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Making the Potluck a Success in Today’s World

Dale S. Brown — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:11:38 -0500

I love potlucks! I love the different foods you discover. Cooking for a wider group leads to cultural exploration as well as to closer human connections.

Sadly, in my community, these gatherings are happening less and less. The idea of a potluck sometimes causes people to groan. “It’s so much work!” one friend says. “I can’t cook,” says another. Organizers are increasingly concerned about dietary restrictions, from the need to supply low-cal vegan dishes to requests for gluten-free breads or desserts.

Can we reinvent the potluck so it can work in today’s busy, ingredient-conscious world?

Fortunately, there are alternatives to the hidden rules that haunt today’s potluck. Here are some suggestions:

Share the traditional duties of the host.

In the traditional potluck, the host offers his or her home, coordinates the food mix, and is responsible for cleanup. In addition, the host often provides the main dishes, especially if few other people are willing to bring them (which is often the case). To lessen the burden of responsibility, consider assigning the following tasks to different individuals:

Offering a home or venue for the potluck
Coordinating the food and assuring there is balance among the dishes and enough food for everyone
Cleanup.

Allow flexibility in how people contribute.

In many communities, you can still count on people being giving and flexible, with potluck participants acknowledging that “somehow it just works out.” But in the Washington, D.C. metro area, where I live (and in numerous other places if my informants are correct), the following things are happening:

People are refusing to coordinate or lead a potluck, because they fear they won't get enough help.
The potluck table has insufficient food or food that isn't nourishing enough for a meal. This may be partially due to the economy. At one potluck I attended, three-quarters of the table was desserts. At another, the table was empty after the first 10 people served themselves.
In my own experience, I’ve found that those participants who are less well-off, who are immigrants, and/or who are good cooks tend to bring most of the food—and pay for most of the ingredients. Their generosity is wearing thin. Or, put differently, their generosity is still active—but is this really fair?
People turn down potluck invitations because they don’t want to cook or can’t afford the ingredients of the dishes they're expected to bring.
Women are still bringing the bulk of main dishes (!?!?!?). Yes, I stand by that observation.

Here are some suggestions to make potlucks work again:

If you’re the person leading the first potluck of a group, go ahead and do the traditional hosting job mentioned above. After everyone has had a good time and says they want to do it again, describe the steps you actually took to create the event. Suggest dividing the work and see if people are willing to take it on.
Excuse people from bringing food if they have other potluck responsibilities, such as cleanup or coordinating the event.
Allow people to make a financial contribution and offer that money to the people who make the main dishes to buy ingredients.

Request, but do not require, that potluck contributors list the ingredients in their food.

Food allergies are on the rise. Many people have strict eating protocols such as vegan diets, gluten-free diets, and religious restrictions. Because these individuals need to know the ingredients in the food they eat, they may avoid potlucks where the content of dishes isn’t clear.

Unfortunately, listing ingredients can be difficult. Some creative cooks aren't reliably aware of each item they put in the pot. They worry about making a mistake. People who bring takeout food might not know most of the ingredients.

Requiring people to list ingredients may exclude some people from participating. But it’s a good thing to encourage. You may also want to announce that it’s okay to bring your own special food and participate in the potluck without partaking in the rest of the dishes.

Bring an attitude of gratitude.

Each of us makes different decisions about our participation in the local food movement, our nutritional choices, our contributions to the environment, and our willpower to stick to our ideals. Let’s learn from each other and avoid scolding or preaching about “how it should be done.”

Be generous.

If you bring food and can afford it, bring as much as you can. Bring food you like and take home the leftovers. Try to bring twice as much if you're part of a couple. If bringing food is burdensome for you, make an offer to the potluck organizer. Say, “I can’t cook a contribution this time, but would love to stay and clean up until the kitchen is sparkling.” You could also bring a less expensive contribution, like a huge bowl of popcorn.

If you don’t have the time or skills to cook for the group, you can offer to buy the ingredients for another participant. Offering money can be awkward, but you can offer ingredients tactfully. You could say, “I have a bunch of chicken in the freezer that I can’t use—I was wondering if I could bring it over and you could make that great dish you brought last month.” Or, “I’m going shopping on Thursday and I thought you could let me bring you the ingredients for such and such.” Be prepared to humbly cajole and persuade them. “We loved your XYZ—can’t you let us bring you the items you need to cook it?”

Consider how your experience as a consumer of food influences your expectations.

Eating out and ordering takeout have become increasingly common. Some people bring their own expectations as food consumers to their social lives. Do you get irritated if the activity is disorganized, or if the meal starts late? Are you hesitant to cook for a potluck because you’re afraid the food won’t be as good as what you get in restaurants or see on cooking shows? Do you think you shouldn’t have to help clean up, because you never have to when you eat out? Let’s reclaim the lost art of hospitality and of offering our gifts.

Organize potlucks and enjoy them!

Many of the “old” potluck traditions are based on an earlier time when women were responsible for cooking and didn’t work outside of the house full-time. People who lived closer to one other and knew one other for longer were confident that their efforts today would be returned tomorrow. But in today’s busy, transient, and increasingly “me-centered” world, we may need to define monetary and work contribution more explicitly. By rethinking our approach to potlucks, we can continue to enjoy the age-old tradition of sharing good food and good company.

What do you think? Does your community share many of the problems discussed here—or not? If you participate regularly in potlucks, what works? Do you have additional suggestions? Feel free to provide your feedback in the comments section below.

Dale S. Brown works on a portfolio of projects that empower people both in personal growth and political power. She lives in Washington, D.C. and is a guest blogger for the Center for a New American Dream. She blogs about how frugality financially empowered her, enabling her to take an early retirement at age 50 and live on her income.

Earlier posts from Dale S. Brown:

My Story of Frugality: Breaking My Economic Dependence on My Job

Spending Strategies: How Frugality Helped Me Cut Costs and Gain Freedom from Work

Are You Being Frugal, or Just Plain Cheap?

Beyond GDP: New Measures for a New Economy

Lisa Mastny — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:23:55 -0500

A new report from Demos, Beyond GDP: New Measures for a New Economy, points out the problems with using GDP as the predominant benchmark of our economic and social progress.

In reality, GDP obscures or ignores essential aspects of Americans’ economic and social welfare, as well as important social and environmental dimensions of our national welfare and future well-being.

The report illustrates how, when we hold GDP against other indicators, it’s clear that our policy priorities have been wrong for 30 years. But a pervasive narrative linking GDP and market growth to social progress has shielded our politics from any real accountability for the lack of progress most Americans rightly feel in their everyday lives.

Demos has also released a set of infographics, Does Growth Equal Progress? The Myth of GDP, that charts important social measures against GDP growth. The infographics show that GDP growth has not delivered real progress for average Americans, supporting the case for why GDP is an incomplete measure and needs to be supplemented by alternative measures that are much better suited to the economic challenges we face today.

Among the points noted in the report:

GDP does not distinguish between spending on bad things and spending on good things. By this measurement, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico “positively” contributed to the economy just like the many good and services that people actually want or need.

GDP doesn’t account for the distribution of growth. Our total national income has doubled over 30 years, and so has the share of national income going to the wealthiest households, but average households have seen little or no income gains. GDP doesn’t care if growth is captured by a few or widely shared.

GDP doesn’t account for depletion of natural capital and ecosystem services. If all the fish in the sea are caught and sold next year, global GDP would see a big boost while the fishing industry itself would completely collapse.

GDP doesn’t reflect things that have no market price but are good for our society, like volunteer work, parenting in the home, and public investments in education and research.

The report recommends advancing national accounting reforms and other alternative measures of economic progress and well-being, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator. But it also notes that these technical changes alone will not be enough.

Rather, these changes will be integral to transforming our politics—broadly, making it more and more difficult for politicians, business leaders, and the media to hide behind GDP growth while ignoring deteriorating household living standards and well-being, unsustainable environmental impacts, and the social disarray caused by public disinvestment in non-market goods like parenting, education, health, and other key sources of human and social well-being.

Helping Communities Think Systemically: An Interview with Eleanor Sterling

Lisa Mastny — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:58:57 -0500

In January 2012, New Dream spoke with Eleanor Sterling, Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History and a member of our Board of Directors, about the need for “big picture” thinking to address the world’s most pressing environmental and conservation challenges.

Can you briefly describe your work with the American Museum of Natural History?

I direct the Museum’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC), which aims to mitigate critical threats to the world’s biological and cultural diversity. We work across the globe, across the tree of life, and across disciplines to better understand biodiversity and the relationship between people and the natural world around them.

One of the many important things the CBC does is to bring the Museum’s strengths in science, education, and outreach to local communities, especially those at the forefront of the biodiversity crisis. We foster collaboration at the local, national, and international levels in order to build professional, institutional, and community capacity for conservation. Our approach focuses on developing local leadership to provide a foundation for ongoing conservation activities. We are proponents of a global outlook but encourage local, community-based action.

You’re also a big proponent of systems thinking. Can you explain what you mean by this?

One of the things CBC seeks to do is raise people’s awareness that the choices we make as individuals, governments, businesses, etc. have an impact on human health, well-being, and the environment. By taking a systems approach, we encourage people to focus on the interrelationships or linkages among the different parts of a system and how they work together as a whole.

Oftentimes, scientists or policymakers focus in on just one part of a system, and by doing so they may create a larger problem than the one they were hoping to fix. For example, someone concerned about food shortages might choose to work on improving yields, by growing more grain per acre. But if they haven’t also thought about the potential problems with food distribution—transporting crops from the field to far-off tables—or if they don’t consider the downstream consequences of applying fertilizers or other chemicals to increase the yield, this can result in greater societal costs that aren’t currently factored in to calculations. We can’t continue to parse out issues and pretend that they’re separate from other issues, without major consequences down the line.

Why is it so important to take a bigger-picture perspective? And is it always practical to approach environmental and other problems this way?

One of our former students at Columbia University, Dr. Andrés Gómez, was trained initially as a veterinarian and then studied for his doctorate in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. He talks about how a vet is trained to hone in on a problem—for instance, trying to rid a single cow of an intestinal parasite. The vet may prescribe drugs that reduce the parasite threat, thus achieving a positive outcome for the individual cow. But when these drugs leave the cow’s body, they can impact a wide range of other organisms. They may kill off dung beetles that normally help break down the cow’s dung—recycling nutrients and keeping fly populations in check. A decline in dung beetle populations can result in a loss of biodiversity and an increase in pests, potentially boosting the spread of disease across the entire herd of cows. So Dr. Gómez asks, who should his patient be? The single cow? The whole herd? Or the ecosystem of which the cow is just one part?

Sometimes it’s difficult to determine the most effective level at which to tackle a problem. Part of the reason we focus in on subsets of a system is because it is so much easier than trying to envision all the connections across a system and understanding which are the most important. It helps to take interdisciplinary approaches to problems and to learn from other communities and specialists when addressing a problem, as this makes it easier for us to identify key connections.

Can you provide an example of how CBC helps communities address conservation challenges from a systems perspective?

Part of our role is to help people understand the repercussions of their decisions, and to get them actively involved in generating outcomes that are more positive for the system as a whole. In 2007, we worked with the Greenbelt Native Plant Center in New York City to launch the Great Pollinator Project. The project leverages growing concern about the health of native pollinators and native plants by engaging a group of “citizen scientists” from around the community. These volunteers help us gather valuable data on the city’s bees in order to influence land management practices that will benefit local populations of these key pollinators.

Thirty percent of human crops depend on pollinators, and replacement costs for the free “services” that pollinators provide would be in the billions of dollars in the U.S. alone. In New York and other cities, most plants in community gardens, parks, and natural areas rely on bees to move pollen from flower to flower so that the plants can reproduce. Fortunately, because insect pollinators are small, there is much that can be done in urban environments to support them, even in small habitat patches.

For the past four years, our volunteer “Bee Watchers” have submitted observations from five boroughs to quantify the services these pollinators bring. The Museum has also used its world-class facilities to identify New York City’s 232 documented bee species, probably one of the most comprehensive inventories of bees in any urban center. While it would be hard or even impossible for scientists to survey such a vast area themselves, by collaborating with interested community members, we can gather information on general patterns and identify areas that merit greater scientific attention. Meanwhile, our volunteers benefit by learning more about the important role of pollinators and participating actively in local conservation efforts.

Do you feel like the conservation movement needs to do a better job in helping people make the connections between their everyday choices as consumers and some of the wider conservation challenges we face?

Conservation is intricately related to consumer culture. It’s important to get people to recognize that their individual actions have an impact, and that making behavioral change is crucial to protecting the global environment. One important area that addresses this link is change in America’s food system. The food choices that we make hugely impact the environment, and by raising awareness among consumers and changing consumer behavior, we can also bring about important political change.

More and more, we are seeing biodiversity conservation issues dovetail with health issues that affect people directly. For instance, climate change and pollution both have clear and potentially severe consequences for human and non-human species. In addition, we are starting to understand the connections between how we manage our lands and the consequences for human health, for instance in the patterns of loss of biodiversity and higher transmission of Lyme disease in the northeastern U.S., or the relationship between loss of forests and increase in malaria. As these connections become better understood, I believe we will see more collaboration between groups working on consumer culture issues and conservation biologists.

What advice would you give to someone seeking to promote behavioral change in his or her community? Are there certain steps that you’ve found to be particularly helpful, in your own experience?

A first step we find to be helpful is what we call “zero time”—the time it takes to get to know a diverse set of people from a community and learn how the various community members perceive issues and problems. Only after this first step can project participants work to co-evolve understanding of the issues and potential solutions. Any project you undertake has to be relevant for the community with which you’re working, and the project’s relevance and importance should be embedded on a cultural level. As part of a community, you’re co-understanding and co-acting to create positive change.

What led you to work in the conservation field, and to work directly with communities? Was there a defining moment that influenced your career path and overall values?

My family always encouraged personal and professional commitment to excellence and concern for others. The town I grew up in, Davis, California, reinforced and enhanced these values, particularly in helping me better understand my role as a steward of the environment. Davis has a wonderful community spirit and a longstanding dedication to sustainability issues.

Davis was one of the first places in the U.S. to install bike lanes some 40 years ago, and we all rode our bikes everywhere. I recall biking to school in the 1970s, past student-built co-housing cooperative dome-homes and passing through the Village Homes neighborhood where most of the buildings incorporate solar energy technology. My family and friends would bike to the annual Whole Earth Festival, where we would sample soy ice cream. All of this sounds commonplace now, but it was all new then. I had teachers in grade school who continued to foster these values, and they helped me develop my interest in the living world around us.

You’ve been a member of the board of the Center for a New American Dream for several years. What drew you to New Dream, and what role do you see the organization playing in encouraging the kinds of systemic changes you’re advocating?

I first learned about New Dream when we developed a series at the Museum called “Living with Nature,” where we explored the importance of personal choice—in our food, energy, what we buy, how we spend our time locally, and how we raise our children. We wanted to make the connection between choices we make and the health of humans and our environment. We realized that [current New Dream board members] Betsy Taylor and Juliet Schor were leaders in these issues, and invited them to serve as panelists. I believe that New Dream continues to foster this important dialogue, helping people to address the big-picture challenges we all face by providing positive, inspiring examples of actions that people can take both as individuals and in their communities.

Eleanor Sterling is Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History and Director of Graduate Studies and adjunct faculty at Columbia University's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology. She received her Ph.D and M.Phil. in Anthropology and Forestry and Environmental Studies from Yale University and her B.A. from Yale College.

If It's Broke, Fix it! A Glimpse into Brooklyn's Fixers Collective

Jennifer Prediger — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:23:36 -0500

by Jennifer Prediger

Living in a consumer culture, it can feel like we’re on an endless treadmill of buying things only to have them break. Making plans to fix things is one way to outsmart planned obsolescence.

But where does one go to make mends? The Fixers Collective in Brooklyn, New York, is a place where people get together to put things back together. Master fixers and people with broken things convene each month to sew, patch, and restore the tired and broken items of everyday life.

This handy collective is a “social experiment in improvisational fixing and mending,” according to the group’s founders. During their regular meetings, regular and first-time fixers come together to create a can-do community

Amid a room full of tools, circuits get soldered, lamps get revamped, and vacuum cleaners get lovingly restored by helping hands.

When the handle breaks off a suitcase, why buy another piece of luggage when you can fix the one you have, in the company of new friends? Fixers learn new skills while deepening appreciation for the object being fixed.

If you’d like to fix the world, perhaps the first step is by fixing the DVD player that stopped working or the broken vacuum cleaner you’re thinking of putting out on the curb.

Want to learn more about the art of "working together to fix things in our lives?" Check out the Fixers Collective website.

Here's a video from Ask Umbra’s visit to the Fixers Collective on Grist.org:

Have a broken umbrella? Check out this video with step-by-step instructions on how to turn a broken umbrella into a tote bag. It’s an important reminder that what’s broken can also be transformed.

E-Waste: What to Do With That Old Gadget

Lisa Mastny — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:59:15 -0500

Are you among the many thousands of Americans who replaced a TV, computer, cell phone, or other gadget this holiday season? If so, why not make the responsible choice and donate or recycle your old equipment, rather than just dumping it in the trash?

The first step, of course, is to try to donate any items you no longer want. Most thrift stores and charities gladly welcome donations of clean items in good working order. And even some items that don't currently work might be fixable—provided there's someone near you who can do the job. In New York, the Brooklyn-based Fixers Collective helps revive "dead" ink-jet printers, cell phones, TVs, and other items that their owners had long given up hope on.

If an item can't be fixed, your best option is recycling, rather than simply trashing an item. In 17 U.S. states, it's actually illegal to dump computers, printers, and TVs in the garbage. Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, New York (for businesses), North Carolina, South Carolina, and Vermont are among those that have banned electronic waste from landfills, requiring it to be recycled so its toxic materials don’t leach into groundwater. Seven of these bans took effect in 2011, and two more will take effect soon: Illinois in January 2012 and Pennsylvania in January 2013.

Meanwhile, at least 25 states have passed e-waste recycling laws. These laws require the electronics manufacturers to pay for the costs of collecting and recycling TVs, computers, laptops, and monitors. The rules save local governments money by requiring manufacturers to help cover recycling bills for participating municipal programs, including the costs of hauling and processing the e-waste.

Unfortunately, you can't just choose any e-waste recycler. Many recyclers simply export your old products, dumping them on developing countries where the workers who dismantle the products are exposed to heavy metals and other toxic components.

The wisest choice is to use a recycler that is part of the “e-Steward” network; they don’t export to developing nations, and they follow other high standards. Many also will reuse and refurbish equipment. Visit the e-Stewards website to find a responsible recycler near you.

In some cases, electronics retailers will even take back used items for recycling, even if you bought them elsewhere. Examples include Best Buy (for TVs and other electronics) and Staples (though only during scheduled recycling events). For a list of individual manufacturers who will take back used items, click here.

To learn more about e-waste recycling, check out the Electronics TakeBack Coalition's Guide to Recycling Your Electronics.

To learn more about the fascinating "life-cycle" of electronics products, watch "The Story of Electronics," below:

Can the Rewards of Travel Outweigh the Planetary Costs?

Amy Curtis — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:52:20 -0500

Although normally a full-time student at the University of Virginia, I’ve decided to be a traveler for the semester and study abroad at the National University of Ireland at Galway.

I’ve scoured my Lonely Planet guide and created endless itineraries of places to explore during my getaway. (“Cultural immersion” will be my primary mode of learning during these four months; I’ll save the heavy book work for home.) But while marveling at the inexpensive flights from Ireland to continental Europe—London for 14 Euro! Barcelona for 30!—I’m beginning to contemplate the environmental repercussions of my wanderlust.

More than a billion travelers traverse the globe every year, and the implications can be tremendously detrimental to the environment. These potential negative effects are both local and global: oceanfront hotels contribute to beach erosion in Hawaii, rising numbers of visitors threaten the fragile ecosystems of the Galapagos Islands, and carbon dioxide emissions from planes are a growing contributor to global warming everywhere.

But despite these repercussions, traveling also makes one appreciate the Earth; seeing the natural beauty of the landscape has the potential to turn anyone into an ardent environmentalist. So don’t neglect the Seven Wonders of the World—just think about how to view them with the least amount of environmental impact.

Some tips to consider

Although the term is often co-opted, “ecotourism” in its purest form encompasses travel that respects the natural and cultural environment of the places you visit. That means conserving plants, wildlife, and other resources; respecting local cultures and ways of life; and contributing positively to local communities. Read one group’s take on the 12 best "ethical" destinations in 2012.

Carefully select a hotel, thinking about its commitment to sustainability. Ask if the hotel is locally owned and operated, staffed by local employees, practices recycling, and contributes to the local community. You don’t need to sacrifice creature comforts or venture into the middle of nowhere to be a green traveler; you can visit big cities or small villages, and stay in small ecolodges or luxury hotels. Learn more about some of the steps that hotels are taking from the Green Hotels Association.

Before leaving home, turn off all lights, unplug electrical equipment, and adjust heating and cooling devices. Don’t purchase mini-travel size packages (they seem tempting but waste a lot of plastic, so try to use reuse small bottles instead), go online to book non-stop flights if available (take-off and landing are the most fuel-intensive parts of air travel), and identify public transit options at your destination. Once you arrive, shop at local stores rather than large chains to support the local economy, and respect the various amenities provided by the hotel. Just because you’re not paying the electric bill, it doesn’t mean you should leave the lights on all day.

While you’re away, think about activities that are both culturally stimulating and environmentally healthy. Appreciation of natural landmarks through outdoor activities, including hiking and camping, can provide unforgettable memories. Check out National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations for useful travel resources (and lovely photography).

Before feeling guilty about the environmental implications of your travels, imagine for a moment traveling with me to this serene Swiss Whitepod resort.* We’ll use carbon offsetting to account for our emissions releases and feast on local cheese and wine. An environmentally friendly ice igloo tucked into the Alps? I might just attempt to study abroad every semester.

* For a more budget-friendly option, consider renting a yurt in Vermont, Michigan, Colorado, or numerous other locations across the United States.

Amy Curtis is a student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and an intern at the Center for a New American Dream.

B Corporations: Driving a New Ecology of Commerce

Elsa Jagniecki — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:40:03 -0500

“I hope that five years from now, ten years from now, we’ll look back and say this was the start of the revolution. The existing paradigm isn’t working anymore—this is the future.”
—Yvon Chouinard, founder and CEO of outdoor clothing company Patagonia

There’s a growing buzz about a new kind of business model that is centered around building better business, social enterprise, and corporate policy.

So-called Benefit Corporations (a.k.a. "B Corps") are leaders in a new type of commerce that uses business as a lever to solve social and environmental problems. B Corps are about changing (or rather growing) corporate laws, standards, systems, and cultures—evolving capitalism to incorporate greater value for consumers, companies, and other stakeholders.

B Corps ask the question: “How do we use business as a tool for social change?”

The answer is straightforward: Business can promote social change by harnessing the growing market demand for a “new” or “creative” capitalism, using an approach that’s backed by solid certification and standards. These rigorous metrics then underpin each business’s unique story of becoming greener or more sustainable.

“Governments and nonprofits are necessary but insufficient to solve today’s most pressing problems,” says Jay Coen Gilbert, who co-founded the nonprofit B Lab in 2007 with two friends from Stanford. ”Business is the most powerful force on the planet and can be a positive instrument for change.” (To learn more about Gilbert's vision to harness the power of business to solve society's problems, view below or click here.)

Philadelphia-based B Lab is the brainchild behind the B Corps movement, and the institution that helps businesses make the change. It drives systematic change in how business works through three main initiatives:

Building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for people to tell the difference between “good companies” and just good marketing;
Accelerating growth in the “impact investing” asset class—B Lab’s Global Impact Investment Rating System analyses the performance of companies that are not only socially responsible, but that also actively create positive social and environmental impact; and
Promoting legislation to create a new corporate form that meets higher standards of purpose, accountability, and transparency.

B Corps have been growing in number across the United States for years, leading the way in social responsibility and higher performance standards. They are now pushing toward a tipping point in how ethical business happens, by setting socially and environmentally based goals rather than focusing purely on economic return-on-investment.

So far, B Lab has certified more than 515 B Corp companies, corporations, and organizations, which together boast more than $2.9 billion in revenue. They include businesses in some 60 different industries, from baked goods and the arts to plastics and capital investments. Among the B Corp ranks are outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia, travel networking group CouchSurfing International, herbal tea and supplement provider Traditional Medicinals, solar energy installer Namaste Solar, and Portland, Oregon-based Bamboo Sushi, the first certified, sustainable sushi restaurant in the world.

How do you become a B Corp?

By registering as a Benefit Corporation, a company commits itself to:

Creating a material positive impact on society and the environment;
Expanding its fiduciary duty to require consideration of non-financial interests when making decisions; and
Reporting on its overall social and environmental performance using recognized third-party standards.

To become a Certified B Corp, a company must go through a rigorous B Impact Assessment, which involves an initial audit followed by a guided process to become more resource efficient and socially responsible. Once a business undergoes this assessment, anyone can check on its performance data and better understand the practices behind its products and services. Certification must be renewed every two years.

A business has to score at least 80 points out of 200 to become B Corp-certified, but companies are encouraged to push their limits and strive for ever-greater resource efficiency, social responsibility, and community investment. Most B Corps do seek to go further, driven by an expanding green market that favors entrepreneurial sustainability.

Why do companies want to be B Corps?

Even during a time of economic uncertainty, companies are seeking sustainable business paths because of the growing consumer demand for better business. Increasingly, the market demands that companies “do good” for society and the environment if they want to remain competitive. Especially with more products originating from unlabeled sources, more people are looking for clear standards, ratings, and certifications that affirm the quality, safety, and "green-ness" of the things they buy.

A 2007 study from the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) reported that 58 percent of Americans are more likely to buy products and services from a company that is mindful of its social and ecological impacts. Even more, NMI found that 68 million American adults make purchasing decisions based on their personal, social, and environmental values. The research found that consumers are willing to spend up to 20 percent more for environmentally sound products and services.

By becoming B Corp-certified, a business is able to solidly offer its clients, members, or constituents value-added products and services—”feel good” elements that are additional to what they provided traditionally. Some businesses might be aligned with certain environmental or social justice principles, such as using organic or fair trade inputs and avoiding child labor, or they may simply see the business case in crafting a more a socially responsible model.

The founders of the Nest Collective, a California-based group that hosts consumer-product brands focused on nourishing babies, toddlers, and kids with healthy, organic foods, note that Nest “became a B Corporation because it represents a new way of conducting business and aligns with our mission of nurturing people and the planet. Being part of the B-Corp community helps us to stay abreast of best practices in fostering our goal of being a triple-bottom-line business, not just in terms of sustainability, but also transparency.”

Similarly, Maria Uspenski. founder and owner of The Tea Spot in Boulder, Colorado, explains that her looseleaf tea and tea accessories business "became a B Corp because we see it as a process that can help us build an even more sustainable and valuable company for our employees, stakeholders, and community.” The Tea Spot works to ensure that its products uphold clean, sustainable, and fair manufacturing standards, and its message is simple and powerful: tea in its freshest form renders incredible flavor, unmatched health benefits, and is eco-friendly.

Not just business: How B Corps are changing the corporate playing field

The B Corp movement is also driving broader, structural change in the corporate world. So far, seven states, including California, Hawaii, Virginia, Maryland, Vermont, and New Jersey, have adopted legislation designating a new legal status for Benefit Corporations, and more states have this legislation pending. This is a significant step, given that state laws have traditionally required corporations to prioritize the financial interests of shareholders over the interests of workers, communities, and the environment.

Under the new B Corp legal structure, businesses gain a way of integrating social and environmental considerations into their operations while also ensuring protection from shareholders who are concerned solely about protecting their financial interests.

On January 3, 2012, outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia become California’s first registered B Corp. In a press release announcing the certification, CEO and founder Yvon Chouinard observed that becoming a B Corporation validates what he set out to do when he first started the company, and protects its mission into the future: “Patagonia is trying to build a company that could last 100 years. Benefit corporation legislation creates the legal framework to enable mission-driven companies like Patagonia to stay mission-driven through succession, capital raises, and even changes in ownership, by institutionalizing the values, culture, processes, and high standards put in place by founding entrepreneurs.”

With opportunities like these, what company wouldn't want to become a B Corp?

Elsa Jagniecki is founder and lead consultant at Bright Green, a sustainability consulting firm based in Durango, Colorado that offers practical, innovative, and creative solutions to help businesses go above and beyond – generating a lasting positive impact in commerce and the community.

Economic Fallacies: Is It Time to Work More, or Less?

Juliet Schor — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:50:15 -0500

This opinion piece first appeared in The Guardian on January 10, 2012

Economists are fond of pointing out fallacies in economic logic, and unorthodox economists are especially fond of the sport. Adam Smith's famous maxim that the self-interested behavior of individuals produces the common good is one widely-held fallacy. It was spectacularly debunked by the selfish behavior of the 1% who crashed the world economy in 2008.

Keynes' fallacy of composition is another well-known example of debunking. Standard thinking holds that if people try to save more in order to cope with stagnation, that will lower interest rates, spur investment and create more jobs and growth. Keynes showed that higher saving in the absence of sufficient demand would actually lead to reductions in investment, a contraction in output, and, in the end, less benefits from saving for the thrifty.

There's another analogous fallacy going around, which is that hard times should lead us to work longer and more intensively. A new economics foundation conference I'm attending in London this week will take up the question of working hours. Should wealthy countries be thinking about raising or lowering hours of work?

On the face of it, the work intensification approach makes sense. The downturn has reduced incomes and growth. For the individual, trying to work more is sensible – future conditions in the labour market are more uncertain. Expected future returns on financial assets are lower. Housing prices are deflating. For a nation experiencing relative decline, putting its nose to the grindstone makes intuitive sense.

But acting this way en masse risks triggering forces that operate in the other direction. Right now we're experiencing glutted labour markets, in OECD countries as well as globally. Labour economist Richard Freeman estimates that over the last decade, the effective global labour supply has about doubled, from 1.46 to 2.93 billion. If people offer more hours to the market, wages fall and unemployment rises. Excess supply of labour also undermines investment and innovation, which accelerate when labour is scarce relative to capital.

Lump of labour! Lump of labour, the critics will cry. That's the supposed mistake of economists like me who call for reductions in work hours during times of high unemployment. The critics believe the market can always provide enough work for whoever wants it.

But are they right? There's little question that most of the OECD now finds itself in a Keynesian world of weak aggregate demand, ineffectual monetary policy and investor pessimism. And reducing budget deficits makes these problems worse. Corporations are sitting on enormous cash reserves, unwilling to invest them, which means that falling wages won't clear the labour market and lead to more employment.

In the models of neo-classical economics times like the present are assumed away. But when we're actually living through them, we need to recognise that measures that result in higher hours can be counter-productive by creating more unemployment and investor pessimism. Similarly, responding to shortfalls in pension programs by asking people to stay in the labour force more years further dis-equilibrates the market by creating more demand for a limited number of jobs. Sometimes there are impediments to job creation, and we happen to be living through one of those painful periods.

For most of the last 150 years, the nations of the global north have kept their labour markets in balance partly by continuous reductions in hours of work. These increases in leisure time have been funded by higher labour productivity. But recently, the US, Japan and the UK have done far less of this than other wealthy countries. In the States, hours have actually risen, which is part of why unemployment and underemployment are so high. Worktime reduction has become another causality of the wrong-headed economics of austerity. It's time to change that, and to recognise that when it comes to hours of work, less is actually more.

Juliet Schor is a Professor of Sociology at Boston College and the author of True Wealth. She is a co-founder and co-chair of the Board at the Center for a New American Dream.

Reality Strikes Back: A Review of Richard Heinberg’s The End of Growth

Chris Stratton — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:06:42 -0500

If you’re worried about the recession and looking for reassurance that the world’s economies will soon be back on track and everything will return to normal, you should probably stop reading now.

But maybe you’re concerned about all the debt we’re in. Maybe you’re skeptical about how we currently measure societal progress and personal well-being. If you’re prepared to examine the hard, unsettling economic and environmental realities that await us, then may I recommend to you, brave reader, Richard Heinberg’s The End of Growth.

Heinberg’s overarching message is that the current economic downturn is not temporary and that, because we have now reached fundamental, unalterable ecological limits, economic growth is gone for good. In other words, the world is in for a permanent economic depression, as currently defined.

Heinberg sets up his defense of this profound assertion by first exploring the historical context of the discipline of economics, demonstrating how theories that have existed since Adam Smith’s time still influence our decision making about national debt dilemmas.

Heinberg then recounts the 2008 economic crisis in considerable detail and using a lot of jargon. After reading this section, I’m still not sure I know the difference between a mortgage-backed security and a collateralized debt obligation, but I can tell you this: people got greedy. The economy has gotten way, way, (way) too complicated. And our entire economy is now fundamentally addicted to debt and to continued, indefinite growth. Oops.

Heinberg goes on to explain that because we’re reaching peak…well…peak everything, and because economic growth relies on natural resources and the Earth’s ability to process our wastes, this growth simply can’t continue. He says that our money has come to represent claims on goods and services that just don’t exist. Through debt and “fiat” currency, the amount of money in the world just gets bigger and bigger, while the Earth’s total stock of resources remains the same. Something has to give.

Unlike previous authors, going back to Thomas Malthus, then later Dennis and Donella Meadows, Herman Daly, and more recently, Tim Jackson and Gus Speth—to all of whom Heinberg gives their due—he’s not just saying that economic growth should stop or that it will stop. He’s saying that it in fact has stopped, whether we like it or not. Discussion in the popular media aside, this is not a choice. Physical laws dictate that all living things must stop growing at some point and, our adamant resistance notwithstanding, the human species has reached that point.

But haven’t we heard before how growth will stop because we’ve run out of resources? (Think The Population Bomb.) So far, it hasn’t happened. Innovation (say the business people), substitution (say the economists), and efficiency (say the scientists) have always allowed us to overcome any resource limitations and advance along the path of progress and growth—and they will continue to do so in the future. But Heinberg says, not this time. Today, innovation mostly just involves tweaking existing technologies. And some materials fundamental to economic growth—most notably fossil fuels—simply have no substitutes. And efficiency can be used to decouple energy use from economic growth only to a certain point.

Heinberg asserts that the end of growth has profound social and economic implications for “developed” and “developing” countries alike. The argument from the rich has long been that we don’t have to be concerned about redistributing the economic pie (both among and within countries) because the pie is constantly growing; well, without growth, that argument falls apart. And remember all that “development” that developing countries were going to do? …maybe not so much. In short, Heinberg says we’ll no longer have the prospect of growth to paper over issues of inequity. The Occupy movement began after this book was published, but if Heinberg is right, it’s just the beginning of many inequity-based upheavals to come.

Great, so we’re screwed. Now what? The bad news is that we can’t keep “improving” in the ways we have traditionally defined it—primarily by consuming ever more and better stuff. The good news, say Heinberg and many others, is that maybe we don’t need growth to be better off. Maybe our measurements of well-being and progress have been flawed all along. Heinberg advocates for “redefining progress” using alternative economic metrics that, unlike GDP, are not based on how fast we make and consume stuff, but rather on how happy and healthy we are, whether or not our communities are thriving, and how much agency we have in our lives.

And what about all those fossil fuels still in the ground? Heinberg says we must use what viable reserves that remain to transition as gracefully—and quickly—as possible to a steady-state, equitable, renewably powered, bioregion-based economy. No problem, right? But here’s the thing: that’s our only choice. Anything less, and the outcomes are well nigh unthinkable. Welcome to the 21st century!

On the whole, I can’t recommend The End of Growth highly enough. Heinberg is skilled at writing about complex topics in an accessible way without dumbing them down. That said, some concepts he discusses just don’t lend themselves to simplification, so unless you’re accustomed to readings with lots of technical jargon and graphs, parts of the book (especially the chapter describing the causes of our current economic crisis) may be a bit of a slog. But skim, slog, summarize—whatever you need to do to get the gist. It’s worth it! We can’t find our way out of this mess until we have a good understanding of exactly how we got into it.

The End of Growth is essential reading for anyone concerned about the fate of humans. If you care about what may (or may not) become of us, and how we might reasonably go about steering that prospect toward a more desirable outcome, you should study the contents of this book closely. Sharing its contents widely is crucial to our well-being and to the well-being of our progeny.

Chris Stratton lives in Oakland, CA, and researches residential energy efficiency at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Occupy Sustainability?

Juliet Schor — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:54:23 -0500

This opinion piece first appeared in The Guardian on December 21, 2011

With the recent failure of the Durban climate talks, the collapse of carbon prices in Europe, and news that emissions grew a record 6% in 2010, it's time to re-evaluate the economic approach to climate that now dominates the conversation.

The creation of carbon markets, carbon offsetting and the valuation of eco-systems are premised on the idea that marketisation and reliance on economic incentives will yield sustainable outcomes. Many environmentalists like these policies because they seem to work with, rather than against our existing economic institutions and incentives. But as market-thinking expands with eco- and carbon-footprints, an obvious question is whether economics in command has become part of the problem.

It's a conclusion one might draw from analysing the Occupy Wall Street movement. In a few short weeks a rag-tag group of under-thirties has been able to transform the global conversation about economic issues by focusing on three basic points, all of which are essential for stopping runaway climate change and ecological overshoot.

First is the principle of anti-economics: Not everything has, or should have a price. Occupy has reminded us that there are more important things than money. These include human dignity, solidarity, freedom of expression, and morality. By contrast, standard economic thinking rests on the premise that anything can be monetised and that losers can always be bought off by winners. Compensation occurs via the medium of cash, the all-purpose equalizer. This may work for the garden-variety resource cases that economists started with, such as valuing a local park or a minor species, but it's clearly wrong in the case of climate. The value of unpolluted atmosphere is approaching infinity. We are also reaching that part of the "curve" for water, arable land, and ocean eco-systems. The hijacking of the climate conversation onto the terrain of prices, costs and benefits has obscured the real issues and prevented fair solutions. We should be discussing moratoria on new oil and gas exploration and the timetable for phasing out fossil fuels altogether, rather than how rich people can bribe poor people to let them keep polluting.

The issue of rich and poor is the second of Occupy's insights. On environment, distribution is primary. It may not be exactly the 1% and the 99%, as the protestors have it, but they're not too far off. The top 7.5% of the global population are responsible for half of all emissions; the bottom 50% don't emit anything at all. That should be a starting point for the global conversation on climate.

But in the economic models that dominate the policy-making debate, that crucial reality is ignored. Instead, modelers start by achieving an "efficient" outcome. If they worry about distribution, it's only at a later stage. After all, as per the standard approach above, losers can always be compensated by the gains achieved with better policy. This is standard operating procedure in mainstream theory, as any student of Economics 101 can attest. But it's a flawed approach.

One reason is that lack of attention to fairness at the beginning torpedoes chances of implementing policies. Just ask US Congressmen like Ed Markey and Henry Waxman who embedded giveaways to polluters in their climate legislation. It would yield efficient outcomes, their economist supporters assured us. The legislation failed in the end, in large part because of distributional implications that opponents rightly noted were blatantly unfair.

The less obvious reason is that distribution does affect outcomes, unlike in the textbook model. There is now a large body of research on the ways in which income inequality affects health, well-being, social mobility, and the quality of social connections. Emissions and sustainability need to be added to that list. While there's less research on this connection, we do know that commons management is more successful with a more equal distribution, that land reforms reduce deforestation, and that equality is related to other variables that reduce emissions, such as shorter hours of work.

Occupy's final point is that the 1% have captured the state and distorted democracy. They've mostly talked about monetary and fiscal policy, but in most countries, it's no less true on climate and environment. In North America, the economic power of the mega-polluters has allowed them to buy politicians and legislative and regulatory outcomes. Flush with cash from the Kochs, coal companies and other polluters, Republicans in the US House of Representatives have moved from climate denial to attempts to shut down the EPA, while the Harper government in Canada, drunk with tar sands profits, has pulled out of the Kyoto Process. But curiously, as the political power of the energy industries has grown, economists' (along with psychologists') explanations of political inaction have gone in a completely different direction: to "neuro-economics" and stories about the inadequacy of the human mind to process risk, think abstractly, or delay gratification. Policy paralysis is seen as a shared human failure of brain functioning. But this is an implausible explanation in a world where seemingly similar humans have marshaled widely divergent responses. Occupy has it right. The most obstructionist nations are the ones with powerful energy sectors, not an excess of people whose pre-frontal cortexes are too small.

As grim as the latest ecological news has been, the successes of the Occupiers should be generating a new wave of optimism among environmentalists. Their challenge to economics in command has radically re-framed the debate. With fairness and democracy as our leading values, rather than efficiency and costs, we may yet have a chance.

Juliet Schor is a Boston-based university lecturer. Her research focuses on trends in work and leisure, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women's issues and economic justice. She is the author of Born to Buy: The Commericalized Child and the New Consumer Culture