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Green Entrepreneurs

Being green is more than just a fleeting trend. Many entrepreneurs nowadays are actually aiming to reduce environmental footprint all the while running their businesses. Hence, this section offers fascinating highlights of latest news and views focused on corporate sustainability.

[E4C65] From Idea to Launched Product in 18 Months, Mike Del Ponte of Soma

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My very special guest for today is someone who rocks both my worlds of social entrepreneurship and social media. Mike Del Ponte is the co-founder and CEO of Soma. Soma makes the world’s most innovative water filters and beautiful glass carafes to provide healthy and delicious drinking water. Previously, Mike led marketing at BranchOut, the largest professional network on Facebook. As an early employee, Mike helped grow BranchOut from 0 to 25 million users in 16 months. He is also the founder and former CEO of Sparkseed, a global nonprofit investing in the most promising young social

[E4C15] Turning Amazon Herbs Into Energy Drinks While Preserving Indigenous Medicine – Runa

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One of my passions in life is Amazon medicine. I’ve been to the Amazon rainforest of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil 8 times since 2004, and have been privileged to enter territories that are off limits to foreigners as a guest of the tribes. I’ve spent months in the back country of Brazil, traveling by river, scaling mountains, and staying in indigenous villages as a seeker of plant medicine wisdom. The value I have received as a guest of various tribes – specifically the Huni Kui, the Ashaninka, Puyanawa and Kuntanawa nations - in terms of healing, spiritual growth, expansion of my world

[E4C12] How to Co-Create a Greener Economy, a Better World & Retire with a Million Dollars – Green America

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Alisa Gravitz, the CEO & President of Green America, is a leading expert on how families and businesses can “go green,” saving money and resources. Alisa has helped lead the national agenda to create a socially and environmentally responsible economy for 30 years. She is also a nationally recognized leader in the social investment industry. She authored Green America’s acclaimed Guide to Social Investing, with over a million copies in print, as well as the popular Guide to Community Investing. For the past 30 years, Alisa Gravitz has led Green America, the national green economy

[E4C9] How To Attract VC Funders To Your Social Enterprise with Tyler Gage – Runa

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Tyler Gage is the President and Co-Founder of Runa Amazon Guayusa tea company, a social enterprise that exports sustainably harvested guayusa tea sourced from indigenous communities in Ecuador. An idea that started while attending Brown University in 2008 Runa is now exciting social venture that has lead Tyler to spend the last five years working with indigenous communities in the Amazon developing fair trade initiatives with generous funding from business plan competition prize money, angel and VC investors, USAID, the government of Ecuador, and many other organizations. In this interview,

[E4C6] How You Can Start A Fair Trade, Eco-Friendly Global Import Business – Christine Hutchison of five ACCESSORIES

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five ACCESSORIES is one of the most triple bottom line businesses you will encounter. five ACCESSORIES is a wholesale business whose mission is to empower and deliver sustainable livelihoods for workers and their communities through the sale of eco-friendly and fair traded, locally made products. Products can be found in over 150 national retail stores. Christine Hutchison and her husband Wells founded the company during their honeymoon five years ago. While there, they met a Balinese tour guide who told them how much difference five dollars a month can make to a Balinese family. While

[E4C4] A Quarter Million Dollars On 10 Hours A Week – Green Earth Bamboo

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In this podcast, we'll look at Green Earth Bamboo. Green Earth Bamboo is a family owned e-commerce business that specializes in bamboo viscose products, such as bamboo bedding, towels and bathrobes, clothing, and accessories. Doug Bancorn, Co-Founder of Green Earth Bamboo, shares the nitty gritty of what went into setting up their drop shipping business and offers valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs wanting to set up a green online business, such as: During this interview, Doug will share: What it took to become a profitable 6 figure business in one year, with nearly a quarter

[E4C3] How to Raise Over $700K on Kickstarter & Provide Solar Light to People In Need – WakaWaka

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We’ve got an exciting interview with green entrepreneur Camille Van Gestel of WakaWaka, a company that makes the world’s most efficient solar lights and mobile solar chargers. WakaWaka, which means “shine bright” in Swahili, is a social enterprise that is bringing light to desperate people in times of darkness. For every solar light or mobile solar charger purchased, they give one to a family in need somewhere in the world. In places like Haiti, Syria, and the Philippines. They partner with organizations like the IRC – the International Rescue Committee - to make sure WakaWaka units reach

[E4C2] Turning Home Grown Mushrooms Into A Multi-Million Dollar Business – Back to the Roots

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Back to the Roots is founded in 2009 by young entrepreneurs Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora during their last semester at UC Berkeley. They product gourmet mushroom kits that grow in soil composed of 100% recycled coffee grounds. In this interview, Co-Founder Nikhil Arora shares how their green business idea became a reality, from the early days of collecting used coffee grounds from local Berkeley coffee shops, to their partnerships with Peet’s Coffee and Whole Foods, to the $5 million business it is today. He also talks about the evolution of their product design, and how their urgent

[E4C1] Evolutionary Entrepreneurs Screwing Business As Usual

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Introducing the Entrepreneurs for a Change Podcast My name is Lorna Li, and I’m pleased to announce the launch of the Entrepreneurs for a Change podcast on iTunes, a radio show featuring entrepreneurs who are choosing to “screw business as usual.” In this very first episode I’m going to talk about: Why business can be an even greater force for good than charity The kinds of world changing entrepreneurs we are going to interview for this podcast The juicy questions I’ll be asking to uncover exactly how these entrepreneurs succeeded in growing their business I’ll share with you the

Anandi Pads: Helping Girls Gain Full Attendance at School

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Women in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra are losing daily wages, and young women are missing up to 50 days of school per year, and all because of a lack of affordable sanitary towels. This is a social problem than can be solved through social entrepreneurship and Anandi Pads, created by Jaydeep Mandal of Aakar Innovations, aims to abolish this obstacle for girls by creating affordable, accessible green solutions. How Jaydeep Mandal and Anandi Pads is Solving an Education Crisis with Affordable, Accessible and Compostable Sanitary Towels Numerous girls and women worldwide stay