Taiga Company blog by Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner at Taiga Company
Blog
Can a bicycle be a vehicle for change? Viewed not only as sustainable transportation, bike programs offer a valued link between business, community, and sustainability. Sustainable businesses and the bike industry are pedaling to prosperity but we are still paying more for our cars than we realize. How so? Click here to continue reading, Changing the World One Pedal Stroke at a Time
Taiga Company blog by Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner at Taiga Company
Blog
Pick up the paper or open your favorite daily feed and you will most likely read about a large corporation making changes and capturing business sustainability value. Leveraging immense resources to implement change, how can the average business owner relate?
Taiga Company blog by Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner at Taiga Company
Blog
In the corporate world, most business leaders agree that achieving real bottom line improvements, whether through cost savings or elevated revenues, is critical to business sustainability. However, these bottom line achievements are not a one-way street.
To begin with, many of you did plenty. If you’re reading this post, then it’s likely that you’re active in social media. Public attention to recent nonprofit board scandals, as well as robust participation via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media has been influential in the cases of Penn State, University of Virginia, and the Komen Foundation. There were financial and reputational consequences for organizations led by people who made bad decisions.
In 2011, New Belgium had a waste diversion rate of 94.38 percent
Press Release
(3BL Media) Fort Collins, CO – July 30, 2012 – New Belgium Brewing’s 2011 Waste Diversion Report is now available at newbelgium.com and shows the brewery diverted 94.38 percent of its waste from landfills last year. However, this number would climb significantly if the craft brewer included spent grain, spent yeast, spent Diatomaceous Earth (DE) or Process Water Treatment Plant sludge, since these materials are diverted to local farms. When including these brewing byproducts, the diversion rate jumps to 99.88 percent for 2011.
Taiga Company blog by Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner at Taiga Company
Blog
New data highlight that bicyclists in the United States save at least $4.6 billion a year by riding instead of driving. The post, Pedaling to Prosperity: Biking Saves U.S. Riders Billions A Year shares, "the average annual operating cost of a bicycle is $308, compared to $8,220 for the average car, and if American drivers replaced just one four-mile car trip with a bike each week for the entire year, it would save more than two billion gallons of gas, for a total savings of $7.3 billion a year, based on $4 a gallon for gas."
Employees are closest to the community of stakeholders because they are community stakeholders with the unique perspective of knowing the needs of both the community and the company.
Blog
Recently I attended a conference on social media. One presenter offered up the notion that companies are no longer able to control their ‘brand’ or image using the example of a recent YouTube video ‘United Breaks Guitars’ in which a professional musician sings about how the airline baggage handlers broke his guitar and the company refused to compensate him for the loss of his instrument. When it was my turn to present I asked the audience – in all seriousness – if they really honestly thought that this was something new.
The nonprofit board scandals of the past year are highly distressing: revealing everything from complete board dysfunction in the firing of the CEO at the University of Virginia, to the cover-up of criminal behavior at Penn State, to policy decisions that arguably destroyed Komen's leading nonprofit brand. In all three cases, the financial and reputational losses are quite severe. People to be served by the mission and outsiders have been harmed, the victims at Penn State devastatingly so.
