Julie Fahnestock

Julie Fahnestock
Founder and Sustainability Storyteller at B Storytelling
Julie is passionate about telling the story of where business meets good. She is the Founder of B Storytelling, a content development company specifically designed to help popularize the good happening through business. They do this by helping Benefit Corporations and other social enterprises identify, build and leverage their brands. Julie has an MBA in Managing for Sustainability from Marlboro Graduate School. She lives in West Palm Beach, Florida with her husband, Thomas.

Posts by This Writer

6 days 16 hours ago

(3BL Media and Just Means)- When I first became a piscatarian, I thought I was choosing a more ethically conscious diet. Oh, how I was wrong. Exploitation in the seafood industry is as rampant as in most other commodity markets. Trafficking, low-to-no wages, and unsafe conditions are common. The biggest difference is that the exploitation happens in the middle of the ocean where the only escape is overboard. But Fair Trade USA is working to change this story. And it starts with the first fish of its kind: Fair Trade tuna.  

In partnership with Safeway supermarket retailer, Fair Trade tuna will be...
1 week 6 days ago

(3BL Media and Just Means) - It was one of the happiest days in my new company B Storytelling’s business history: a certified letter from Tallahassee was waiting for me in the mailbox. B Storytelling now has the paperwork to prove that we are officially a Florida Benefit Corporation. This means we can submit a copy of this letter, sign the Pending Certification Term Sheet and mail in our $500 filing fee to B Lab. In return, I have full access to the “Certified B Corporation, Pending” logo. This buys me time as I continue to work through the B Impact...
3 weeks 4 days ago

(3BL Media and Just Means)--The national day of love, Valentine’s Day, is next Saturday. Cheap chocolate, tacky decorations and roses define this American holiday. But it can be so much more. If you’re not into predetermined celebrations of love, I’ve got another way to create some Valentine’s Day meaning for you: A Heart for Survivors. It’s a campaign of social enterprise: TO THE MARKET. They partner with the millions of people who have overcome exploitation, human trafficking, and domestic abuse. By selling their beautiful jewelry, clothing and other artisan products, they create access to the Western market and employment for...
1 month 5 days ago

(3BL Media and Just Means) - I’m a solopreneur and I want to belong. I want to belong to the B Corp movement where companies like Method, Etsy, WorkSquare, Suncommon and Green Mountain Power hang together. But what does it really take to join them? Does it make sense for me to spend the time working through a lengthy questionnaire, pay $500, form a Board of Advisers, organize an audit and track all of my impact? If I commit to all of this, will I have time to do my real job, as in provide content strategy and storytelling for the B Corp community?

For me, it’s a no-brainer. I’m joining the B Corp movement. I believe it formalizes “social...
1 month 2 weeks ago

(3BL Media and Just Means) — When’s the last time you walked into your yard or car park, looked up at the trees, and in the same thought, gave thanks for the education of your children?

It’s not a correlation I’ve ever made. But it is to Gustave, a smallholder farmer from Gonaïves, Haiti. Trees are sending his five kids to school. Three of the five are attending high school, analogous to attending Harvard in the United States. Only five percent of children attend high school in Haiti and Gustave’s three children are the first in his family to make it this far.  Trees are making...
2 months 1 week ago

(3BL Media/Justmeans ) - Environmental advocates: They are leaders in solar, wind and hydroelectric energies with 62 percent of their portfolio in renewables. Empowered employees: They were named one of the “Best Places to Work in Vermont.” Approachable leadership: Their CEO knows the names, partners’ names and pets’ names of 600+ employees.

Which company am I describing? You might have guessed I was referring to sustainable business poster children like Patagonia, Ben and Jerry’s or Cabot Creamery. Guess again and instead, think “monopoly.” I’m describing the first,...
2 months 2 weeks ago

(3BL Media and Just Means) - As you reflect on the year 2014 and begin thinking about 2015, don’t forget that your new, five-year goals are inclusive of the year 2020. What kind of impact do you hope to make by then? How about giving $1 billion to farmers, farm workers, factory workers, and fishermen in over 70 countries around the world? That’s the 2020 goal of Fair Trade USA. Since 1998 and the history of the Fair Trade USA label, Fair Trade USA claims to have helped farmers earn an additional $350,000,000, a combination of premiums and price above the market rates. Today,...
2 months 3 weeks ago

(3BL Media and Just Means) - I’m not going to lie. I never intended to use my sustainability, storytelling company to talk about one of world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Glaxosmithkline (GSK). But, I found myself talking about their work with my husband, my mom and with my running partner. GSK's PULSE program is creating hope and change. PULSE connects GSK employees with the needs of NGOs to create long-term impact. They offer their business expertise, internal best practices and create shared value across organizational distinctions. It’s a story worth telling.

And here’...
3 months 2 days ago

(3BL Media and Just Means) - When the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008 and Scott Sadler found himself without a job, he seized the opportunity to make a shift in his career; a change he would not have considered previously. Sadler had developed a solid career in finance and had worked at the VP level with Wachovia Bank and more recently, with Goldman Sachs. But when Goldman Sachs laid off one-third of their staff in Atlanta, Sadler’s wife encouraged him to consider starting a social impact investing firm.

“My wife said, “Let’s do something we’d be proud of.” I told her, “if you mean social impact investing, well, that’s voodoo,” laughs Sadler...
3 months 1 week ago

(3BL Media and Just Means) - I’ve lived most of my life seeing the view from six feet, one inch. My mother swears I was born this tall. Balding heads, cracked ceilings and cobwebs are my normal view. I’ve had unwelcome nicknames like “Amazon,” “Flagpole” (the meaning of my German surname, Fahnestock), and daily I’m asked if I play for the WNBA. So, I’ve never thought about what it might be like to lack the ability to reach the tallest grocery shelf or be unable to sit at a bar with my friends or share direct eye contact with my husband. But this is the reality of the millions of people who use wheelchairs. Of...

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