Amerindia US Blog

We just found this on Twitter. A variety of useful tips on how to save money, and also have an eco-friendly lifestyle.
http://twitter.com/Rubbingnickels

“If you have an interest in sustainable living, then we’d like to invite you to join the Permaculture Guild in our mission to support the permaculture community and encourage the spread of more conscious ways of growing and distributing healthy, nourishing foods and promoting the use of renewable sources of energy.”
http://www.permacultureguild.org/

The NYT article says discusses this article with a question mark. They haven’t been paying attention to the state of Vermont, which has outlined what a socially responsible business is. They question profitability, when we should be moving toward a world in which “profit” has a different meaning. Rather than huge returns to investors (who in the high stakes games are just gambling, with their finger on the roulette wheel), return can be interpreted to be ‘benefit to the community.’ So yogurt to children isn’t a hugely profitable enterprise in the now rather distorted sense, but it is a high return for the health and benefit of a community. So maybe we get healthy communities we no longer have to beg charities to chuck huge amounts of relief money into where ‘high rates of return’ have sucked it out. We hope this book makes it big, and creates prosperous communities, not just individuals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/business/02shelf.html?emc=eta1

How to move from a lost environment to a renewed environment, climate, and society. Save 20″ to see this worth every second video.
Willie Smits restores a rainforest

While so many US companies and financial institutions are run by people focused on breath-taking salaries and benefits for themselves, Vermont comes to the rescue by proposing legislation that blends good business and social benefit. The below guidelines are lifted from the Burlington Free Press. We hope the BFP and Vermonters won’t mind our spreading the news and highlighting credit where it is due.

The Queen of Amerindia

From the Burlington Free Press:
Legislation has been introduced in Montpelier that would allow companies to exist for other reasons — providing a social good for the community while returning gains to investors. Such companies would register as a “beneficial corporation.”

Vermont would be the first state to enact such legislation, although similar measures are being considered in several states.

What makes a company a B Corp.

The bill pending in the Vermont Legislature to establish so-called beneficial corporations provides several specific examples of such a benefit:

• Providing low-income or underserved individuals or communities with beneficial products or services.

• Promoting economic opportunity for individuals or communities beyond the creation of jobs in the normal course of business.

• Preserving the environment; improving human health; promoting the arts, sciences or advancement of knowledge.

• Increasing the flow of capital to entities with a public benefit purpose.

The measure requires companies make an annual report, detailing their community benefits. A third party rating agency, possibly B Lab, will score the impact of the company’s efforts and those scores will be public. Companies, however, will not be disqualified from being a benefit corporation if they fail to meet goals.