These are a little different from the usual round-up of green apps, but they just might be what you need to move your business or social enterprise to the next level. On this list, you’ll find 20 sustainability apps that do everything from encourage transparency about building materials in real estate to predict the effect of chemicals in home products that get dumped down the drain. The apps also use innovative tools like gamification and cloud computing to help entrepreneurs go green. What they all have in common is helping people connect, share and collaborate to solve our society’s biggest challenges.
Source: Greenbiz
Tag: sustainable business
The Company That’ll Change How You Throw a Party Forever
Nothing says “successful party” like a huge overflowing trash can full of paper plates and plastic cups. But ugh, so much waste. Brooklyn performance artist Emily Doubilet took this on as problem she could solve with a new business with a conscience. Her “Susty Party” products are eco-friendly, colorful and manufactured in the U.S. by an Ohio non-profit that employs visually impaired people. She’s one of five $40,000 winners of the Hitachi Foundation’s Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs Program this year.
Is Your Green Fashion Idea Oscar Worthy?
Green-minded Project Runway fans who saw the rise and calamitous fall of sustainable fashion designer Timothy Westbrook this year, take heart. There’s still time (until Nov. 30) to enter this year’s Red Carpet Green Dress sustainable fashion contest. The winner’s design idea will be created and worn at the Academy Awards next March. Actress Naomie Harris rocked last year’s winning dress at the Academy Awards. You don’t even know how to sew—it’s your inspiration, innovation and creativity that’s being judged.
Social Enterprise Incubator Hatches in Portland, Oregon
Birds of a feather flock together, so it makes sense that a new sustainable business support center in Oregon is called Hatch. Tenants in the green co-working space (including energy-efficient lighting and recycled windows) will work alongside liked-minded companies who share their commitment to doing good while making a living. The site will also sponsor and support newly emerging social enterprises in the LaunchLab and host monthly expert lectures. This kind of collaborative co-working space is picking up steam around the country as part of the “new mutualism” movement that brings independent workers and businesses together for win-win partnerships.
The Company That’s Keeping Junk Out of School Cafeterias
Word association. I say, “school lunch,” you say…. “Gross.” “Junk food.” “Mystery meat.” It doesn’t have to be that way, and a young Chicago couple is proving it. They didn’t like the choices available at their son’s preschool, so they started Gourmet Gorilla.* Four years later, the company delivers 10,000 better meals and snacks to 90 elementary and preschools each school day. They source about 70% of their ingredients locally and from organic suppliers. Now, I’m fully aware that money is the elephant in the room for school lunch choices, especially in cash-strapped urban public school systems. But there’s always a way to do a bit better. Our kids deserve it.
*I’m betting this is a play on the irresistible kid’s book Goodnight Gorilla.