Charitable donations have been increasing in recent years and accounted for approximately $358 billion in 2014 (or, 2 percent of GDP). Of this amount, about 72 percent of donations came from individuals (perhaps in part due to Warren Buffet and Bill Gate’s positive peer pressure). With so many charities to choose from, who should we be writing […]
Interview With Nick Cooney: How To Be Great At Doing Good Read More 👉
Originally published on EdenKeeper.org With a population of about 700 people, the village of Sone in West Timor, Indonesia is famous throughout the region for its production of beautiful, traditional fabrics. Located close to a mountain summit, Sone is completely off the electricity grid. With the hope of learning about the challenges of living in
In Indonesia Panasonic CSR Helps Cut Out The Darkness Read More 👉
Living sustainably and responsibly is an ideal not often found in whole families, and much less often found in whole communities. However, with a vibrant and non-exploitative social structure actively building on the principles of sustainable development, the innovative community of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is growing stronger and more sustainable every day. As summed up
Sustainable Development in Action at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage Read More 👉
Help Build the Best Green Jobs Site EVER! Important Media, our parent company, is hosting an IndieGoGo campaign to crowdfund the best green jobs site ever. Sounds audacious, right? Perhaps a little self-important? But with our global network of clean tech, clean transportation, healthy food, and sustainable living websites, we are confident that we can build
Help Wanted: Build the Best Green Jobs Site Ever Read More 👉
Being born with a talent is like receiving a great gift, but as they say, giving is better than receiving. Now there’s a way to have your gift and give it, too. Just put it in the bank — the TimeBank. Promoting equality through inclusive exchanges of time and talents, TimeBanks provide investors with a
TimeBanks: Investing Your Talent is a Great Gift! Read More 👉
Welcome to the 2nd Annual “New Economy Week.” The many thousands of ways that people are creatively working to build a new and more sustainable economy are being celebrated from October 13-19. In this week, NewEconomyWeek.org is exploring what it takes to build an economy that works for “people, place, and planet.” Through a week-long
A New Economy That Works for People, Place, and Planet Read More 👉
The recent events in Ukraine have been described as the most serious international diplomatic incident to have occurred since the end of the cold war. To those familiar with the power politics of that earlier time, the signs are eerily familiar; a sovereign country being destabilised by the actions of two competing power blocks; an
Moving Towards Global Unity Read More 👉
Originally published on Ecopreneurist. The use of cryptocurrency to support alternatives to the status quo is picking up steam, and while we’ve previously covered one that is backed by solar energy, one chosen by the Lakota, and another for the marijuana industry, this new digital currency promises to be the “first true asset-backed cryptocurrency on
A Permaculture Cryptocurrency Read More 👉
The first World Forum on Natural Capital was held in Edinburgh, Scotland last November. This comes at a time when there is increasing interest in the idea that we need to place a value on the services that nature provides us with for free if we are to prevent further environmental degradation. The conference attracted
Should We Put a Price on Nature to Save it? Read More 👉
It is a question which is of concern to all high school students and to all parents of teenage children. What will I do after school? For some the choice will be obvious; they will have a desire to follow a certain career path, or to enter a specific field of study. However, the majority
Educating Students for the World of Tomorrow Read More 👉
The major defining feature of politics in our current day and age is the division between the political left and right, with the political spectrum popularly being perceived as a progression from communism on the extreme left, through socialism, liberalism, and conservatism, to fascism on the extreme right. The terms left and right are believed
Time for a New Politics of Sustainability Read More 👉
Like most people I am proud of my culture. I was born in Scotland and spent the first 25 years of my life there. Although I now live happily in Canada, in many ways I still think of Scotland as being home. It is the landscape which shaped my perceptions of nature and beauty, the
Nationalism and the Global Consensus Read More 👉
Can the sharing economy movement address the root causes of the world’s converging crises? Unless the sharing of resources is promoted in relation to human rights and concerns for equity, democracy, social justice and sustainability, then such claims are without substantiation – although there are many hopeful signs that the conversation is slowly moving in
The Sharing Economy: A Short Introduction to its Political Evolution Read More 👉
To bring about a more sustainable and just world, it might not be enough to simply reduce our energy use, or to implement more renewable energies, or to choose to only support ethical companies. It might also be necessary to bring compassion to the forefront of our lives, to put the Golden Rule to the
A Golden Rule for the Future: Charter for Compassion Read More 👉
One of the big problems with truly innovative and world-changing ideas is the fact that many people, when hearing about them, dismiss them as fables, as being a “nice concept, but totally unfeasible,” and instead of believing that a more abundant and prosperous future is possible, thanks to ‘blue sky’ thinkers, they continue doing the
Could a Blue Economy grow a more sustainable future? Read More 👉
If you’ve been paying attention to the issues that are at the core of building a more sustainable world, such as food, healthcare, water, climate change, education, energy, natural resources, clean air, and so on, and the multitude of challenges that must be overcome in each of those areas, you might be of the mind
Making a Case for Optimism: Abundance is Our Future (TED Talk) Read More 👉
As we head into the frenzied weekend of mass consumerism (at least in the US) that kicks off right after Thanksgiving Day with Black Friday, and continues on through Cyber Monday, one of the leaders in responsible business is serving up an antidote and urging us to celebrate the things we already own. If you
Patagonia Subverts Black Friday with this Short Film Read More 👉
We’d probably all agree that our communities need to be improved and revitalized, and we’d also probably agree that while all of us can take small steps individually to make them a better place, making larger, longer lasting, and more effective changes are beyond the efforts of any single one of us. But when crowdsourcing
Microfunding and Crowdsourcing Brings Neighborhood Projects to Life Read More 👉
Israel’s central Arava desert, where saline soils and dry climates are the norm, a thriving community creates up to 60% of Israel’s exported agricultural products. Recently, I visited the Arava valley to see the miracle of agriculture in the desert up close and personal. According to our tour host Michal Marmary: “By any standard, farming
Agriculture where plants can’t grow: Israel’s Arava valley Read More 👉
At the Bloomberg Fuel Choices Summit in Tel Aviv, we learned about Israel’s aggressive alternative transportation goals–reducing oil use by 60% by 2025–and how they plan to achieve it. A talk by Eyal Rosner of the Prime Minister’s office elucidated some of the insights the country has learned from its various clean tech programs over
Israel’s Aggressive Oil Reduction Goals: Is 60% In 12 Years Achievable? Read More 👉
How can we enable the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs? One effective method might be through giving them the tools and the resources to be able to raise money and support for their ideas, and a new campaign aims to do just that. Piggybackr’s 1 Million Leaders Challenge, which runs from November 1, 2013
Crowdfunding One Million Young Leaders with Piggybackr Read More 👉
For the last couple of weeks, a unique project has been crowdsourcing ideas for improving our communities using technology, and giving citizens a chance to be a part of something that could yield innovative and lasting solutions for what ills us. Thanks to MindMixer and Code for America, Ideation Nation has been holding a month-long
Ideation Nation Crowdsources Ideas for Improving Communities with Technology Read More 👉
For a refreshing break from the traditional approach to gift giving in our overly-consumptive culture, an alternative gift registry focuses on experiences over goods, homemade over mass produced, and donations over purchases. SoKind, which is a project from The Center for a New American Dream, offers a different take on our culture’s mindless addiction to
Alternative Gift Registry Promises More Fun, Less Stuff Read More 👉
For many people in the developing world, having a mobile phone can make a huge difference in their lives, by not just enabling easier communication, but also by allowing users to take advantage of mobile payment processing and sending or receiving money. However, even with access to a local mobile network, if users can’t come
Low Cost Virtual SIM Card Enables Mobile Numbers for the Phoneless Read More 👉
