Last week we at Common Soles learned that we have been accepted as an official green business by Green America! This means that the Common Soles product, business practices, and processes we employ have been audited by the Green America research team to ensure they meet the established criteria to deem us a green business!
The auditing/screening process checks that we:
Today I received a new laptop battery – it’s pretty exciting for me because my current battery only holds a charge for about 5 minutes. So now I’m back humming 100% with this new battery and able to go about my day in my usual un-tethered manner! But what remains of this re-battery process is my old battery. Pretty much a useless item to me, so what do I do with this item which clearly has some toxic components inside of it? Dell did not provide any instruction for what to do. Ahh!!
So that’s my rant for the day – but it got us thinking about the afterlife of a Common Soles flip-flop. From the beginning we always told customers that they could return their old and worn out Common Soles to us, but since we’re only about a year old it just really hasn’t come up yet. So here it is – official now because it’s being written on our website which in 2010 terms means it might as well be the 10 Commandments.
EVA, (Ethylene-vinyl acetate) is some incredibly versatile stuff. It’s the elasticized polymer foam material used in most footwear to add support, structure, and cushioning. It’s incredibly versatile as it can be molded, dyed, cut, and shaped into just about any configuration. It’s incredibly inexpensive compared to the other materials used in footwear such as leather or rubber, and it’s darn easy to get good at working with it!
But it’s not all roses for this wonder material. EVA doesn’t break-down naturally and so it’s filling landfills across the globe with a product that doesn’t jive with nature. The manufacturing of EVA is a toxic process, and even though EVA scraps and used EVA can be recycled into new EVA – it’s not at all a green process.
Creating Community Through Food - right on Bi-Rite! We spotted this while in San Francisco. Bi-Rite is an institution in the city and I sure have eaten my fair share of ice-cream from them! While enjoying my latest cone in the corner of the busy shop I flipped through the Bi-Rite brochure. On the back page was one of the best statements of how an organization views it's business ecosystem. Here it is, enjoy!
I love learning. I didn't until I graduated from college, I then realized how wonderful the gift of education is. How could I appreciate it? I didn't know any other life until then. So when I decided to go back to grad school in 2006 it was with great respect for the educational system, and drive to once again - learn.
One of the greatest things I took away from business school was a deeper understanding of organizations role in society. Recently, Leonard Schlesinger, Babson's new President articulated this learning I took away very succinctly in the school's new strategy.