Posts Tagged Business

7th Annual Green Festival Returns to the Capital

Sep 9

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09.08.2010 – WASHINGTON DC — Green Festival®, the nation’s largest sustainability event, returns to the Washington Convention Center October 23-24. This year’s Green Festival theme is ‘Engagement,’ with exciting new ways to shop green, be inspired, get engaged and give back. Community members enjoy informative, insightful speakers, incomparable green shopping, cutting edge eco-innovations, great live music, fun and educational family activities, hands-on workshops, organic wine and beer and delicious, local vegetarian cuisine. Plus, our new admission options are geared to encourage everyone to get engaged in their community with immediate dividends from Green Festival.

Ten stages and pavilions give attendees the opportunity to engage with 125 local experts and nationally-renowned authors, actors, leaders, educators, farmers and visionaries. Exciting keynote speakers include Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Gilberto Gil, Patti Moreno, Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr., Dean Baker, Bernardine Dorhn, Bill Ayers, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, Daniel Pinchbeck, Goumbri, Tracy McQuirter and many more.

Green Festival’s mission is to inspire and inform as many people as possible to help make our world more just and sustainable. New admission options allow people to invest in their local community while receiving immediate dividends from Green Festival. “Pay It Forward and Get it Back at Green Festival” invites community members to volunteer with or donate to local nonprofit organizations to receive complimentary admission to Green Festival. Also new this year, when an individual purchases any ticket to Green Festival, they receive “Green Bucks,” which can be used as currency at Green Festival in the green marketplace. Find out more about receiving free tickets or shopping money at http://greenfestivals.org.

“Green Festival has something for everyone,” says Green Festival Board Member and Green America Director, Denise Hamler. “Whether you go to shop, learn, try new organic foods or experience art and music, this event has it all, with the goal to motivate every person to think, participate and make more planet-friendly, sustainable choices in their every day lives.”

Washington D.C. Green Festival highlights include:

•Green Business Seminars at the Green Business Pavilion — the latest on financing for growth, marketing and new media, public policy and green trends, ethical sourcing and partnering for success.

• Green Lifestyle — practical tips for everyday life and innovations ranging from green products to green building and organic foods.

• Mother Earth News Fair Stage – workshops and ‘DIY’ presentations from the best loved topics of their magazine and fair, including urban chicken raising, cheese making at home, seed swap exchange and growing and using herbs.
• Fair Trade Pavilion — how fair-trading your home, workplace and community with coffee, home furnishings, chocolate, rice and textiles can make a world of difference.
• Better World Stage — critical issues and solutions in communities to effectively implement and support sustainable networks.
• Vegetarian Food Court — organic cuisine from local restaurants, organic beer and wine garden and fair trade organic coffee bar.
• Green Home and Energy Pavilion — demonstrations of practical skills for personal and household sustainability from solar energy to composting and green home improvements.
• Music – live music and spoken word.
• Yoga and Movement Sessions – opportunities to relax and focus body as well as the mind.
• Eco Fashion Show — showcase of eco-conscious fashion designers, make-up artists and hairstylists. (presented by EFFACA.)
• Annie’s Green Kids’ Zone — activities and storytelling for the whole family.

A project of Green America and Global Exchange, two leading nonprofit organizations dedicated to environmental and social justice for more than twenty-six years, Green Festival serves as a foundation to explore and build sustainable solutions to benefit communities and the environment, discover new environmentally-friendly products and practices and connect with likeminded individuals from all over the nation.

Green Festival demonstrates an unmatched commitment to reducing environmental impact by reusing, recycling or composting 97 percent or more of festival waste through the efforts of full-service green event management company Seven-Star Events.

Special thanks to: Bgreen, Honest Tea, Mom’s, Ford and WUSA.
To purchase tickets to Green Festival or for more information about new ways to get free tickets or shopping money, visit http://greenfestivals.org.

CONTACT:  Dayna Reggero

Phone: 917-280-6965

Email: dayna@sevenstarevents.com

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About Green America
Green America is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1982, providing the economic strategies, organizing power and practicing tools for businesses and individuals to address today’s social and environmental problems. Its Green Business Network is the largest national network of businesses screened for their social and environmental responsibility. www.greenamericatoday.org

About Global Exchange
Global Exchange is a membership-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world. Since its founding in 1988, Global Exchange has successfully increased public awareness of root causes of injustice while building international partnerships and mobilizing for change. www.globalexchange.org

About Seven-Star, Inc.
Seven-Star, Inc. is the nation’s premier green full-service event company focusing exclusively on green events. Since 1999, Seven-Star has provided turn-key green event services for environmentally Responsible and socially Respectful (eR/sR) festivals, trade and consumer expositions, conferences and concerts. From the greening of the 2007 International Live Earth events, to the 2008 Democratic National Convention events, to producing the nation’s largest consumer Green Festivals, Seven-Star has defined itself as the company for eR/sR event production. Seven-Star is the first event company to have won the EPA’s Gold Waste Wise Award for Excellence in recognition for their proprietary system of event waste diversion, which has consistently achieved greater than 85%. www.sevenstarevents.com

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From Ashram to Inc.—Unlikely Entrepreneur Profiled In Inc. Magazine

Sep 1

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Charlottesville, Virginia –A disillusioned but determined survivor of 20 years in a yoga ashram has landed on the “Inc. 500” list of America’s fasting-growing private companies.

Michael Penny, founder of an organic mattress manufacturing company in central Virginia, is profiled in Inc. magazine’s September issue. Penny’s company, Savvy Rest Organic Mattresses, ranks 450th in the new “Inc. 500” list of America’s fasting-growing private companies.

Savvy Rest organic mattresses are made of all-natural latex rubber, organic wool and organic cotton in Crozet, Virginia, and sold in a growing network of independent stores across the country.

The Inc. article emphasizes Penny’s background as a former devotee who had to make his way in the business world after decades living in isolation from contemporary society, ruled by the strict demands of the ashram. When the guru was felled by a sexual abuse scandal in the mid-90’s, Penny moved his family to Virginia and started over, with little formal work experience and even less money. “We had lived for so long on nothing that we had nothing to lose,” he says.

One short-lived path for Penny was selling satellite dishes, an awkward fit for a man who had not watched television for 20 years. He worked at a senior center, delivered newspapers, and finally took a job at a futon store.

Learning about the mattress industry, Penny experienced more disillusionment. Flimsy manufacture and deceptive sales practices were rampant. At the same time, he became aware of increasing health concerns about indoor air quality and the toxic chemicals used in most conventional mattresses.

In 2003, Penny opened his own mattress store, The Savvy Sleeper, outside Charlottesville, with a small showroom and one employee. He encountered a latex manufacturer from India, and on the strength of a handshake and their shared affinity for yoga, persuaded him to issue a line of credit so that Penny could start his own line, Savvy Rest Organic Mattresses.

Today, Savvy Rest employs 15 people and has built a network of over 60 independent dealers around the country. These eco-themed businesses range from small sleep shops to large urban “green” home stores. Penny orients each new dealer personally, and advises many store owners on how to grow their businesses in a difficult economy.

“I wanted to create an environment that was safe, warm, and inviting to everyone,” Penny says, “including employees, suppliers, dealers, and customers.”

Perhaps because he knows what it’s like when such promises are broken, Penny’s vision has carried Savvy Rest to success.

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San Francisco is First Major Market in Launch of Web-based Barter/Currency for Green Businesses

Aug 17

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Green America Exchange” Gets First Intensive Trial in Nation’s #1 City for Green Businesses; Help During Recession: Unique B2B Marketplace Currency Offers Interest-free Credit Lines.

The nation’s leading city for green business will be used as the first major market for the “Green America Exchange” (GAEx), an enhanced barter network with a complementary currency and interest-free lines of credit designed to support a robust and sustainable business-to-business (B2B) marketplace. While GAEx launches nationwide today (August 10 th), it will have its strongest initial focus in San Francisco.

Located on the Web at www.GreenAmericaExchange.org, GAEx is a project of the national nonprofit Green America. As GAEx comes online, it will feature such offers as advertising space in national magazines, carbon-neutral Web hosting, graphic design, merchant services, organic catering, and dozens of other items addressing green business needs.

Green America’s Executive Director Alisa Gravitz said: “San Francisco is the ideal market in which to take the first big step toward our goal of putting the green back in greenbacks. The Green America Exchange is so much more than a simple barter arrangement; it will help the small businesses at the heart of America’s green economy make additional sales, gain new customers, conserve cash, support fellow green businesses, and purchase the products and services they need all in the same place.”

Green America Exchange Project Manager Keaty Gross said: “San Francisco and the Green America Exchange are made for each other. By turning un-sold goods, un-booked appointments and under-utilized space into a liquid currency, the Exchange facilitates trades that wouldn’t have otherwise happened in our cash-strapped economy. So on top of GAEx’s potential to strengthen the green economy as a whole, it is also a profitable venture for each participating business. This should be a real boost that will help to take Bay area green businesses to the next level.”

There’s no front-end fee to join the Green America Exchange.Instead, all GAEx members will pay transaction fees that ensure that the proper management and oversight to trading remains in place and sustainable.

Members will also be able to upgrade to a Premium account, benefits of which include a personal broker and the opportunity to apply for a credit line, for a low $10 cash/10 trade monthly fee.

GAEx is available to all members of Green America’s Business Network, which has an associate membership open to all businesses. All products and services offered on the Green Exchange must be green (both socially and environmentally responsible).

The Green American Exchange is now in the process of enlisting and activating accounts. To learn more visit www.GreenAmericaExchange.org or contact the Exchange Manager at Keaty@GreenAmerica.org

ABOUT GREEN AMERICA

Green America (formerly Co-op America) is the leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today’s social and environmental problems. Green America’s green economy programs encourage corporate responsibility, tackle climate change, build fair trading systems, advance healthy, local communities, and provide green purchasing and investing information for families and businesses.

To receive Green America’s popular publications, including the Green American and the National Green Pages™, participate in Green America’s Green Business Conferences or Green Festivals, or to get its free e-newsletter, providing the latest green news, green discounts, and opportunities to take action for a green economy, visit www.GreenAmericaToday.org , email info@GreenAmericaToday.org, or call at 800-58-GREEN.

ABOUT THE GREEN BUSINESS NETWORK

A program of Green America, the Green Business Network is a vibrant community of over 4,000 businesses committed to creating a better world. Businesses interested in joining the Green Business Network and taking part in the exchange can go to http://www.greenamericatoday.org/cabn/join/ or contact the Green Business Network at 202-872-5330.

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