FreeThink: Good Company Hunting

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Good Company Hunting

I've been struggling for some time to reconcile the adoption of the green movement by mainstream business. Is it authentic? Is it motivated by values or consumer trends? Will it water down standards people fought so hard to establish? I don't have all the answers yet, but I have noticed a silver lining. Businesses and individuals that live their values to the core are raising the bar.

Check out http://www.bcorporation.net/, a new community of businesses - Seventh Generation and Method are among the founding companies - that is challenging the difference between a good company and just good marketing. And Treehugger today highlighted a new social networking site called http://www.actics.com/, which they dub an ethical Facebook. Here's what they said: "You choose your corporate or personal values and state how you act them out. It is then up to your friends, clients or investors to rate you out of 100 for how true you are to your values. To help you out, they can also send you suggestions and endorse you. A great feature of this software is that a plugin, showing your ethical performance, can be integrated into your website or your company's intranet if you want to share your results with a bigger network."

It'll be interesting to watch who is up to the challenge.

- Jen Maxwell-Muir

posted on October 23, 2007

Comments:

I like your question, "Is it authentic? I think it is an example of American ingenuity at its finest. These companies are looking ahead and trying to change thier cultures so that they can find ways to survive ever increasing energy costs. While I have serious problems with the theology of many environmentalists, when a for profit company makes moves to at least try to clean up and lessen its footprint I see no reason to question its motives. Is it good public relations? Sure, but that doesn't make the efforts invalid.

# posted by

Anonymous : October 23, 2007 11:42 AM

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	This spirited, open forum by Maxwell PR staff members, studio mates and colleagues features people who are, in our opinion, doing the right things to get people talking. You'll see us rave about organizations building communities and rant about those who are missing obvious opportunities. We sprinkle in a little marketing and PR rhetoric from time to time for extra vigor and enthusiasm, and will share observations and insight based on our own experience honing our craft every day.

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