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Business Network News
August 27, 2009
Organic Roller Coaster Media Misrepresents Value of Organic Foods
The Washington Post, on July 3, published a highly negative article about the nutritional benefits of organic foods compared to conventional foods. According to Organic Trade Association
’s Executive Director, Christine Bushway, “The article was filled with old news and urban legends, giving renewed life to rhetoric that is not only inaccurate but serves a narrow agenda … The study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on the nutritional value of organic foods has been heavily misrepresented in the mainstream media.”
president Jim Slama stood up for the benefits of organic food on news program "Chicago Tonight," contradicting the British study. Watch the video to learn more on OTA’s work to promote organics »
Faces of the Green Pages: Maggie’s Organics
Maggie's Organics, the pioneering organic clothing manufacturer, created The Fair Trade Zone sewing cooperative in Nueva Vida, Nicaragua, an area ravaged by Hurricane Mitch. Since the early 90s, founder/owner Bená Burda has been providing sweat-shop free, fair-labor employment to seamstresses in the developing world.
Starting with their signature socks, Burda’s product line has grown to tights and baby clothes – all with a commitment to organics, and to supporting a fair workplace for Nicaraguan women.
In this month’s "Faces of the Green Pages" interview, Burda introduces her newest venture – Maggie's Menagerie. Burda has recreated Maggie’s Nicaraguan success by supporting a new North Carolina worker-owned cooperative that is making toys from Maggie's irregular socks and scraps as well as recycling fabric waste from a local mill.
Read about the North Carolina cooperative »
Micro-loan Pioneer Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
President Obama awarded the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Dr. Muhammad Yunus, a global leader in anti-poverty efforts who pioneered the use of "micro-loans" to provide credit to poor individuals without collateral. He founded the Grameen Bank in 1983 to improve the lives and communities of impoverished people in his native Bangladesh through small, low-interest loans.
Read Green America's article about Grameen Bank in our archives (PDF) »
Greenpeace Achieves Success with Kleenex
Greenpeace announces a major success in its campaign to impact Kimberly-Clark.
Kimberly-Clark, makers of Kleenex, has set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the wood fiber for its products from environmentally responsible sources.
According to Green America’s Better Paper Project Director Frank Lacantore, this is an important milestone: “We want to congratulate Kimberly-Clark for choosing to be a sustainability leader with their new policy that protects ancient forests. This is important to move the industry in this direction.”
Check out Green America’s Better Paper Project »
Image 4 Wins Sloan Award
Image 4 received the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility. This award recognizes businesses that are successfully using workplace flexibility to meet both employer and employee goals.
Image 4 came out on top through a rigorous scoring process that measured employer responses against national data from Families and Work Institute’s National Study of Employers.
Betty Belts in Finals for Eileen Fisher Grant
Betty Belts is selected as one of twenty finalists for EILEEN FISHER’s grants for women-owned businesses. The company produces handmade belts, jewelry, and accessories by an artisan collective inspired by surfer Donna von Hoesslin. In a crowded field of more than 400 women-owned businesses, they have a shot at winning one of five awards this November. Betty Belts also made the finals in the Intuit Small Business United Contest, winning a $5,000 grant.
EILEEN FISHER, a responsible clothing company, supports women-owned businesses annually with five grants of $10,000 each.
Check out EILEEN FISHER’s grant program »
Green Worker Cooperatives Creates Green Jobs in the South Bronx
Green Worker Cooperatives, dedicated to incubating worker-owned and environmentally friendly cooperatives in the South Bronx, is calling for action to protect funding in the 2010 US budget for local green business incubation programs.
Recent graduates of their intensive environmental business program have founded two worker co-ops, including Aquatecture, introducing solar and renewable energy to the neighborhood. Other graduates will be worker-owners at ReBuilders Source, a re-use store that takes donated used or new building materials and sells them below retail price, and future owners of a 24/7 green diner.
Green Century First to Report Carbon Footprint
Green Century Balanced Fund became the first mutual fund in the US to disclose its carbon footprint analysis.
At 126 tons of carbon per million dollars of portfolio holdings revenue, Green Century’s footprint is 66% less than the carbon intensity of the S&P 500 index, and almost half the average footprint of sixteen other sustainability and socially responsible investing funds as analyzed by Trucost.
Green Power Academy Launches Green Energy Training Courses
The Green Power Academy will host trainings on wind and solar power, biofuels, and the renewable energy market with the Green Power Conferences in Houston on Sept. 1, Washington, D.C. on Sept. 8, and San Francisco on Dec. 4.
The Academy provides trainings to green energy industry professionals.
Faith-based Investors Get Handbook to Help Increase Community Investing
The Social Investment Forum has published a handbook to help facilitate the increase in community investing by faith-based individual and institutional investors.
Table of Contents
Organic Roller Coaster Media Misrepresents Value of Organic Foods
Faces of the Green Pages: Maggie’s Organics
Micro-loan Pioneer Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
Greenpeace Achieves Success with Kleenex
Betty Belts in Finals for Eileen Fisher Grant
Green Worker Cooperatives Creates Green Jobs in the South Bronx
Green Century First to Report Carbon Footprint
Green Power Academy Launches Green Energy Training Courses
Faith-based Investors Get Handbook to Help Increase Community Investing