by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

There is hope for the future of commerce. The workforce is beginning to take matters into their own hands - working on terms that fulfill not just a livelihood, but a “right livelihood” that nourishes the soul, the planet and communities. At yesterday’s event (see below) for sustainable entrepreneurs and businesses, it became obvious that we are willing to take risks, to revisit expectations, to shift the idea of “work” to a place that is more healthy and satisfying and hopeful.

There is Green Planet Catering green catering company, Green , who serves only local and organic food, provides biodegradable utensils, composts all job waste and even delivers in a vehicle powered by vegetable diesel - that he makes with his own waste oil. He says his long days don’t feel like work.

Scott Blackwell started the Immaculate Baking Company in his garage with big dreams and a few simple goals: To create top-quality baked goods with fun and unique combinations, to celebrate the creativity of folk art, and to somehow give back. So, he created “Cookies With a Cause”.

Filling an important niche is Southern Energy Management, a husband and wife team, who help businesses and home owners plan energy systems that will minimize energy costs and footprint. They become “team” leaders who provide solutions to commercial and residential energy use.

Trinity Design/Build specializes in historic preservation, renovation and green retrofitting of existing buildings. They work with homeowners, contractors, and architects and their services include everything from conceptual sketches to turn-key design/build.

There’s more of course, and I’ll be highlighting and sharing what I’m learning from these inspired and committed people. For now, remember, we’re shifting, tipping, pushing the iceberg - don’t give up. Change is a’foot.

by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

Today we Changers will be participating in an event with UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. Jerry will be moderating a discussion panel of motivated businesses, including the director of U.S. marketing from Burt’s Bees. We will conclude with a workshop on branding for good, where Jerry will explain, “Branding is not rocket science. It’s a cocktail party.”

BASE and The Change present:
Branding for Good
A Panel Discussion on Successful Branding Strategies for Sustainable Entrepreneurs

The Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE) at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School was established to help executives and future business leaders understand how social and environmental considerations are changing the competitive landscape of business.

The CSE provides education, research, and outreach to business students, executives, and organizations to help them benefit from the opportunities inherent in sustainable enterprise. Kenan-Flagler Business School is ranked one of the top business schools in the world for education in this arena.

We are looking forward to meeting many inspiring people!

by Tao Oliveto

Solar panels already in place on Town Hall, council members in Woodstock, NY, passed a resolution to become the first American community to become carbon nuetral within a decade (as reported by correspondent, William Kemble on DailyFreeman.com). The resolution, approved unanimously by the Town Board in 2007, will allow a task force to pursue this goals by increasing recycling, implementing green building standards, establishing land-use policies to reduce sprawl, tree-planting for shade, promoting renewable energy sources, such as methane and wind and promoting fuel efficiency with an anti-idling message.

Locals of this forwarding-thinking town will be encouraged - through tax and other incentives - to change light bulbs, drive less, recycle more and improve energy efficiency on homes. Community by community, individuals and groups, it’s a familiar movement that is available to us at this kind of grassroots level.

If it all sounds familiar, take a look back to the revolution of the Sixties. After all, the hippies may have temporarily lost the battle to runaway consumerism, but they got plenty of things right. As Mark Morford points out in his San Francisco Chronicle column,

“All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet and eating whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working with nature and developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health? Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane treatment of animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural childbirth? Non-GMO seeds? It came from the granola types (who, of course, absorbed much of it from ancient cultures), from the alternative worldviews, from the underground and the sidelines and from far off the grid…”

Peace and Love (repeat when necessary).

by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

Not surprisingly, in public opinion surveys, ‘women express higher levels of environmental concern than men, Riley Dunlap, a professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University’, as reported in NY Times last month. Motherhood can and does stir up feelings about protecting and nurturing offspring, and that includes protecting the environment around them, the food they eat, the air they breathe, their future on the planet.

Granted, things seemed to backslide when mothers decided to trust television commercials before their instincts. Like many kids, I grew up with Tide, Windex, Velveeta and Jello. (More recently and more shocking, I witnessed doting new parents holding a can of Coca-cola to the lips of an infant.)

But moms are waking up and when they talk, the world - and the market - listens. EcoMoms Alliance is a growing organization with 11,000 members from all over the world, dedicated to greening motherly ways and more. Sign on with EcoMoms and you are immediately asked to take 10 First Steps for A Sustainable Future - a challenge which includes changing lightbulbs, changing your driving habits and composting. But don’t expect to stop there. These Earth Mothers talk the walk - from local living, smaller cars, smaller houses, clothing swaps, natural cleaning products and water reuse. The mission is to share, support, teach and learn - not just with each other, but within schools, neighborhoods, communities and beyond.

The organization, founded and led by Kimberly Danek Pinkson, includes an extensive and impressive team, including experts in areas of environmental medicine, waste management, eco-gardening and more. Not just for the SUV-driving soccer moms, the Alliance reaches far and wide with educational outreach programs, campaigns and training for a new generation of women leaders. With celebrity members like Robin Wright Penn and corporate sponsors, Native Energy, Method and Sustainable Websites (to name just a few), EcoMoms Alliance is poised and ready to join the mainstream and be a force for good.

Two years ago, Jerry contributed to a sustainable industries’ online forum asking branding agencies “how to make sustainability cool.”

Here’s what he told them~

“Sustainability IS cool. From Bo Diddley to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Jack Kerouac, the young Elvis, Jimi Hendrick’s, punk DIY culture, the Merry Pranksters, Marlon Brando, and Burning Man – the essence of cool is personified by communities and sub-cultures driven by individuality and self expression. The essence of being cool is being your own damn self. The opposite of cool is forming yourself based on social influence and conformity. (No one buys a Ford Explorer or a McMansion because they’re following their heart).

And in an organic, local, ethically hip, off-the-grid world, individuality and self- expression are rampant.

by Tao Oliveto

Some things are so simple.

For instance, clean-up at public urinals is a disproportionate problem in many places. Then someone in Europe decided to strategically place a small drawing of a fly inside the basin as a “target”. The problem decreased by a measurable 80%.

Hmm. This makes me think of the issue of plastic bag use. Years ago, Whole Foods stores started offering a nickel back for bringing your own bag and over a decade, has encouraged approximately 20% of their customers to reuse. Ho Hum. As an new and enthusiastic employee back then, I suggested that charging a nickel for bags instead would be a stronger motivational message and decrease bag use even further, saving waste and the company dollars. I also thought we should sell our reusable canvas bags at cost in compensation for any perceived “inconvenience” to customers. Nobody agreed.

Wouldn’t you know it…a decade later (as reported in Fast Company), Ikea stores in the UK decided to charge their customers 5 cents for every bag they took. Plastic bag use dropped by 90% in less than two years! When the same policy took effect in U.S. stores in Mid-March, 2007, bag use dropped by 50% in less than one year - more than anyone expected. Ikea also dropped the price of their re-usuable bags to 59 cents at checkout - and those sales increased 10 times.

Can green guidelines live happily with customer service and profits? It sure looks that way.

For better or worse, we humans are a predictable bunch - and more willing to Change than marketers realize.

Simple as that.

by Tao Oliveto

What did you do with your lightbulb-free hour on Saturday night? After working on those all-important hug and cuddle skills, we took a walk around our magically dark and quiet neighborhood. Although at first I fidgeted with the idea of an imposed hour of darkness, I discovered it felt great to have an opportunity to slow down and be more still. Jerry and I made a pact to try our own candlelit earth hour every weekend and see what happens.

The event, called “Earth Hour,” started in Sydney, Australia, last year, when 2.2 million people and 2,100 businesses turned off their lights. Organizers say that this year it spread to about 380 cities and towns in 35 countries. This simple group action reduced the city’s energy consumption by more than 10 percent - the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road for an hour.

More than that, it provided another way to get people thinking about how small acts in large numbers can affect the world.

WE can all make a difference.

by Tao Oliveto

My voice is a bit shaky today, but I’m determined to still find a way to use it to write this post.

I’m feeling stuck and baffled by the line culture has drawn, somewhere in the proverbial sand, that says something like, green is good, but talking about it isn’t. I’m frustrated by a culture that says, atta boy, keep up the good work saving our water, our air, our health and our animals - we need you out there - just please don’t tell me about it - or ask for my help. And for God’s sake, don’t preach - it’s really annoying and gets in the way of everything.

On the other hand, I’ve patiently listened to people rant and judge each other over taxes, high gas prices, being cut off in traffic or the loud music from the neighbor’s house. I’ve also listened politely while they boast about their new car, house, computer or ipod.

Yet, somehow, reacting to the ways we are all wasting our limited supplies of water, polluting energy or abusing animals and land at factory farms - is simply not acceptable. And you’d better not get too excited - in public, anyway - about that rain barrel or your reusable grocery bag…

Just today, No Impact Man wrote, “To be enviro, these days, is to be cool, ethical, caring and driven by values. And as people become aware that enviro-concerns are really human concerns, that toxins in our environment mean toxins in our bodies, and that a happier planet makes for happier people, the importance of green…is only going to increase.”

I believe this on most days. That people will begin to understand that it’s about taking care of what will all need to survive and be healthy and be willing to listen and talk to each other about Change. Not so much today - today I don’t feel so “cool” in my enviro status. I feel confused about how to walk that line between saying too much and saying too little.

The good news, as I was also reminded this morning, is that I do feel “ethical, caring and driven by values”. And I really want people to be happy and healthy.

Maybe things will be alright after all.