True success cannot always be measured, even in business. For over a decade the Buy Local movement has been gaining ground, promoting a view that supports economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable business practices that strengthen communities. The sustainable business model advocates profitability through such unorthodox practices as collaboration, even with competitors, profit sharing with employees,…
Category: Features
Meet Your Local Farmer
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Ever wonder why your neighborhood supermarket is stocking apples from the Pacific Northwest or even China instead of varieties grown closer to home? Ever notice how watery and bland supermarket tomatoes taste? Usually they’re grown across the country, in California, picked while green to ripen in transit. Worldwatch Institute reports that “in the U.S., food…
Riverkeeper: Stop VX Dumping!
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A ‘GreenPlan’ for Philly
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GreenPlan Philadelphia’s Open Spaces Plan How do you grow the city in a responsible way? How do you ensure that what you plan for is sustainable? How do you integrate existing community plans into a comprehensive plan for the city’s future? These are some of the questions the City of Philadelphia seeks to answer through…
‘City Harvest’ Grows Community
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On October 12th, in the improbable surroundings of a Philadelphia prison, members of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Philadelphia Prision System, and representatives of regional food cupboard distribution agency Self-Help and Resource Exchange (SHARE), met to celebrate a successful first year of their innovative pilot project, City Harvest. The City Harvest Project connects an extensive…
NABR Covers the Waterfront
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Perhaps you are familiar with Neighbors Allied for the Best Riverfront (NABR) from their citywide “CasiNO” campaign, whose signs are in the windows of many homes, especially those closest to the proposed casino sites. Perhaps you’ve gotten literature about the state stripping Philadelphia of zoning authority over casinos from a NABR member running a table…
McMenamins: Unique Chain
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Oregon natives Mike and Brian McMenamin have redefined the chain operation. In fact, they’ve stood it on its ear. As the Northwest’s fourth largest brewer of boutique beers, operating over fifty establishments in Oregon and Washington, and with sales estimated by CNN at $70-80 million last year, the McMenamin brothers seem to have developed a…
Can We Take the Heat?
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by Nathaniel Popkin In six to ten years, in a minor but important step in the response to Global Warming (air travel is the fastest growing emitter of carbon dioxide), a substantial portion of express air travel is likely to be outlawed or heavily taxed. To the delight of many of us, the federal government,…
