Thanks to all who supported and attended Monadnock Buy Local’s events with Michael Shuman: Cultivating Pollinator Enterprises to Grow Jobs and Prosperity.
From the Local Economy Solution: By Michael Shuman
A “pollinator” is a self-financing enterprise committed to boosting local business. Some pollinators are for-profit businesses, some are nonprofits, but all allow a community to undertake one or more of five key economic development functions — planning, purchasing, people, partnerships and purse — with far greater efficacy and at a substantially lower cost than typical, taxpayer-funded programs. All of the following models deploy business frameworks that ultimately aim to avoid dependency on government grants or charitable contributions: 28 Models of Pollinator Enterprises
What Pollinator Enterprises are active (or in the works) in the Monadnock Region? Please share your knowledge in the comments section below.
Here’s what we’ve gathered so far:
Planning Pollinators
Purchasing Pollinators
People Pollinators
Partnership Pollinators
Purse Pollinators
This is the first in what we hope will be a series of state-specific handbooks to spur local investment across the United States. Each handbook will be filled with local examples and information, modeled on this first edition focused on local investing in Vermont.
According to the City of Keene’s 2006 – 2008 Greenhouse Gas Inventory, our community is not on target to meet its greenhouse gas emission goal of reducing emissions to 10% below 1995 levels by 2015. This goal measures if we were moving Keene further towards or away from becoming a Climate Resilient Community.
Since the inventory report indicates we are stepping away from resiliency, it’s imperative for us to take a closer look at this report.
The two sectors contributing the most emissions in our community are Transportation and Commercial/Industrial. Given the reality of living where we do, how can we work together to reduce energy use and the carbon emissions released by these two sectors?
The Cities for Climate Protection Committee is focusing on these two top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and the related targets identified in the City of Keene’s Climate Adaptation Plan.
Currently, the committee is working with the Monadnock Alliance for Sustainable Transportation on the feasibility of Car Sharing in our region and with Monadnock Buy Local to identify policies that support our local businesses and their efforts to become more environmentally sustainable.
Consider your place of work and how you get there… how can you support alternative transportation and local living economy efforts at your place of employment?
It’s challenging to know how a business really does business: How do they treat their employees? Do they try to reduce their impacts on the environment? Are they striving to contribute more to their community? A certification process called B Corp makes answers to these questions more transparent. “[It’s] like the Fair Trade label but for a whole company, not just a bag of coffee,” says Jay Coen Gilbert, B Lab Co-Founder, the nonprofit that certifies B Corps businesses.
There are currently 990 Certified B Corps (the B is short for Benefit) from 24 countries — and we’re lucky to have one in our own neck of the woods: W.S. Badger Company, Inc. in Gilsum, a locally owned company that makes healing balms, lip balms, sunscreens and other personal care products. Since 2011, Badger is “measuring what matters” as a Certified B Corp. Sure, Badger is measuring profits — but…
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Monadnock Complete Economy Project 