CENTER FOR BUSINESS
AS AN AGENT OF WORLD BENEFIT

Elaine’s American Maid is more than a cleaning referral service. It’s an enterprise that is built on the passion for helping single mothers who are forced into the workforce to support their children. Equipping women with entrepreneurial skills by helping them open their own cleaning services and providing them the flexibility to be with their children is what makes this organization truly unique in creating a positive impact through business.

GrameenPhone has a dual purpose: to receive an economic return on its investments and to contribute to the economic development of Bangladesh where telecommunications can play a vital role. This is why GrameenPhone, in collaboration with Grameen Bank, is aiming to place one phone in each village to contribute significantly to the economic uplift of those villages. Grameen Phone’s basic strategy is coverage of both urban and rural areas. In contrast to the “island” strategy followed by some companies, which involves connecting isolated islands of urban coverage through transmission links, GrameenPhone builds continuous coverage, cell after cell. While the intensity of coverage may vary from area to area depending on market conditions, the basic strategy of cell-to-cell coverage is applied throughout GrameenPhone’s network.

Hair Innovations’ owner designs, makes, and fits wigs for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The service is provided free of charge, and patients are often served at their location (home, hospital). The business also offers support to local Boys and Girls Clubs, and has become a model for community engagement.

London Cleaners is a dry cleaning company that chose to break the environmentally unfriendly connotations attached to such establishments. By adopting a newer and greener way to clean called the GreenEarth cleaning system; the company has ensured excellent service for its customers, health of its employees, and sustainability for itself.

Macroplastic, maker of plastic bags, along with a businessman from a supermarket chain, a non-governmental organization and the Federation of Industries (FIEP) for the state of Curitiba have decided to address the issue of garbage pollution in one of Brasil’s most industrialized regions. The innovative scheme to address the consumer-caused pollution is working in one area, Matinho. Macroplastic produces grocery bags of 6 different colors (rather than traditional, single one-design-fits-all bags). A supermarket chain purchases the bags for their regular packaging needs, the consumers receive the bags for free when shopping for groceries, and get educated about recycling process by trash collectors who are trained to separate and handle the trash correctly and communicate with consumers around the right use of bags.

Patagonia defines the quality of its company by the degree to which it can reduce its impact on the environment. To that end it has celebrated the cultural histories of the communities it is located in by recycling and restoring existing structures whenever possible. From 1996-1998 the company restored two buildings - one in Reno and one in California - and became more energy efficient with the goal of demonstrating that alternatives to conventional, waste-intensive construction practices and energy generation exist and yield structures that are more sustainable and in harmony with the environment.

In 1993, Patagonia adopted fleece made from post consumer recycled plastic soda bottles into its clothing product line, becoming the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to do so. Known as PCR® clothing, it created a positive step towards a more sustainable system. Today, the company uses PCR® fleece in about 31 products, and has saved some 86 million soda bottles from the trash heap and reports the addition of PCR® filament yarn to some products in its line. PCR® filament yarn contains 30-50% post-consumer feedstock and the remainder is post-industrial feedstock, allowing Patagonia to make both lining and shell out of recyclable materials.

In 1996, Patagonia converted its entire sportswear line to 100% organically grown cotton. This decision followed the findings from an independent research company commissioned by Patagonia to give an environmental impact assessment of four major fibers. The company learned that oil-based polyester and nylon were big energy consumers and sources of pollution, but nowhere near that of cotton. They made a decision in the fall of 1994 to take the cotton sportswear 100% organic by 1996, giving the company eighteen months to make the switch for 66 products – and only four months to line up the fabric.