Conscious consumerism

By paying a Living Wage. We asked and answered the question: “How much money would each person need to be able to meet all of life’s necessities not just for themselves as an individual but for their family. That means wages and benefits to cover a family’s needs for Food and water, Housing and Energy, Clothing Healthcare, Childcare, Transportation and Education. This means we are paying about 350% higher wages then required by law in the DR. Universities are doing their own independent studies and are writing reports on results.

Please see links to the following reports on the impact of Alta Gracia on the people and the community. http://www12.georgetown.edu/sfs/docs/Research_Progress_Report_11-29b_wit...
and http://www12.georgetown.edu/sfs/docs/Alta_Gracia_Web_Final.pdf

From the new Report, “Alta Gracia: Work with a Salario Digno,” is co- authored by Dr. John Kline of Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service and Dr. Edward Soule from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, following is just one quote from an employee at AG taken from Georgetown’s above reports. “ A living wage “salario digno” means being able to work towards our aspirations. It allows one to accomplish dreams. Ina previous factory the road was always dark. You don’t get to see the results of working. A salario digno allows you to be identified as a human being.”

== Very Broad for now ==
1) Client asks any question related to their business to their dedicated Account Manager or Technical Account Manager
2) Those Managers work with the Services team, accessing and networking with all parts of the rest of our company to develop and pitch solutions
3) We work with the client to implement the solution(s) and drive their business growth, which has multiple impacts in driving societal and environmental benefits, as well as our business growth.

Free, weekly Freshsheet newsletters connect residents with locally produced organic food, locally owned businesses, organisations working on sustainability, and new ideas emerging throughout the world on conscious consumerism and fair commerce. Freshsheets bring together those working to create a resilient society with locally produced goods and services. Regional editions introduce and highlight their area's local farmers and businesses, and encourages people to shop locally which strengthens each community. Environmental and social organisations and events are advertised freely in each region: North, Central and South. People are able to locate the goods and services they require as close to home as possible, eliminating the need to travel long distances thus reducing their carbon footprint. Locally owned businesses enjoy increased sales and recognition, and people feel more connected to their environment and communities. Consumers can also use the online edition to locate a product, service or event close to where they live.

Our innovation leverages existing communications technology and infrastructure to pioneer a completely new marketplace. This new marketplace revolutionizes the way money and goods are exchanged during international trade, creating economic opportunity and increased profits for vendors, savings for consumers, and profit for Sasa.
Using Sasa artisans are able to independently create sustainable micro-enterprises using mobile phones, mobile money transfers, and reliable delivery services. Sasa’s innovative technology consists of patent-pending, SMS-driven mobile phone business tools for vendors to automatically upload vendor profiles and products to a P2P e-commerce website for online consumers. Sasa connects artisans to global e-commerce, even if they do not have access to the Internet, a computer, or a bank account. Sasa's patented technology offers three main innovations:
1. Using Sasa, vendors, with no need for Internet or a bank account, can create and manage their online vendor profiles via their personal mobile phones.
2. Sasa facilitates payment, transferring international credit card payments into mobile money.
3. Innovative tracking tools ensure efficient and secure delivery within the P2P order fulfillment process.
These innovations enable, for the first time ever, direct trade between economies and geographies that have never been connected through commerce before.

Some one visiting Charlottesville VA enjoys hiking, biking, and wine. They would log into the market place we create where locals of Charlottesville post on their expertise. One such guide is a hiking enthusiast. The guide writer tells the tourist about a local shop "Ragged Mountain Running" to visit before specifying what the best trails are around town.

The tourist then browses wine tour guides for Charlottesville. They notice guides that tell them which vineyard to go on which day, and in what order.

Lastly, the tourist finds a guide for biking around town. They find out that there are local bike stores that rent bikes and have bike tours around the historic Down Town Mall.

The tourist purchases, rents, or views these guides, directly supporting the local who wrote them, as well as the local economy via the actions prescribed in the guides.

All posters in the campaign will have the header 'CHANGE IN YOUR POCKET!'
A number of topics will be identified for the poster content and local artists will be asked to produce a comic strip format that:
a) Sets the scene
b) Offers an alternative choice
c) Show the benefits of that choice

Examples of a poster topics:
Using the ‘drive through’ for your morning coffee.
a) Depicts average Joe heading to the drive through line up for coffee
b) Joe starts to think about how much extra his coffee costs by sitting the in line [Imagine $$ floating out the exhaust pipe]
c) Joe changes his mind and decides to park. He saves money on gas (increased wealth), burns a few calories walking in and out (better for his health) and puts fewer emissions into the environment.

Thats a lot of benefit for one small change!

Other ideas for topics include:
Recycling - Someone points out you could be recycling a lot of your garbage and decide to finally try it. Your burn a few calories sorting your stuff out (better health), you get money back when you return your empties (increased wealth), you put less in the landfill (better for the environment.

Idling - You decide to give up idling while wating with the kids for the school bus. It's a bit cold, but instead of running the car, you run around the driveway with the kids to keep warm. It better for your health, you saved money and it's better for the environment. It's also illegal as BC is idle free!

Many more ideas for poster content are in development and will be added to.

I am building a software on the web, together with a team of 15 people, that will be a platform for this process. Anyone who has an idea for a product can go to the platform and open an ideia page. She or he will first fill a form similar to a common market briefing proposal, explaining what is this idea, which and how problems will be solved, and why the regular market solutions are not good yet. After this is done, the person can publish the ideia, and it will be available for 45 days for people to contribute, passing through three stages of a specific methodology, which includes: Conceptual phase, Viability phase and Refining phase. Our main differential will be on conceptual phase, which will be totally crowdsourced, and on viability phase, in which our design team will project the product as sustainable as possible, using only low-impact manufactured materials produced by local communities. After this three stages are done, the product will enter a pre-sales stage at Catarse.me, and will only be produced if the minimum goal for producing with low impact is achieved. When the product is sold, the revenue of the product will be divided among everyone who was involved in any part of the process, accordingly to the importance of this persons involvement.

Community Dollars are given to local non-profit groups. Businesses who accept the currency decide which groups receive the currency (at no cost to either group).

The community groups use the local currency to: buy supplies or services from local businesses; pay volunteers or staff; and, primarily, assist in their fundraising efforts. They operate as exchange outlets for the currency exchanging Canadian Dollars for Community Dollars with community members. The result is that community groups have federal currency to run their programs, and community members have local currency that they can spend at local businesses.

Businesses who accept the currency can: use it to buy supplies or services from local businesses; give it out as change to customers; or offer it to their staff as partial pay or bonuses.

For example: A community member goes to the Women's Centre and exchanges $100 Canadian for $100 Community Dollars. He then goes to the book store and buys a book using the local currency. The book store hires a local painter to paint their building and pays with local currency. The painter takes that money to the grocery store to buy food. The grocery store uses the money to buy produce from a local farmer. The farmer takes the money to the farmers supply store to buy farm supplies. The farm supply store staff accept partial pay in community dollars which they spend locally to buy groceries, hire a carpenter, get a massage, and have a coffee.

The system creates a closed loop where money goes around the community rather than in and out.

The NINES will be purchasing produce from a SOLE FOOD Farm - grown locally and organically by residents in the program. We prepare a single hot dish served along side a fresh salad each day. By keeping our menu simple, we avoid costly and unnecessary food waste , as well, we can focus on serving the highest quality at a modest price to produce and sell to our customers.

Auxiliary activities will included sharing kitchen space with other startups, or individuals who stand to benefit from accessing the highly flexible kitchen space.

SeaBus has two main goals:

1. Facilitate learning, and
2. Cultivate greater understanding of sustainable seafood.

By driving SeaBus across Canada, sustainable aquaculture farming methods, and sutainable seafood will become topics of conversations through in-person interactive education on the refurbished school bus.

The school bus will be purchased and refurbished in Winter 2012 and the aquaponics system will be designed and built in early 2013. This ensures operation runs smoothly and early hiccups are dealt with accordingly ahead of time. Marketing and educational materials will be produced in addition, to a website that showcases the interactive cross-Canada tour and can be a focal point for community conversations around the related bigger issues.

With demonstrated success, SeaBus can continue to foster increased awareness of the importance of choosing sustainable seafood in other cities and towns in both Canada and potentially, the U.S.

Groundswell organizes community organizations and residents to purchase clean energy at deep discounts, with the goal of alleviating costs for low and moderate income residents and promoting social welfare by reinvesting savings into community programs. Our work also aims to facilitate sustainable practices by local residents and organizations, thereby reducing impact on the environment, and grow the local green economy by working with local businesses and service providers.

The Community Power Project: Groundswell partners with non-profit organizations to leverage their collective buying power to purchase clean electricity together at a reduced rate (roughly 15-20% less). These organizations then reinvest the savings into their work, and support a weatherization fund for low-income residents. Over the past two years, Groundswell has mobilized 109 organizations in D.C. and Maryland to purchase nearly $5 million in clean electricity: for example, SEED Charter School will save $38,000 on energy bills in one year.

Strong Homes Program: Groundswell guides homeowners through the entire upgrade process, ensuring that homeowners’ interests are represented and that they receive high quality work at a competitive price. Homeowners in turn select local contractors with good hiring practices. In 2011, Groundswell partnered with the D.C. Sustainable Energy Utility to complete energy efficiency upgrades in middle and low-income households across the city. Groundswell successfully recruited 255 homeowners for retrofit work in targeted underserved neighborhoods across D.C.

Joe Mola has just moved to town and doesn't know many people. He is a young man launching a business mowing lawns. His business joins community way and donates $500 community way dollars to the Food Security Society and $500 to Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts exchange $500 community way for Canadian while selling chocolates and use it to buy new uniforms. The Food Security Society exchanges $300 of the community way dollars for Canadian and has the capital to buy equipment for making a garden. They use $100 to pay Joe to mow the lawn in the garden once a month for the summer and $100 to pay people for contributing plants. Both Community Service Organisations thank Joe by an article in the paper and by telling people who bought the cw$ that he among other participating businesses would accept it. Lucy, a mother of one of the Girl Scouts, needs her lawn mowed so she hires Joe. She has enough cw$ to pay Joe half in community way. Joe uses the community way dollars he has earned to take his girlfriend out to a local restaurant.

In summary: Business (Joe) – gets a lot of good publicity, two mowing jobs which could turn into regular clients and dinner at a restaurant. Community Service Organisations – have cash to reach their goals. The Public (Lucy) – gets to support her daughters club, have her lawn mowed and support a new local business.

Education is the key to behaviour change. The easiest way to explain how we believe our idea will work, is to point to the success of the 3 R's. As a group of thrity-somethings, we all grew up submerged in the Reduce Reuse Recycle culture. There was not an official grop that went around to all the schools and cities to teach about it; the slogan and logo were catchy and straightforward enough to have been taken up by all kinds of people and many levels of society, from parents through to city officials.

Cliamte change is not going away. While some governments are interested in making progress toward addressing the issue from a policy level, nothing replaces the need for good education and awareness in democratic societies.

Our goal is not to deliver the education and awareness, but to simply make the tools - already available on the CountCutCompel.com website, available for widespread use.

Everything we've developed to date is designated to the creative commons and open source - that is, anyone can use and appropriate it!

WORK TO BE DONE:

1. More study would need to be done to evaluate the most effective means for getting the message out there: social media? primary school systems? environmental NGOs? municipal authorities?

2. Once the best avenues for seed spreading have been identified, the grunt work of outreach and obtaining buy-in begins.

3. Finding a champion (some famous person) to develop a series of video ads and publicity would help usher the change potential along.

From here.... it should be self-sustaining!