located in Mumbai, India. It is Asia's first certified eco-friendly, five-star hotel certified as ISO 14001. Guests are encouraged to participate in the hotel’s environmental crusades and they reportedly do so with much enthusiasm and zeal.

Edun is a socially conscious clothing company created by Ali Hewson and her rock star husband, U2's Bono, with New York clothing designer Rogan Gregory. Launched in spring 2005, the company aims to bring the issue of sustainable employment to the world of high fashion. EDUN was born as an alternative approach to creating beautiful clothes in a respectful, sustainable manner and to shift the focus away from aid to trade in the developing world, particularly Africa.

Grameen Bank (GB) has reversed conventional banking practice by removing the need for collateral and creating a banking system based on mutual trust, accountability, participation and creativity. GB provides credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. At GB, credit is a cost effective weapon to fight poverty and it serves as a catalyst in the overall development of socio-economic conditions of the poor who have been kept outside the banking orbit on the grounds that they are poor and hence not bankable. Since the bank does not wish to take any borrower to the court of law in case of non-repayment, it does not require the borrowers to sign any legal instrument. Although each borrower must belong to a five-member group, the group is not required to give any guarantee for a loan to its member. Repayment responsibility solely rests on the individual borrower, while the group and the Grameen Bank center oversee that everyone behaves in a responsible way and none gets into a repayment problem. There is no form of joint liability, i.e. group members are not responsible to pay on behalf of a defaulting member.

Among the many rural businesses of post-communist Russia, ALVI Inc. offers a new model of self-reliance and sustainable development. By aligning community interest and business interest, the company has successfully grown into a multi-product organization with high productivity levels and a flourishing community.