Prioritizing the Planet: How Businesses Are Benefiting the Environment
B the Change Weekly: June 29, 2018
Delivered on Fridays, B the Change Weekly delivers the most important and most relevant stories about people using business as a force for good. The newsletter features a weekly note from the B the Change team alongside insight and context on the stories we share here on Medium. Below is our latest roundup. To receive these insights directly in your inbox, sign up for B the Change Weekly today. Now onto the good stuff:
Most businesses chart their course through a strategic plan that maximizes efficiency and builds the bottom line. But to remain competitive in the current and future business landscape, incorporating a sustainability plan that ensures businesses are also working toward the good of the planet is equally, if not more, important.
Many companies already are working to reduce their environmental impact. This week, we celebrate businesses that are going beyond that level by benefiting the environment through their operations.
Check our list to see all the companies honored as Best For The World: Environment, and read on to learn more about some Best For The World honorees.
Passionate About Conservation
A love for Africa and a realization that community engagement is necessary for conservation to be successful propelled Dr. Hassan Sachedina to establish BioCarbon Partners, a conservation company addressing deforestation in Zambia’s wildlife-rich areas.
A Certified B Corp since 2017 and a 2018 Best For The World: Environment honoree, BCP preserves forests through selling carbon offsets within its Zambia-based REDD+ projects. In its preservation efforts, BCP employs local community members in its projects through various partnerships, giving back more than sequestered carbon and standing trees.
BioCarbon Partners’ work requires some personal investment, says Sarah Millar, communications and marketing specialist for the company. “It’s really important to us that the people who work for BCP are personally passionate about conservation and our cause because the work is hard. You need people who believe in it,” she says.
Read more on B the Change about BioCarbon Partners’ work and why it earned the company a spot on the Best For The World: Environment list.
Building Knowledge, Protecting the Earth
Y8 Studio, an architectural studio based in West Hollywood, focuses on reusing materials in preservation work and reducing its carbon footprint.
While Jordan Wyatt, founder and principal architect of Y8 Studio, is a one-man firm, he is sharing his knowledge more broadly through an online home-improvement course that covers sustainable architecture on historic preservation work, Passive Building, and LEED projects.
“A lot of what we’re doing is not rocket science, but at the same time it’s information, techniques, and strategies for restoring buildings and improving homes that aren’t necessarily widely accessible to people,” Wyatt says.
His creative approach to architecture and commitment to prioritize the environment contribute to his presence as a 2018 Best For The World: Environment honoree.
Read more about Y8 Studio and how Wyatt works to improve his environmental impact on B the Change.
Best For The World: Environment is evaluated based on a company’s environmental performance through its facilities, materials, emissions, resource and energy use, environmental impact of supply chains, and whether a company’s product provides an environmental benefit, and more. Find all Best For The World honorees and stories.
Sustainable Strategies
Does your business prioritize our planet? While many companies have established programs to reduce their environmental footprints, the top Best For The World: Environment honorees have created thriving operations that benefit and positively impact the environment.
Several on the list explained to B the Change how the practices and strategies they use to reduce their impact on the environment.
For example, Rogue Creamery, of Central Point, Oregon, creates handcrafted blue cheeses and a variety of gourmet cheddars that are sustainable and organic — but the company has broadened its vision to be “other-centered.”
“Not only do we aim to have a positive impact on our community and environment, but also to encourage others to do the same. In this way, adopting this phrase has been evolutionary for us. We strive to be other-centered in every respect, and in adding this to our values statement we have empowered everyone at Rogue Creamery to rise to a place where they are both working and living our vision.”
Find more honorees’ best practices and recommendations on B the Change.
Our B the Change contributors share other sustainable strategies:
- Our daily coffee routines have ripple effects on families and the environment around the world. Ethical Bean Coffee shares five steps to make your daily coffee routine more sustainable.
- As a self-proclaimed “snacktivist” Certified B Corporation, PRANA offers 100 percent organic and plant-based snacks across Canada. Through a life cycle assessment of its “foodprint,” PRANA has formed closer relationships with its suppliers and challenged them to be a “motor of change” for sustainability.
- As demand for sustainable, responsible, and impact investing grows, many corporate retirement plans remain behind the times. Conscious Company Media outlines five steps for companies to add these options for their employees.
Book of the Week
Fully Alive: Using the Lessons of the Amazon to Live
By Tyler Gage
“Building a start-up is like being thrust into the middle of the Amazon rainforest: living every day on the edge of your comfort zone, vulnerable to the unexpected challenges constantly being thrown your way, and constantly shifting to meet daily demands and do everything and anything you can to survive, let alone thrive.”
Tyler Gage shares his spiritual adventures and the business savvy that helped him create RUNA, a B Corp that brews beverages from guayusa (gwhy-you-sa), an Amazonian super-leaf naturally packed with caffeine and polyphenoal antioxidants. Runa is a pioneering organization that weaves together the seemingly divergent worlds of Amazonian traditions and modern business, demonstrating how we can dig deeper to bring greater meaning and purpose to our personal and professional pursuits.
B the Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
