3,000 trees will be planted in Africa for the Swedish edition of Muhammad Yunus' new book 'Building Social Business'

We are happy to announce on our latest collaboration with the Swedish publisher BookHouse Editions. We have the privilege of collaborating on a special book of a special author - 3,000 trees will be planted to balance out the Swedish edition of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus' latest book: 'Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs'.

The Swedish edition of 'Building Social Business' (In Swedish it is 'Socialt företagande') is released today by BookHouse Editions and can be purchased on their website. 3,000 trees will be planted with Eco-Libris in Malawi, Africa by our planting partner, RIPPLE Africa, on behalf of the publisher to balance out this edition. Inside the book you can also find our logo and details on our vision and operations.

This is the second book of Prof. Yunus we're collaborating on with BookHouse Editions. In 2008 we balanced out the Swedish edition of his book 'Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism'.

What's the book about? (from the Yunus Centre's website):

This third book by Professor Yunus, following Banker to the Poor and Creating a World Without Poverty, is dedicated solely towards the concept of social business, its implementation, and its maintenance. Social business is an innovative business model which promotes the idea of doing business in order to address a social problem, and not to maximize profit. As the title suggests, this complement to traditional capitalism truly can serve humanity’s most pressing needs, especially poverty. Each and every social business creates employment, good working conditions, and of course, addresses a specific social ill such as lack of education, healthcare, and good nutrition.

In simple terms, a social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company dedicated entirely to achieve a social goal. In social business, the investor gets his investment money back over time, but never receives dividend beyond that amount. The Grameen Bank is a prime example of social business, with the Grameen borrowers themselves being its shareholders!

Building Social Business consists of case studies, anecdotes, and solid advice from Professor Yunus himself. This “Social Business Manual” is a must read for anyone who wants to use his or her creativity to make a positive impact in their neighborhood, town, country, and world.

About the author (from the Nobel Prize website): Professor Muhammad Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves.

From Dr. Yunus' personal loan of small amounts of money to destitute basketweavers in Bangladesh in the mid-70s, the Grameen Bank has advanced to the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through microlending. Replicas of the Grameen Bank model operate in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Born in 1940 in the seaport city of Chittagong, Professor Yunus studied at Dhaka University in Bangladesh, then received a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt in 1969 and the following year became an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University. Returning to Bangladesh, Yunus headed the economics department at Chittagong University.

From 1993 to 1995, Professor Yunus was a member of the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women, a post to which he was appointed by the UN secretary general. He has served on the Global Commission of Women's Health, the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance.

This is a very interesting book on a fascinating subject that is relevant more than ever - the social business model and its potential to harness the entrepreneurial spirit to address poverty, hunger, and disease. Certainly worth reading, and if you can't read Swedish, you can check out the English version of the book published by Public Affairs.

In this video you can see Muhammad Yunus talking with Tina Brown of the Daily Beast about his book:

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!

What are you buying this holiday season: a paper book or an e-book?

No matter what choice you make (although if you choose e-books we recommend to check out post on which e-reader is the greenest one), we would like to offer you to green up your gift with Eco-Libris!

Yes, Eco-Libris has a special offer for you: Plant trees to balance out the books your loved ones read. We will send them a beautiful holiday card and Eco-Libris stickers to display on their books’ sleeves. Just change the shipping address on the PayPal payment page to the address of the gift receiver (or send us a separate email to info@ecolibris.net with the details) and we will take care of the rest!

If you're buying books as gifts, you can also add the stickers and the card, making it a great green gift (And if you're looking for an idea for a "green" book, you can find plenty of ideas on our green books campaign).

The holiday greeting cards we send are made by Doodle Greetings (see picture abvoe). Not only these cards come with a beautiful design, but they are also eco-friendly - printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper and are made chlorine-free and acid free. Sounds like a good fit with Eco-Libris stickers, which are also made of recycled paper!

This is also very affordable gift offer, starting from $6.50 for 5 trees/stickers and a holiday card!
Interested? go to our holidays gift page and check it out.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting green reading!

Award finalist for Mind Body Spirit Children's Book published by our Aussie partner Pick-a-WooWoo!

We just got great news from our partner, the Australian publisher Pick-a-WooWoo, announcing that their book KC the Conscious Camel was a finalist in the Mind Body Spirit Category for Children - 2010 Best Books, USA Book News Awards.

Kudos to Pick-a-WooWoo! KC the CONSCIOUS CAMEL is a story of being conscious of your own emotions and of employing spirituality and personal power to be the best that you can be. It even shows the children how to do this through meditating.

Eco-Libris is collaborating with Pic-a-WooWoo to plant trees for most their recent titles. 625 trees for were planted for KC the Conscious Camel.

Here's some more information about the book:

When K.C.'s dear friend, Sticky the Pig, is ridiculed by the class bully, Ginger the Red Fox, for an unfortunate mud puddle incident, KC shares with Sticky the tools to owning an emotion and then moving beyond it. KC demonstrates the need for acting instead of reacting. Throughout the day, the precocious camel points out opportunities for he and his friends to tune in to their inner peace, joy, and unconditional love. KC shows them how to stay connected to these productive and positive emotions through meditation.

KC and his classmates ultimately demonstrate to their teacher and to each other that they are capable of complex spiritual evolution...and a harmonious day on the playground!

Author: Suzanne McRae
Illustrator: Alexander Mortimer

More information on other titles published by Pick-a-Woo Woo can be found on their website - http://www.pickawoowoo.com

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Which e-reader is the greenest one - Kobo, Sony, Nook or the Kindle? An holiday gift buyer's guide

Black Friday is a good time to get to the second part in our analysis of purchasing an e-reader as a gift this holiday season. In the first part we discussed the question in which cases it can be considered an eco-friendly gift. Today we try to determine which e-reader is the greenest one.

We compared 4 popular e-readers - Amazon Kindle Wireless, Barnes & Noble Nook Wi-Fi, Kobo Wireless and Sony Reader Pocket Edition. As you can see we didn't include the iPad, as even after the discounts Apple is offering now, it costs $458, which I guess makes it less likely that it will become a popular gift. The other 4 e-readers cost $100-$150, which is a more reasonable pricing for a gift.

One obstacle we had is the lack of information. Unfortunately, the only company that publishes a detailed environmental report on its eReader is Apple. Therefore some important information that can change the results is still missing and we hope it will be available soon. We believe it is the responsibility of the companies selling these e-readers not just to provide quality products, but also to be more transparent and provide customers with information on the e-readers' environmental and social impacts.

We compared the characteristics of the 4 e-readers in 11 categories. Each e-reader that won a category got 1 point. In couple of categories there were more than one winner (for example, recycling) and then each of them received one point. So without further due let's go to the results:

Kindle - 4 points for winning the categories of battery life, ability of user to replace the battery, memory (storage) and recycling.

Sony - 4 points for winning the categories of weight, ability of user to replace the battery, availability of book lending from libraries and recycling.

Kobo - 3 points for winning the categories of ability of user to replace the battery, availability of book lending from libraries and toxins.

Nook - 2 points for winning the categories of capability to loan ebooks to friends and availability of book lending from libraries.

So technically the Kindle and Sony Reader share the first place, but among the two, the Kindle has better results as the 2 points Sony Reader got for ability of user to replace the battery and availability of book lending from libraries do not actually have any environmental impacts (they are more socially-oriented, which is also important, but at the same time do not have any influence on the footprint of the device).

The full comparison can be found at http://www.ecolibris.net/holidayguide.asp

So the bottom line is this: We still know too little on the environmental impact of e-readers, but from what we do know, if you went through the test we offered last week and still thinks e-reader would be a good fit for the person you want to buy it to, then from a green point of view the Kindle is your best choice.

More resources on the e-Books vs. physical books environmental debate can be found on our website at www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting Sustainable Reading!

Borders is closing stores, adding Google tools and teaming with MeetUp - Is this a winning strategy? Probably not..

I read yesterday on GalleyCat that Borders Group plans to close 17 Borders superstores nationwide after the holidays including one in Michigan. They also mentioned that Borders announced "they will use Google’s Local Availability tool and Meetup Everywhere to create a more interactive shopping experience."

The reason Borders is taking these steps is obvious - Borders is in trouble (On the second quarter Borders Group lost $46.7 million - this was the fifth time in six quarters they posted a loss) and is trying to cut costs and find a strategy that will transform its brick and mortar stores back into an asset.

But is using Google's Local Availability feature and teeming with Meetup the strategy that will make Borders' remaining stores stronger and revive the company's profitability? I don't think so.

Mike Edwards, CEO of Borders explained these steps in their press release:

"Borders has recently introduced a number of customer-focused programs designed to create an exceptional shopping experience both in-store and online. Google's Local Availability feature is yet another great service we're offering that enables our customers to quickly search for a book at their local Borders store. We're making it easier than ever for customers to find the perfect gift when they are on the go this holiday season.

We're also excited to team with Meetup to provide our customers with the ability to find our enriching in-store events and organize their own activities at Borders. Our stores are natural community hubs, where our customers gather together to celebrate books — our participation in Meetup will be a great avenue for fostering an even stronger sense of community around the joy of reading."

The Google feature can be valuable, but it has more potential to boost online sales rather than sales at stores. The collaboration with Meetup is also a nice idea, but Borders stores as 'natural community hubs'? somehow it sounds more natural when we're talking about local independent bookstores and not stores that belong to the second largest book retailer in the U.S. I can understand why Borders wants to become a local hub, but I really don't think it will happen as is not a natural part of Borders' DNA, no matter how you look at it.

In all, my conclusion is that Borders is still far from having a solid strategy for its brick and mortar stores. They're trying, no doubt about that, and it looks like they're even trying harder than B&N, but it's not enough. To maintain their position in the book retail market they'll have to come up with a much better strategy. Until then, we'll probably see more Borders stores closing.

More related articles:
Is there a future for Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores? Is it a green one?, Eco-Libris Blog

Can monetary incentives + local benefits generate a brighter future for independent bookstores?, Eco-Libris Blog

You can find more resources on the future of bookstores on our website at www.ecolibris.net/bookstores_future.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Yours,

The Portland Bottom Line is going green with Eco-Libris!

We are happy to announce a new collaboration, this time with the editors of 'The Portland Bottom Line', a new book exploring how small businesses can effectively and efficiently shift toward sustainability and thrive.

This interesting and unique book, which was released earlier this month, includes 51 essays of small-business people from Portland who share their experiences with sustainability in their companies.One tree will be planted with Eco-Libris for every printed copy of the book.

Here's more about the book:
Co-edited by Peter Korchnak and Megan Strand and organized into 12 sections along the triple bottom line of People, Planet, and Prosperity, “The Portland Bottom Line: Practices for Your Small Business from America’s Hotbed of Sustainability” explores how small businesses can effectively and efficiently shift toward sustainability and thrive. In their short, 400-word essays, 51 small-business people from the City of Roses share their experiences with sustainability in their companies.

“The Portland Bottom Line” demonstrates how small businesses can innovate to put people before profit, help restore the ecosystem, and prosper. The book is also a community benefit project. Contributors collectively chose, by vote, the local community organization Mercy Corps Northwest, which supports the launch and growth of sustainable ventures, to receive 100% of profit from the book’s sales.

We are happy to partner with this book as we strongly believe in the power of local businesses to create change and move the local economy towards sustainability. We know very well from our involvement with SBN in Philadelphia and Portland is also a good (if not the best) example of this process. Hopefully this book will help and inspire other places to follow and create the change we are looking for.

This book is also a very interesting experience in crowdsourcing, as the sustainable marketing expert and co-editor Peter Korchnak points out in the introduction to the book:

"As I delved deeper into my exploration of sustainability and marketing, the questions seemed increasingly pressing. In my search for the best way to explore and publicize the issue, I recalled my experience co-authoring mass-collaboration book projects such as "Connect! Marketing in the Social Media Era" and "Age of Conversation 3: It's Time to Get Busy". Could I employ the same crowdsourcing technique of co-creation to produce a collection of essays highlighting answers to those burning questions?" Did you receive answers to these questions?"

We talked with Peter about the book, the working process and the answers you can find this book:

Hi Peter. How "The Portland Bottom Line" started?
Three factors motivated the creation of “The Portland Bottom Line”:

First, after I contributed chapters to “Connect: Marketing in the Social Media Era” and “Age of Conversation 3: It's Time to Get Busy”, I realized collaborative books that benefit causes are a fantastic way to create microcommunities around topics of interest and raise money for good.

Secondly, as principal of Semiosis Communications [link: http://www.semiosiscommunications.com/ ], a Portland, Oregon-based sustainable marketing company, I have focused on strategies and tactics that support social sustainability – the People bottom line.

Finally, Portland is on the national, if not worldwide, forefront of sustainability, and I'm always on the lookout for additional ways to share our accomplishments here.

I thought, why not combine it all? Can I create a crowdsourced book in which Portland's business community can share their experiences with sustainability? “The Portland Bottom Line” is the answer.

Did you receive answers to the questions you brought up at the introduction to the book (see above)?
Absolutely. Each essay in the book demonstrates sustainability and business go well together. For Portland's small-business community, sustainability is both personal and profitable.

Can you highlight one or two stories that taught you new lessons about integrating sustainability and business together?
What really struck me was how personal doing business in a sustainable way is for contributors. Adopting sustainable practices in business is certainly a business decision, but personal experiences and convictions drive it long-term.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the range of stories, from deeply autobiographical narratives to number-crunching case studies, as well as by the range of businesses that contributed. To see very little shameless self-promotion was also very encouraging.

Alan Gunderson's piece “Growing and Staying Green” highlights how company growth and environmental sustainability can go well together. As a marketing professional, I was happy to see Rich Bruer write about sustainable branding in “Sustainable Branding: It May Not Be What You Think”: small businesses, too, need to cultivate their brands to stay in business.

With all these stories that show you how sustainability is a win-win business strategy, why do you think the majority of businesses still avoid this path?
Though the essays in “The Portland Bottom Line” demonstrated that sustainability is partly a personal, emotional issue, none of the contributors would have applied sustainable practices in their business if it hadn't made business sense as well.

There's a widespread, albeit slowly diminishing, misconception out there about what sustainability means. For far too many people sustainability still equals 'being green', even though it, in fact, includes social and financial benefits as well. That's why the triple bottom line is often depicted as a three-legged stool: Profit, People, and Planet must be balanced in our business decisions, otherwise it won't work.

As the number and success of sustainability-minded companies grows, more will join them on that path.

Do you think there's a next level to making local businesses more sustainable or what we read in these stories is as good as it gets?
I believe that outside of nature, total sustainability does not exist. We can only strive to conduct business as sustainably as possible. In other words, sustainability isn't a goal, but, as the previous question pointed out, it's a path. In sustainability, the journey truly is the destination.

Why is it (almost) only Portland? Why don't we see similar sustainable/local business hubs in other cities?
Several theories exist why Portland is a hotbed of sustainability. A while ago I summarized my take in a dedicated blog post “Portland is an island”. In brief, we must thank our natural environment, climate, people and their connection to this place, liberal politics, government policies, and the virtuous circle connecting it all together. Portlanders love their city and its surroundings, and we'll do everything possible to preserve and nourish both.

At the same time, while Portland may be on the forefront of sustainability, we still have a ways to go. As I said earlier, sustainability is an ideal. In a small city like this one, sustainable business stands out because of its higher-than average concentration. A lot of good, and often better, stuff is happening in other cities as well, and we have plenty to learn from them.

How was the crowdsourcing process? Would you do it again?
I am doing it again. Volume 2 of “The Portland Bottom Line” will be out in November 2011.

Crowdsourcing is a lot of work – it takes more than you think at the outset. Particularly coordination of the crowd is a huge task, testimony to the fact that crowdsourcing requires good management, it doesn't just happen. The experience made me wish there were an easy way, and I look forward to soon delivering that with GoodBookery, which will enable people to create and publish collaborative books that benefit causes.

How come you don't have even one story from a bookstore?
I did notice that. I guess no bookstore owners are in my social network yet. Please connect me or, if you run a bookstore that would be interested in carrying “The Portland Bottom Line”, please get in touch at editors[at]portlandbottomline[dot]com.

Any advice to someone who might be inspired from your project and would like to do something similar in their city?
Start working on the concept now, but hold off until July 2011 when GoodBookery will be launching. In the meantime, go to GoodBookery.com to sign up for updates!

Thanks, Peter! More information about 'The Portland Bottom Line' can be found at http://portlandbottomline.com

The book can be purchased and downloaded on Lulu.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Green book of the week: The Art of Eating In by Cathy Erway

After having the Green Books Campaign we're getting back to the tradition of presenting you each week an interesting green book. And today we have a book that is a great fit to the upcoming Thanksgiving feast.

Our book is:
The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove

Author: Cathy Erway
Cathy Erway is a Brooklyn-based food blogger and freelance writer. Her blog, www.NoteatingoutinNewYork.com is based on a two-year mission to forego restaurant and take-out food in place of home-cooked meals.

Cathy began cooking at an early age, learning from her parents, who are both avid cooks and adventurous eaters. She studied creative writing at Emerson College. She has written for The Huffington Post, Time Out NY online, and various small online magazines, and has a feature article in Edible Brooklyn. She has hosted, competed in, or served as a judge at numerous cook-offs in NYC and participated in fundraiser events for Slow Food USA. Cathy has also taught cooking classes at Garden of Eve, a Long Island based farm.

Publisher: Gotham

Published on: February 2010

What this book is about? (from the publisher's website)

In the city where dining out is a sport, one daring gourmand swears off restaurants and commits to cooking at home in a manifesto for a new generation of conscientious eaters.

Named one of Publishers Weekly's most exciting cookbook deals, Cathy Erway's timely memoir of quitting restaurants cold turkey speaks to a new era of conscientious eating. An underpaid, twentysomething executive assistant in New York City, she was struggling to make ends meet when she decided to embark on a Walden-esque retreat from the high-priced eateries that drained her wallet. The Art of Eating In reports on the delectable results of her twenty-four-month experiment, with thirty original recipes included.

What began as a way to save money left Erway with a new appreciation for the simple pleasure of sharing a meal with friends at home, a trove of original recipes, and a greater awareness of take-out food waste and whether her ingredients were ethically grown. She also explored the antirestaurant underground of supper clubs and cook-offs, and immersed herself in an array of alternative eating lifestyles from freeganism to picking tasty greens in the park. The Art of Eating In is a personal journey that transforms the reader as it transformed the writer, about the joy of getting back in the kitchen and turning something seemingly ordinary into something completely extraordinary.

What we think about it?
I mentioned that is book is a great fit with Thanksgiving because all in all this book is about the joy of food, and not just food (well, even junk food is technically food..) but good food that is prepared at home and is consumed with family and/or friends. And Thanksgiving is maybe the holiday that comes as close as it gets to this definition.

For the author, although it is a journey full of discoveries, the joy food does not come as a complete surprise as she comes from a family with a tradition of cooking and appreciation of the social aspects of food consumption. You can see it in her description of the Thanksgiving feast at her parents:

"At holiday gatherings with my family, rarely does cooking cease to be the center of activity. I don't see this as a strange quirk, or as archaic. Cooking and feeding one another are ways of playing out family roles as much as they are acts of necessity when your are with a big group of family members all in once. They were also an expression of hospitality for our guests."

It might not look strange to her, but the whole book is describing a food culture that is strange to most Americans.

As mentioned not too long ago in Grist, a survey conducted French food sociologist Claude Fischler and his colleagues, which surveyed 7,000 people from the United States and five European nations (France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and England) about their attitudes toward food and health, found a spectrum of attitudes, with the U.S. occupying one extreme end and France, the other. Grist described the American side of this spectrum:

Here in the good ol' U.S. of A, our national identity as disparate, atomized individuals is reflected in how we see our food: nothing more than a sum of individual nutrients that can be customized to fit the health needs and tastes of the individual. Americans value choice in their diets above almost all else. They want to build a diet especially for their bodies and what they choose to put in their bodies is always their choice.

Fischler explained in a lecture at the University of Washington that "the simple act of eating involves more than just you and your food -- society is also present, in the customs, in the place, and in your companions (or lack thereof)." Erway agrees with him: "The need to prepare food and to consume it is what tamed humans into living in interdependent societies instead of individually as hunter gatherers...Coming to the table for an unquestionably enjoyable act - eating - allowed for human interaction either meaningful or mundane - essentially, the opportunity to commune."

The journey of Erway explores not only the abandonment of restaurants and takeouts, but also other alternative ways of food consumption such as freeganism and urban foraging. In all, this is far more than just another experience of "a year without _______", which became so popular in the last couple of years. I see it more as unlocking the doors of food of perception that dominates the current Western food culture. This is an enjoyable journey into the land of sustainable food consumption, full with great recipes and honest personal accounts from what seems to be the busiest kitchen in Brooklyn. Last but not least, here's a warning: This book will make you hungry to be prepared!

Final green comment: Inside the book, published by Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group, there is no mention of the paper the book is printed on, so I can't know for sure if it is printed on environmental paper or not. Having said that, given Pearson's paper purchasing policy (Pearson is the parent company of Penguin US), there's a good chance it is printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. In any event, due to the issues the book deals with, we thought it earns the right to be part of our green books recommendations.

Disclosure: We received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!