Grameen and its managing director (Nobel Peace Prize-winner) Muhammad Yunus, known for the Grameen Bank, recently launched a new partnership with German conglomerate BASF to create a joint social business venture called BASF Grameen Ltd., to be based in Bangladesh. BASF Grameen Ltd. is being modeled as a “social business”, whose purpose will be to improve the […]
Grameen Launches a New Bangladesh Joint Venture with BASF Read More 👉
President-elect Obama has detailed his American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. Among other efforts in the plan, major initiatives include the intention to create 3 million jobs in the United States by doubling the production of alternative energy; investments in public transit infrastructure, and the weatherization of 75% of federal buildings and aiding up to two million low-income American homes to do
Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan Read More 👉
The Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense program is the EPA’s water efficiency equivalent to its wildly successful and well-known Energy Star program. Watersense’s mission is to protect the future of the U.S. water supply by promoting and enhancing the market for water-efficient products and services. WaterSense has jumped onto the internet “widget” bandwagon, and recently released
US EPA Watersense Program Releases New Internet Widget for Water Efficiency Read More 👉
Amazon has launched the second version of the popular XO Laptop campaign. The what campaign? Basically, this: Buy an award-winning laptop for $199, which is donated directly to a child in the developing world; or Buy two for $399, and keep one. Why a laptop? Well, the very impressive mission statement says it all: To create
Amazon Launches Buy One Get One XO Laptop Campaign Read More 👉
An open question to our readers: do you read annual sustainability reports? Well, it turns out that the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)Â were curious as well. So, they went ahead and hired a few consulting companies (SustainAbility and KPMG) to go ahead and survey sustainability report readers. While some of the responses were not all that
Sustainability Reports: Who Reads them, and Why? Read More 👉
Ener1Â announced on October 16th that it has acquired South Korea’s third largest lithium-ion battery cell producer, Enertech International. Ener1 is an American company that manufactures compact, high performance lithium-ion batteries designed to power hybrid and electric vehicles. Ener1 CEO Charles Gassenheimer: Enertech is one of the largest lithium-ion battery producers in Korea, behind only LG
American Lithium-Ion Battery Maker Purchases Korean Competitor Read More 👉
The World Resources Institute’s new(ish) report: The Next Four Billion, draws on household income and consumption surveys of the Base of the Pyramid (see a series of posts on this topic) from over a hundred countries. Rather than provide case study success story descriptions and results, this report provides an assessment (including easy to read graphs and
Helveta aims to change the way supply chains are managed. With their software platform CI World™, Helveta is providing a solution to extended supply chain industry sectors (their initial two targets are the food and timber sectors) to enable an auditable chain of custody. What does this mean? Specifically, it allows lumber and wood companies,
TOMS Shoes: Shoes for Tomorrow, based in Santa Monica, California wants to give its products away. And you can help. When TOMS’ founder Blake Mycoskie went to visit Argentina on vacation, he discovered more than he expected. While touring, he was exposed to the Argentinean soft shoe called Alpargata. He was also challenged by the
TOMS Shoes: Buy One, Donate One Read More 👉
Toss this under the headline of innovating and challenging. Green Roof Safaris is a fairly new European company that provides access to North Americans (and Europeans presumably) to tour state of the art green roofs in Germany and Switzerland. The founders Christine Thüring and Jörg Breuning are green roof professionals who have collaborated in the
A Safari into a Green Roof Jungle Read More 👉
Earlier this week we sketched out the Base of the Pyramid protocols versions 1.0 and 2.0. Based on some comments I’ve received via email, today I want to delve a little deeper into version 2.0, and see how we can take this innovative idea, and make it practicable (after all, that’s one of the goals
Base of the Pyramid: article series continues Read More 👉
(Readers may want to read yesterday’s part one post, which provides a brief description of the concept of the base of the pyramid, and introduces today’s post.) While articles extolling the virtues of expanding markets to include, and creating brand-new ventures solely for the base of the pyramid proliferated in the early part of this
The Base of the Pyramid 2.0: A Review (pt. 2) Read More 👉
Author’s note: small editorial change in final sentence of paragraph 3. Many apologies for the oversight). Readers of this blog are probably well aware of the concept called “base of the pyramid”, originally advanced by Prahalad, Hart and others in the latter part of the 1990s, and the early part of this decade. At heart,
The Base of the Pyramid 2.0: A Review (pt. 1) Read More 👉
Germany’s Secretary of the Chancellery, Thomas de Maizière, and Prime Minister of Brandenburg, Matthias Platzeck, together with Swedish Minister for Higher Education and Research Lars Leijonborg opened on Tuesday the world’s first “clean coal” plant, one that is ready to capture and store its carbon dioxide emissions. The 30-megawatt, $100 million Schwarze Pumpe pilot plant will burn
Germany Opens Clean Coal Demonstration Plant Read More 👉
According to a recent news release, Ikea will be investing up to 50 million Euros over the next five years into cleantech. Their plan is to focus on solar panels; alternative light sources; product materials; energy efficiency; and water saving and purification.
Ikea Looks to Invest in Cleantech, will Competitors Follow Suit? Read More 👉
