Author name: Cindy Hoots

With more than 10 years experience working for a major Fortune 500 company, Cindy specializes in socially and environmentally responsible business strategies. She has developed successful corporate communications and stakeholder engagement strategies on contentious sustainability issues and has worked with a number of NGOs and activist organizations on how to effectively partner with multinational companies. Cindy frequently writes about topics ranging from what is corporate social responsibility to sustainable supply chain and measuring a company's environmental impact. She believes business plays a vital role in the health of our communities and our planet.

REI Releases 2009 Stewardship Report

Corporate Social Responsibility, News / By

Recreational Equipment, Inc (REI) released its fourth annual stewardship report or CSR report earlier this week. The report is divided into three sections: Environment, Community and People. The Environment section highlights progress against REI’s five environmental target areas, which include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable paper usage, reducing waste and optimizing recycling, green building and […]

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Koch Industries Exploits Unemployment Rate to Support Big Oil Agenda

Energy, News, Policies / By

The Los Angeles Times reported that Flint Hills Resources, a subsidiary of Kansas-based Koch Industries, donated one million dollars to the campaign for California Proposition 23. Proposition 23 would suspend California’s global-warming law, known as AB 32, until the state’s unemployment rate dropped below 5.5%, a level achieved only three times in the last three

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Walmart Appoints New Senior Vice President of Sustainability

News / By

Walmart will hand over its sustainability reigns to Andrea Thomas. She has been named the new senior vice president of Sustainability for the retail giant. Thomas will replace Matt Kistler who is transitioning into a new role as senior vice president of Marketing on the Walmart U.S. team. Leslie Dach, Walmart’s executive vice president of

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P&G to Use Sugarcane-Based Plastic Packaging for Beauty Brands

Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainable Manufacturing, Sustainable Products / By

Earlier this month, Proctor & Gamble announced plans to use renewable, sustainable, sugarcane-based plastic for packaging on its Pantene Pro-V, Covergirl and Max Factor brands. I’m happy to see that P&G did its research and chose not to use corn-based plastic. Corn-based plastic has been all the rage lately and can be found in everything

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YouTube Dedicates Homepage to Homelessness [video]

Inspiring Ideas, Inspiring People / By

At some point today, be sure to swing by YouTube’s homepage. The website spotlights homelessness with videos from InvisiblePeople.tv for 24 hours. Mark Horvath created InvisiblePeople.tv “to inspire people who live in tent cities, in shelters, and on sidewalks to share their stories on YouTube”. Mark’s mission and story are nothing short of inspiring. You

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Sustainability Impossible Without a Major Economic Meltdown [video]

Inspiring People, Sustainable Business / By

In Athens on June 11, 2010, Dr. Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, interviewed John Elkington, Founder and Non-Executive Director of SustainAbility and Founding Partner and Director of Volans Ventures. During the interview, Elkington spoke about where he sees the sustainability and social enterprise agenda heading. I found a couple of his remarks interesting. In

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Repurposed Parking Meters Collect Donations for Homeless

Inspiring Ideas, Local News, Non-Profit, Recycling / By

The city of Montreal has turned its retired mechanical parking meters in to piggy banks or “ParcoDons”. These ParcoDons are designed to collect loose change in order to help the city’s homeless population. The meters were first installed in the downtown borough of Ville-Marie in 2007, and since its inception, the program has raised $23,000

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DBA Introduces Biodegradable Pen with Certified Non-Toxic Ink

Innovation and Design, Sustainable Products / By

I’ll be honest. I’ve never given much thought about the sustainability of my writing utensils. I had no idea that since 1950 well over 100 billion disposable pens were sold, which is equivalent to selling 60 pens per second non-stop for nearly 60 years or when lying end to end, the pens would circle the

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40 Billionaires Pledge to Give Away Half Their Wealth to Charity

Inspiring Ideas, Inspiring People, Leadership, Philanthropy / By

What do two of the world’s richest men talk about when they get together… the stock market, the global economy? Perhaps. But if you’re Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, you are also chatting about philanthropic causes. Each billionaire has pledged to give over half of their fortune to charity. Warren Buffett has promised to give

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Walmart and Seventh Generation Join Forces to Bring Sustainable Products to the Masses

Corporate Social Responsibility, Partnerships, Sustainable Business, Sustainable Products / By

Indeed, sustainable business makes for strange bedfellows. Just this week, Seventh Generation announced it will soon offer its environmentally-friendly products in more than 1500 Walmart stores nationwide and on Walmart.com. And according to Treehugger, this is a complete about-face for the “esteemed nontoxic, enviro-friendly household product maker”. Not so long ago, Seventh Generation refused to

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Fiske Guide to Colleges 2011 Names Top 10 Environmental Studies Programs

Leadership, Resources / By

The Fiske Guide to Colleges has been an invaluable resource for college-bound students for the past 25 years. Even USA Today calls it “the best college guide you can buy.” The author, Edward B. Fiske, highlights over 300 of the country’s best and most interesting colleges and universities. Including lists of the strongest majors and

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TEDGlobal 2010 Focuses on the Good News

Events, Inspiring Ideas, Inspiring People / By

The TEDGlobal 2010 conference is underway in the city of Oxford. This year’s theme… And Now the Good News. I admire the positive direction TED has taken at their conference this year, because we have been bogged down with the never-ending “headlines of the political, economic and environmental woes facing the planet”. We sometimes forget

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Panera Bread Learns People Are Basically Good

Corporate Social Responsibility, Inspiring Ideas, Inspiring People, Non-Profit / By

Panera Bread sets an example with its non-profit cafe and challenges other corporations to push their philanthropy beyond writing checks. Last month, I blogged about Panera Bread’s new non-profit cafe in St. Louis dubbed the St. Louis Bread Company Cares Cafe. The idea was simple… take whatever you want to eat or drink and instead

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Billions in Annual Taxpayer Subsidies Paid to Fossil Fuel Industry

Energy, Events, Leadership / By

WWF will attend the G-20 Summit to encourage countries to end the taxpayer-funded subsidies paid to Big Oil and Big Coal. On June 26-27 in Toronto, Canada, the Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors representing nearly 90 percent of the world’s economy will come together to discuss key issues in the

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Who Really Wins by Lifting the Oil Drilling Moratorium?

Energy, News, Policies / By

Oil companies and shareholders most likely to benefit from lifting the ban on new offshore exploration and deepwater drilling not the “little guy”. As I watch the news, I’m hearing both sides of debate regarding the deepwater, offshore drilling moratorium, which was sparked by the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The Obama Administration

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