Author Archives: menteral

GIBN Solutions Lab – NI Members get 30% Discount

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Posted by menteral on July 8, 2010 – 5:58 am
Filed under Uncategorized

Date: Thursday, July 15th
Location: eBay in San Jose
Cost: $75 early bird (until July 1), $100 (+ 30% NI discount code: NetImpact)
RSVP: http://gibn2010sanjose.eventbrite.com/

Solutions Labs (brought to you by EDF, Ashoka, Net Impact) – taking place in ten cities around the United States – are one-day events that have the potential to shape sustainable business practices far into the future. Our hope is to give participants an opportunity to share ideas and brainstorm solutions for redefining business as usual – advancing environmentally sound business practices and saving money, while growing the network of sustainability experts and innovators across industries. Participants from last year’s unconferences reported that the events provided them with an invaluable opportunity to network and share ideas with other innovators who are leading sustainability efforts in their companies. More more information about the series, please visit the GIBN Solutions Lab Wiki.

Summer Happy Hour – Net Impact SF & The Hub

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Posted by menteral on June 23, 2010 – 8:58 pm
Filed under Uncategorized

Date: Friday, July 23
Time: 6 – 9 pm
Location: HUB-SoMa, 901 Mission St
Cost: $5
RSVP: http://nisummerhappyhour2010.eventbrite.com

Come join us for the Net Impact Summer Happy Hour at Hub SoMa’s beautiful new space.  This is a great chance to meet and talk with like-minded folks in the Bay Area from both Net Impact and the HUB.

There will be free samples from the sustainable winery Beaver Creek, organic beer from MateVeza and non-alchohlic beverages from Hansens and Kahe’Juice.  Don’t forget dessert with chocolates samples provided by Jade Chocolates.

Grilled cheeses will be served fresh off the press by Feel Good World, a nonprofit that aims to end world hunger one grilled cheese at a time. Extra proceeds from the cover charge go to the Feel Good World cause.

RSVP early as this will sell out soon.  Come out, bring a friend, and we’ll see you in July!

A big thank you to GPS Connections for coordinating our amazing donated food and beverages.

July 14 Monthly Gathering – Sustainable Manufacturing

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Posted by menteral on May 29, 2010 – 10:25 am
Filed under Events (Net Impact), Green Design, Operations

Date: Wednesday, July 14
Time: 7-9 pm
Location: Green Zebra Environmental Action Center; 50 Post Street ; Crocker Galleria, lower level; San Francisco, CA 94104
RSVP: http://sustainablemanufacturing.eventbrite.com/

Interested in cradle-to-cradle manufacturing? Heard of industrial ecology and want to know more about how organizations are looking to build closed-loop manufacturing cycles? Come to a panel on “Sustainable Manufacturing” on Wednesday, July 14th at 6:30 pm and hear from a variety of panelists about the projects they’re working on, the difficulties they’ve encountered, and the bright prospects that drive them to pioneer new practices in the production of goods and services. We will dive deep into exploring the many ways individuals and companies are realizing the importance of designing systems with interlinked, mutually beneficial relationships, and help turn waste outputs into useful inputs for new goods and services.

Panelists:
Travis Lee is co-author of LUNAR Design’s “Designer’s Field Guide to Sustainability” and author of LUNAR’s daily sustainability inspiration series ‘365 Ways.’ As Sustainable Engineering Lead, Travis Lee is responsible for coordinating sustainable engineering efforts within LUNAR. This responsibility includes driving the creation of guidelines and tools for designers and engineers, advancing the sustainability dialogue with clients, and continuously making LUNAR a more sustainable company in its day to day operations.

Paul Tasner has over 30 years of experience in supply chain management. Founder of the San Francisco Bay Area Green Supply Chain Forum, Paul has consulted with companies such as Clorox, California Closets, Method Products to develop greener manufacturing practices. Paul is currently a VP of Supply Chain and Sustainability at Reclipse Group Consulting and lectures for the MBA program at San Francisco State University on the challenges of developing sustainable supply chains.

[POSTPONED] Making Your Impact: Planning for Action Workshop

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Posted by menteral on May 29, 2010 – 10:22 am
Filed under Careers, Events (Net Impact)

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO THE FALL… PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES.

Workshop on Making Change in Your Organization!!

Date: TBD
Time: 10:00-1:00 pm
Location: TBD (potentially outdoors or in a sunny venue appropriate to a Sunday afternoon)
RSVP: http://makeyourimpact.eventbrite.com/

Join us for a practical workshop on making social and environmental change at your organization from within. In an interactive morning, we will cover topics such as strategically approaching your company culture, navigating sustainability conversations, goal-setting and action-planning. Combining short lectures with small and large group discussions, this session is designed for you to develop and tailor an approach that allows you to make a difference in your organization. The frameworks and topics covered will be broad enough to accommodate a wide variety of experiences. Whether you have already launched an established initiative or have felt tongue-tied in your attempts to broach the topic of sustainability at work, this workshop is for you!

Abby Jandro is a PhD candidate in Organizational Psychology at Alliant International University with a passion for leadership, organization strategy and making positive change.

Alessia Carega is a Sustainability Practitioner in San Francisco. She is a Senior Strategist in consulting services at Saatchi & Saatchi S, specializing in designing and implementing strategies for integrating sustainability into company culture by engaging employees.

Careers to Callings: Discussion Session Notes

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Posted by menteral on April 18, 2010 – 10:20 am
Filed under Careers, Events (Net Impact)

The discussion at last Wednesday’s “Careers to Callings” event was fantastic. Thanks to everyone who made it out – and a special thanks to Ibanga Umanah for conceiving and catalyzing the event, Julie Menter for facilitating, Rayna Wiles for visually recording, and all of our special guests (Phillipe Goldin, Colleen Murray, Kate Mulder, and Brian Sullivan).

Some quick takeaways of the event are below (thanks to Emily Sadigh for helping with these notes!)

Personal Actions to Improve Work:

  • Being happy at work often simply involves really knowing yourself. Taking the time to be mindful of your emotions and meditate can help with this – as can really understanding your particular strengths. Remember, what comes easily to you might be a valuable strength.
  • Simply clarifying and stating your values can reduce stress-causing cortisol levels.
  • Being really up front about who you are with co-workers is important – bring more dimensions of yourself to it. Don’t be a different person at work than you are outside of work.
  • Journal, keep track of your successes and failures
  • Take advantage of review processes, take people out to lunch, ask your boss what his/her long-term goals are
  • Realize that what you’re doing at work – even if you don’t love it – may prove invaluable to you later on in life (and towards ends you care more about). Think about your experience path and the skills you are building.
  • Each day, think about who you’re serving? When you feel like what you’re doing is helping others (even if only one person) – it can bring you out of the daily grind and give you a greater sense of meaning.

Model Company Programs (good examples for your workplace)

  • The companies that have the most engaged employees are those that have a strong culture and can really clearly tell you what they are and what they are not (i.e. Patagonia).
  • Google’s G2G program (googlers teaching googlers, everything from biking to statistics) (http://knol.google.com/k/steph-fastre/teach-and-you-shall-learn/1fc9wqbhtn4k0/2#)
  • Google’s meditation rooms (knowing yourself builds self-confidence) and places for play and interaction (ball pen, cafeteria)
  • Title 9’s worst mistake contest (risk-taking indicates autonomy/ownership)
  • Sabre’s Walk in Your Shoes Program
  • Sabre’s “Hack Day” (open time to invent something new and improved)
  • St. Jude Medical bringing in a patient helped by the company’s product or emailing when a heart valve is made for a baby
  • Talent show or group volunteer program to unearth skills and create other forms of interaction
  • St Jude Medical’s performance reviews requiring employees to write down long-term goals that ensure annual conversations about employee’s long-term jobs and their current job relates

Other takeaways:

  • As companies (and individuals) grow – there is an “ossification” process that makes them move slower.
  • People are much more likely to stay in a situation where they feel unfulfilled than shift to something that is uncomfortable.
  • Alignment of personal, societal, and business goals is a powerful combination.

Further resources and reading:

  • Drive by Daniel Pink (three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose). Also see TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
  • Fred Factor by Mark Sanborn (the example of Fred the Postman)
  • Firms of Endearment (about how values-based firms outperform) http://www.firmsofendearment.com/index.html
  • Habits of the Heart (job, career, calling) (preview available on google books)
  • Gallup’s “best friend at work” dimension: http://gmj.gallup.com/content/511/item-10-best-friend-work.aspx
  • Wired to Care by Dev Patnaik (of Jump Associates)
  • Mindfulness clock

Below are some images from the event – including the mindmap-style notes from Rayna (click to see larger).

Yards to Gardens Launch – Help Needed Getting Established in SF

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Posted by menteral on March 24, 2010 – 7:40 am
Filed under Food & Ag

Interested in community gardening and urban farming? If so, you may be interested in helping out Yards To Gardens become established in the Bay Area. It’s an online web platform looking to create an ecosystem of neighbors and communities helping each other garden. Check out this letter from the Y2G founders…

Hi folks!
Yards to Gardens (www.y2g.org) is a new website out of Minneapolis, MN designed to connect eager gardeners with available space.  It’s a simple concept: say you have some extra space in your yard but no time for gardening, you can go to the website and in just a few seconds you can post your yard as a resource for someone to garden. Or say you’d like to be gardening in your neighborhood but you don’t have a yard and the local community garden is full.  Just go to the website and see if there are any available yards in your area, or post yourself as a gardener.

This month we added new listing categories so that you can post or find just about anything gardening related.  Got any extra compost or mulch?  How about extra seeds or seedlings?  Or maybe you’re cleaning out the garage and you find some old gloves and a trowel.  Find a happy home for your extras by posting them on www.Y2G.org.

We’ve partnered with Gardening Matters of the Twin Cities, MN (www.gardeningmatters.org) in an effort to help manage the explosion of interest in community gardening in the area.  Over the past few months we’ve begun to reach critical mass in the Twin Cities with over 50 listings in the area.  We’d love to work with other community groups around the country to help provide this resource for gardeners looking for space and resources.

I’ve attached a press release.  Please check it out, share it with friends and other listservs, give us feedback, and let us know how we might help Y2G grow in your area.

Sincerely,

The Y2G Team

Y2G.Press.Release

Y2G.ad

Green Chic Event – The blood, sweat and tears required to start a green business

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Posted by menteral on February 28, 2010 – 9:49 pm
Filed under Events (Net Impact)

Thanks to everyone who helped make last Thursday’s Green Chic event a success! (Our wonderful panelists, everyone who came, Joie De Vivre hotels, and – especially – Sarah Miller and Jeremy Ideus for organizing). Check out the pics and a few quick takeaways below…

Seventy people showed up for our monthly gathering, Sustainable Consumption/”Green Chic”, on Thursday, February 25th at the Galleria Park Hotel of the Joie de Vivre group (downtown). Paul Frentsos, the hotel’s GM, opened the floor by telling us just how difficult it was to convert from a conventional, modern hotel to a Green Certified, yet also modern hotel. Turning into a Green hotel meant huge sacrifice for the hopes of a larger benefit and becoming part of a cultural shift.  Sacrifice was the theme of the evening. Do words like fair trade, all natural and organic mean higher prices? Yes. Does it mean paying more for a product that doesn’t smell good, looks like it came from a head shop and is badly designed? No.

Okay, then what do we do? We buy smarter. Here is what our panelists had to say:

Owner of Eco Citizen – an upscale fair trade and organic boutique for men and women – Joslin Van Arsdale stated that we need to buy one really nice shirt that is well designed and doesn’t use slave labor instead of buying three that we consider disposable. Lenore Espanola of Lenore Collection, a handbag line made of recycled print materials, pointed out the frustrations of dealing with overseas workers when there is a gap between what is accepted as fashionable in less developed areas of the world and what is considered “chic” in the United States. Miki and Tzeira Sofer of Pomega 5, an all natural skincare line, noted that all natural doesn’t mean early expiration, ineffective or unpleasant to use, quite the opposite in fact. Do they cost a little more than what you would buy at the mall? Really, it’s about the same. So what about Christie Matheson, the author of the book Green Chic for which this panel discussion was designed?  What kind of advice does she give? This is a different kind of revolution. People don’t have to look frumpy when saving trees as they did in the ‘60’s. You don’t have to be out-dated when saving the world, green is the new black!

Lesson learned. Buy less, buy better and don’t sacrifice!

After the panel, the group headed down to Midi bar to get to know our panelists a bit better. Some got a few free samples from Pomega 5 and Lenore Collection brought a few sample bags to show off. If you missed this month’s event and are interested in checking out what the panelists have to offer, check out their websites:

Eco Citizen: www.ecocitizenonline.com

Pomega 5: www.pomega5.com

Lenore Collection: www.lenorecollection.com

Green Chic: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-9781402210822-1

Joie de Vivre Galleria Park: http://jdvhotels.com/hotels/galleria_park/

  • Additional takeaways:
    • The press still doesn’t understand sustainability and “green” – and that lack of understanding comes through in their reporting. This is why a lot of people think green is still a fad.
    • When you run your own business, “reality punches you in the face” and you have to let go of some of your ideals. Pomega 5 wanted to recycle all of their glass containers – but the economics just didn’t work out. Shipping glass is just too expensive. Also, Pomega 5 can’t source from the USA… the soil here is too dirty. They get ingredients from France, Germany, or Switzerland.
    • Sustainability is never simple and straightforward. As a retailer, it’s 3x more labor intensive to ask all of the right questions… but all you can do is your best.
    • If you start a green business – if you don’t do it with love, you better not do it.
    • Sustainability still usually costs more… getting people to understand why and educating them about environmentally friendly products is challenging.
  • Frustrating moment:
    • The discussion of the Wal-Mart sustainability index: The audience and the panelists were not very well informed about Wal-Mart’s efforts. 1) The sustainability index is not a real thing right now… it’s in the works.  2) Wal-Mart is not doing it alone… they are helping to organize The Sustainability Consortium to “work collaboratively to build a scientific foundation that drives innovation to improve consumer product sustainability.”

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Net Impact SF Volunteers at SF Food Bank

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Posted by menteral on February 24, 2010 – 10:06 pm
Filed under Events (Net Impact), Food & Ag, Volunteer

NI-SF_FoodBank

View all photos

Our Volunteer event at the SF Food Bank on February was excellent.  We packaged over 16,000 of cabbage in 2 hours and had a ton of fun!

Since this type of thing is easy to plan and the people who showed up got a lot out of it – look for more of these types of volunteer events in 2010.

NI Member Discount to Corporate Citizenship Conference – March 5th

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Posted by menteral on February 21, 2010 – 7:47 pm
Filed under Uncategorized

When:Friday, March 5, 2010, 8:00am – 5:30pm
Location: Oracle Conference Center; 350 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA
Audience: 200 Corporate Community Relations, Foundation, CSR, HR, & Marketing Professionals

DESCRIPTION:
Entrepreneurs Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Conference is for companies interested in creating, enhancing and strengthening their community involvement and philanthropy programs. The Conference will showcase corporate citizenship programs from a variety of large and small, public and private companies. Also at the conference will be panels and workshops featuring a number of celebrated experts who will address issues, trends, metrics, and best practices in the field.

Featured Companies and Presenters

The Entrepreneurs Foundation Corporate Citizenship Conference will showcase corporate citizenship programs and feature best practices from a broad variety of large and small, public and private companies including:

Cadence, Deloitte, Google, Humanity United, Intuit, LiveOps, LoopNet, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, PG&E, Rambus, Symantec, Synopsys, Walmart, Yahoo! and more

Breakout sessions are designed for companies to develop and strengthen their corporate community involvement and philanthropy programs. General and breakout sessions will address important issues, trends, metrics, and best practices on critical issues facing companies today. Presentations from topic experts featuring:

Bradley Googins, Executive Director Emeritus, Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship
Carola Barton, Senior Consultant and Doug Balfour, CEO, Geneva Global
Celina Pagani-Tousignant, President, Normisur International
David Yarnold, Executive Director, Environmental Defense Fund
Doug Pinkham, President, Public Affairs Council
Emmett D. Carson, Ph.D., President and CEO, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Farron Levy, Founder and CEO, True Impact
Linda Clarke, Founder, Clarke Consulting

COST:

If you are a PAYING Net Impact member, you can select EF Member Company” when you register and will receive the $75 rate. The regular rate is $195. RSVP Here: http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=195363

Responsible Consumption Monthly Gathering (Feb 25, 6pm)

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Posted by menteral on February 12, 2010 – 5:31 pm
Filed under Events (Net Impact)

Date: Thursday, February 25, 2010
Time: 7:00 – 9:00pm
Location:
Galleria Park Hotel (Joie De Vivre)
191 Sutter Street
San Francisco, CA 94104

RSVP: http://greenchic.eventbrite.com/

Join our prestigious panel of experts and learn how to live an environmentally responsible lifestyle while being chic at the same time! Panelists include:

Christie Matheson, Author of Green Chic
Offering up dozens of author-tested, earth-friendly ideas, lifestyle writer Christie Matheson knows that being chic and saving the planet aren’t mutually exclusive. Christie Matheson is a writer living in San Francisco and Boston. Her work has appeared in Body & Soul, Glamour, Shape, Boston, San Francisco, Yoga Journal, and The Boston Globe Magazine.

Joslin Van Arsdale, Owner of Eco Citizen
Eco Citizen strives to offer high quality, fair trade, classic fashion design and construction to the eco-conscious consumer. With a BA in photography, from University of Colorado, Boulderand a degree in fashion design and illustration at Central St. Martins, and an MA in Textiles from Goldsmiths University, Joslin has worked as a stylist for publications such as Hermes, Banana Republic and New York Times Magazine. Eco Citizen was born from the simple desire to help people and contribute to the well-being of the world. www.ecocitizenonline.com

Tzeira Sofer, Pomega 5
Tzeira Sofer is the founder, president and creative force behind Pomega5™, the industry’s first complete line of organic pomegranate seed oil nutritional supplements and therapeutic skin care. As a practitioner in healing arts and an expert on women’s health and wellness, Tzeira was driven by a vision to create an authentic, holistic line based upon the potent benefits of the pomegranate.

RSVP below:

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