ZingIT » Green

Earthday Electronics Recycling

Craig — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:07:05 +0000

Once again, the Ann Arbor Public Schools and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative at U-M are providing free electronics recycling. Schools and businesses can drop off items Thursday and Friday, April 22-23, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Washtenaw Intermediate School District, 1819 South Wagner Rd. The general public can drop off items on Saturday, April 24 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Pioneer High School Parking lot.

photo from IT NYC 2006

BALLE day three

Elph — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:39:18 +0000

In order to feel successful at being sustainable it is vital to recognize it as a developmental pathway. And that the journey down the path is best supported by a network of relationships in alignment with your goals. There I just saved you two hours of sitting in a conference breakout session. Seems like good advice.

Later in the day I learned that local complimentary currencies had evolved to include sophisticated technological solutions built on the loyalty/rewards card systems. Sonoma has just such a system, though it wasn’t clear that there was a compelling case for businesses to participate. There are also local paper based systems, like BerkShares in western Mass that are amazingly well integrated into the local economy, including having the local banks placing the script into circulation.

BALLE day two

Elph — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:45:06 +0000

The days are long at BALLE. The morning plenary was a tasty mix of Tom from the RSF social finance fund, followed by Melissa from a biofuel collective in Berkeley that just opened their own service station, followed by Michael from Dressing Room, a restaurant that has been active in farm issues and social justice – leading an innovative program in two for one in food stamps if used at farmers markets, and finally Susan from a textiles hand assembly company that employs women in an economically innovative way. All before 11am.

I then attended a session on BALLE 101 and a session on Slow Money. Both thought provoking but as a reaction instead of a direct learning.

The evening plenary included community based wind power initiatives, tribal lands wind power, and Hunter Lovins on the state of everything.

Enough thinking – we ended the evening dancing to a local band.

BALLE day one

Elph — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:50:14 +0000

Here at the 7th Annual BALLE conference in Denver. Today’s session explored issues facing local first groups and used Open Space (a fave) to create breakout sessions. I participated in one discussing ways for the local first group to be economically sustainable and another that addressed the role of the board in a nonprofit and ways to select effective board members. We also heard an exciting talk about 10percentshift.org. I’m finding it all to be a very fertile ground for entrepreneural thinking.