Grameen America

From ABC News: Grameen America has opened in a small office in the Jackson Heights area of Queens, NYC. In following the Grameen tradition, the goal is to provide an effective, sustainable and measurable response to poverty in America, with a focus on entrepreneurial women and immigrants. And at Grameen America, if you don't have credit, you could be the perfect customer.

The concept behind the Grameen bank is simple: Charge affordable interest, encourage small, regular repayments, and provide ongoing support to every borrower. But there's another key ingredient -- the so called "secret sauce." Clients are organized into borrowing groups of five persons, and individual business loans are made to group members who are supported by the group. During regular group meetings, the members use peer pressure to encourage the other borrowers to repay their loans.

The bank itself is a profit-making business owned by the shareholders, who are the borrowers. So any profit goes back into making loans.

ABC recently aired two interviews with Muhammad Yunus: Yunus: Crediting America and Small Loan Revolution Comes to the U.S.

Read the full ABC News story here.

Yogurt in the BOP: Yunus & Danone Partnership

Muhammad Yunus and the French company Danone have partnered to create a social business enterprise in India.

According to Fortune magazine, Danone will work with Yunus to build a factory that makes yogurt. The yogurt would be fortified to help curb malnutrition and priced (at 7 cents a cup) to be affordable. All revenue from the joint venture with Grameen would be reinvested, with Danone taking out only its initial cost of capital, about $500,000, after three years.

The factory - and ultimately 50 more, if it works - will rely on Grameen microborrowers buying cows to sell it milk on the front end, Grameen microvendors selling the yogurt door to door and Grameen's 6.6 million members purchasing it for their kids. It will employ 15 to 20 women.
And Danone estimates that it will provide income for 1,600 people within a 20-mile radius of the plant. Biodegradable cups made from cornstarch, solar panels for electricity generation and rainwater collection vats make the enterprise environmentally friendly.

Rethinking the divide between profit motive and social good is an emerging trend for business, and Yunus is at the forefront of the movement. "If we can create this," Yunus says, "the world will be a much better place."

The factory, Grameen Danone, opened last year.

Clorox Acquires Burt's Bees

The Clorox Company has announced they will acquire Burt's Bees, a leader in the natural personal care category. "The acquisition of Burt's Bees is strongly aligned with Clorox's Centennial Strategy to pursue growth in areas aligned with consumer "megatrends" in health and wellness, sustainability, convenience and a more multicultural marketplace."

Clorox states, "With this transaction, we're entering into a new strategic phase for our company, enabling us to expand further into the natural/sustainable business platform. The Burt's Bees® brand is well-anchored in sustainability and health and wellness, and we believe it will benefit from natural and "green" tailwinds."

Clorox has also recently introduced their Green Works line of natural cleaning products. "The products' ingredients come from natural sources like coconuts and lemons. They're biodegradable, formulated to be nonallergenic, not tested on animals and packaged in bottles that can be recycled. "

Wal-Mart, Clinton Climate Initiative Announce Partnership

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and the Clinton Climate Initiative today announced a partnership to help bring environmentally-friendly technologies to cities across the United States and around the world. The two groups will explore ways to use their purchasing resources to lower prices on sustainable technologies such as energy efficient building materials and systems, energy efficient lighting and clean energy products.

“This shows what can be achieved when business, government and the non-profit sector work together on some of the biggest challenges facing the world today,” said Lee Scott, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. “By combining our resources, we can help drive innovation, create new technology markets and ultimately reduce this country’s dependence on foreign oil.”

As part of the partnership the two organizations will:

• Collaborate regarding the design and discovery of new products and best practices related to environmentally-friendly technologies. This includes working together to develop specifications for new products and test new products.
• Work together to source new products, again sharing specifications as well as suppliers. This also includes going to market at coordinated times in order to maximize purchasing power and drive down costs.
• Designate a representative from each organization to coordinate with Wal-Mart’s building team, the Clinton Climate Initiative and its member cities.
• Continue to seek opportunities for the two organizations to collaborate.

Read the full story here.

Building a Sustainable Future: What Will You Do Next?

More than 1500 graduate students and business professionals will be in Nashville this weekend (November 1-3) for the annual Net Impact conference. The conference theme is "Building a Sustainable Future: What Will You Do Next?" Keynote speakers include Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia), Chad Holliday (DuPont), and Tensie Whelan (Rainforest Alliance) as well as John Replogle (Burts Bees), Neal Keny-Guyer (Mercy Corps), Andy Savitz (author of The Triple Bottom Line), Scott Case (Malaria No More), Steven Phillips (ExxonMobil), and many others.

Net Impact is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world.

In India, Poverty Inspires Technology Workers to Altruism

In Bangalore, "the city teems with laborers desperate for work, and yet wealthy software tycoons complain endlessly about a shortage of maids and cooks." So how do you bring the two together? Enter Babajob, a social networking site for employment; think of it as "the village LinkedIn."

Babajob seeks to match employers with employees through personal connections, the common method through which employment is acquired in India, but it is being done online through a website similar to social networking websites. Babajob is specifically "meant to reach laborers earning $2 to $3 a day" who might not have access to a computer or to the Internet and also seeks to fight poverty by providing connections to employment opportunities.

Read the full NY Times article.

How "Green" Are The Presidential Candidates?

In Thomas Friedman's NY Times article, he states, "We don't just need the first black president. We need the first green president. We don't just need the first woman president. We need the first environmental president."

To help us find that environmental president, the League of Conservation Voters has published their list of U.S. Presidential Candidates' positions on carbon gap and targets, fuel efficiency, renewable electricity standards, efficiency targets, and new coal plants and liquid coal. The list was derived from candidates' websites, their votes in Congress, and their recent public statements.

How does your favorite candidate fare?

Who Moved My City?

Is your city ready to change?

Check out the video made by Cool People Care and New Day Revolution on top of a mountain at Vulcan Park (Birmingham, AL) as they reflect on whether or not cities are ready to change to meet the needs of the next generation.

Goodwill Goes Green: William Good - Sustainable & Responsible Business of the Week

Nick Graham, San Francisco designer and founder of Joe Boxer, has teamed up with Goodwill to produce a line of refashioned clothing, William Good, which is made entirely from items from the Goodwill discard bins. Every item will be one-of-a-kind and will be made from items which have been in stores for 30 days but haven't sold. Items will carry a new William Good frog logo but everything else about the item will be refashioned. The boutique will open inside the Goodwill on Fillmore and Post streets in San Francisco on November 15. They hope the new line of refashioned clothing will catch on and the boutique will be replicated in Goodwill stores across the country, saving as much as 75% of donated items from the landfill.

Peer-to-Peer Lending Grows With E-Bay & Virgin

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, or social lending, allows you to offer your money in the form of a loan to another person. It differs from traditional banking in that there is increased transparency, often allowing you to select the country, project, or even person to whom you will loan your money and the money is not typically exchanged through a bank.


P2P lending networks have become quite popular among those seeking alternative financing and among those who want to use their money to make a difference, particularly in helping the poor who might not have other financing options.


The P2P lending network industry is growing with the recent entrance of E-bay and Virgin into the marketplace. Here is just a sampling of the many options available:

• MicroPlace (recently launched by E-bay)
• Virgin Money (recently acquired the former CircleLending)
• Kiva
• Duck9
• Prosper
• Zopa
• Smava
• CommunityLend
• Boober
• Lending Club
• BatoAmigo
• Fairrates
• GlobeFunder
• Ireloans
• Lendary.com
• Nexx
• PeerMint

New Blog on Development Issues

Ideas for Development blog has been launched and is "an international blog meant to stimulate debate on development issues. It brings together a set of senior professionals engaged in this sphere through their careers and personal convictions."

"The blog does not belong to any organization or personality, and will remain independent."

Regular contributors to the blog will include Kemal Dervis (UNDP), Abdou Diouf (Organisation de la Francophonie), Donald Kaberuka (African Development Bank), Pascal Lamy (WTO), Supachai Panitchpakdi (UNCTAD), Jean-Michel Severino (Agence française de développement) and Josette Sheeran (World Food Programme).

Nov. 4-10 will be "Green Week" on NBC

In case you missed it, in May 2007, NBC Universal announced their "Get on Board" initiative which outlines their plan to "go green." This is part of parent company GE's ecomagination move toward sustainability. As part of the NBC Universal Get on Board initiative, there will be a companywide weeklong programming effort to educate TV viewers and Web and wireless users on ecological issues.

For the week of Nov. 4-10, green themes will be found in such shows as "The Office," "My Name Is Earl," "30 Rock," "Heroes" and "Deal or No Deal," plus in news offers, including "Today," "Nightly News," "Dateline" and on MSNBC and MSNBC.com.

Not to be outdone, ABC will be airing a green-themed "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on October 28.

College Sustainability Report Card 2008 Released

The Sustainable Endowments Institute has released their "College Sustainability Report Card 2008." The report assesses the 200 public and private universities with the largest endowments. Schools were graded on eight categories: Administration, Climate Change & Energy, Food & Recycling, Green Building, Transportation, Endowment Transparency, Investment Priorities, Shareholder Engagement

According to the report, "The results clearly show a “green groundswell” on campuses, with nearly 45 percent of colleges committing to fight climate change through cutting carbon emissions. High-performance green building standards guide new construction at 59 percent of schools, while 42 percent are using hybrid or electric vehicles in transportation fleets. Notably, 37 percent of schools purchase renewable energy and 30 percent produce their own wind or solar energy. A substantial 70 percent buy food from local farms and 64 percent serve fair trade coffee."

Other key findings of the latest Report Card include:

• Carleton College, Northeastern University, University of Notre Dame, University of Southern California and University of Virginia demonstrated the greatest improvements – as much as one and a half grades.


• Twenty-five schools achieved Campus Sustainability Leader status by scoring high marks in all five campus categories (at least an “A-” average).


• Only Carleton, Dartmouth and Williams were recognized as Endowment Sustainability Leaders, with an “A-” or better across the three endowment categories.


• Schools performed best in the Food & Recycling category, with 29 percent earning “As.”


• More than one-third of schools have full-time sustainability staff, and more than two-thirds have a Web site dedicated to campus sustainability.

You can read the full report here.

What Al Gore's Nobel Means for Green Business

Al Gore's recent Nobel Peace Prize award (along with the co-winner U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is expected to have profound effects on the importance of environmental issues. But the question has been raised by ClimateBiz: how will this affect business?

"To find out how the business world expects last week's news to change the playing field, ClimateBiz asked five experts to weigh in on Al Gore and the Nobel Prize." The answers?

• It Will Inspire a New Generation of Eco-Responsible Business Leaders
• It Will Increase the Flow of Quality Capital Into the New Energy Economy
• It Will Build More Mainstream Momentum Behind Sustainable Technology
• It Will Turbo-Charge Energy Efficiency Investment
• It Will Launch Scores of Environmentally Innovative Start-Up Companies

You can read the full story at ClimateBiz.

ShoreBank - Sustainable & Responsible Business of the Week

ShoreBank is a bank whose mission is to invest in "people and their communities to create economic equity and a healthy environment." They offer banks, consulting services, and have created a number of nonprofits to help them carry out this mission. Their web site states that they pursue a triple bottom line, "We strive to meet three objectives simultaneously: building wealth for all in economically integrated communities, promoting environmental health and operating profitably."

Founders Milton Davis, James Fletcher, Ronald Grzywinski and Mary Houghton — whose combined backgrounds encompassed banking, social services and community activism -- were seeking to buy a bank. They believed that a commercial bank, flanked by complementary development organizations, could effectively restore neighborhood economies.

ShoreBank offers two interesting types of deposit accounts: Development Deposits, which help support their community development work, and EcoDeposits, which help support their environmental work.

Their tag line? ShoreBank: Let's Change the World.