Frankie James had dinner with a stranger, and the results were more than awesome.
Month: February 2009
Track Ethical Companies on Scryve
Scryve is a site that tracks the behaviour of organizations and companies based on how they respect their communities and the environment. Each organizations is rated on a scale of 1-10 to provide a quick glance as to how good they are.
IssueLab Researches Some Good
The folks over at IssueLab have sent me some neat stuff that they and their research contributers are up to. One of their research contributers has done some research into who’s Lobbying for Good and they’ve done an introspective CloseUp for last year.
“Lobbying for Good” explores how nonprofits are increasingly working with
their corporate partners to leverage companies’ political clout and
governmental affairs departments in support of cause related lobbying
efforts. (For instance, companies like Mary Kay and Royal Dutch Shell are
using their governmental affairs clout to lobby for the nonprofits and
causes they support.)Given the fact that we have a new administration entering office next week I
think this report could also spark some interesting discussion on the blog
re: strategies for creating positive change over the next 4+ years.Authored by FSG Social Impact Advisors, the report is a quick read and
offers some interesting case studies that serve as examples of, well
frankly, things that are good!Readers can download and review “Lobbying for Good” at
http://www.issuelab.org/research/lobbying_for_good
In December they released a roundup of the most popular research documents:
IssueLab’s End of the Year Lists, including the most popular research titles on IssueLab, are based on more than 96,000 downloads in just the past 11 months. Check it out at www.issuelab.org/closeup
Parents: Forget the station wagon or SUV
Bicycles are key to a vibrant city and parents shouldn’t fear taking their children along on a ride. Over at the Spacing blog there’s a short post on riding with kids with a good discussion about bikes in Toronto that the post spurred.
No need to hesitate – put the fun between your legs! Go out and ride 🙂
Either enjoying the ride on their parent’s bike or following behind on their own bike, children are as much a part of urban bicycle commuting as anyone else. Contrast this with Toronto where you rarely see kids riding on a main street and parents who tow their children in bike trailers often receive disapproving looks or concerned stares from passersby. Granted, there are reasons for this. But don’t blame the weather. Note the bulky jackets and scarves in the above photo – temperatures are regularly dipping below zero in Amsterdam. Not as cold as Toronto – and minus the snow – but it doesn’t have to be warm and sunny for Amsterdammers to get on their bikes. It is true, though, that Toronto roads don’t feel nearly as safe as Dutch roads for cycling.
China Rules the Air
We just saw that Mexico has a huge wind farm, well it’s apparently nothing compared to what China is up to. China is now the world’s largest producer of wind energy, and this is only in a couple years of installing wind-powered generators.
China last year doubled its wind energy capacity – for the fourth straight year – adding 6,300 megawatts of new electricity generation for a total capacity of 12,210 megawatts. A third of the world’s new wind capacity last year was installed in Asia, with China accounting for 73% of that power. China reached its 2010 target of generating 5,000 megawatts of wind-powered electricity in 2007 and is expected to hit its 2030 goal of 30,000 megawatts years early.
“In 2009, new installed capacity is expected to nearly double again, which will be one third or more of the world’s total new installed capacity for the year,” Li Junfeng, Secretary General of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industry Association, said in a statement.