How To Repair Durability Save The World

These days, when people want to see a change in the world, they're ofttimes turning to entrepreneurs to go the job done. Just think virtually the culling fuels industry.

So when Craig Walker, 41, and Vincent Paquet, 37, found themselves thinking that every homeless person should take a gratuitous telephone number, they decided to make information technology part of their telecommunication firm's concern plan. Fifty-fifty earlier GrandCentral, a business concern that offers customers ane telephone number that will work on multiple lines including cell phones, began offer service to the public last year, Walker and Paquet teamed up with the metropolis regime of San Francisco to offer costless telephone numbers to any homeless person needing one.

"You tin give a homeless person chore training, a pilus cut, assistance them practice doing a job interview, buy him a adapt, only if you don't requite him a telephone number to hand out when he shows up to an interview, in that location's no way for an employer to telephone call him back and tell him he'south got the job," says Walker. "We spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to aid the homeless, merely that last little flake would make it so much more valuable."

As GrandCentral expands its base of operations of subscribers effectually the country, the visitor is besides extending its charitable plan. Walker says that women who abscond home considering of prophylactic issues with nothing but the wearing apparel on their backs, also as any victims of a future Hurricane Katrina-type episode, would benefit from a free phone number. It'southward amazing the government or AT&T hadn't thought of doing this already, he adds.

Doing Good Goes MainstreamWhile Walker and Paquet'southward idea may be unique, the concept of businesses "doing good" certainly isn't. It's condign the norm for every business organisation, large or small, established or startup, to make improving the world for their customers and employees office of their business organization plan.

In fact, information technology may soon be odd if a company isn't trying to contribute to the social good, says Bruce Piasecki, author of the recently released book, Globe Inc. "If you're going to be a global company, you have to become green. When you await at a recent cover of Sports Illustrated, where they're talking most how stadiums are addressing the need to be more environmentally responsible, you tin can see that it's already gone mainstream. Information technology'due south no longer a choice; information technology's a competitive necessity."

Ric Kraszewski of Whale Tails with wife Terry The hunger to create a legacy of goodwill is what motivated Ric Kraszewski and Rick Grant when they first thought of Whale Tails tortilla chips several years ago. The 2 best friends, pals since fifth grade and now both 54 years old, were sitting in a truck and listening to the radio several years agone while taking a pause from surfing. They were munching on fries and dipping them in guacamole, discussing the majestic beauty of the waves when the David Crosby vocal, "To the Last Whale," came on. Kraszewski thinks it was Grant who first suggested that if their chips were in the shape of a whale tail, they would be perfect for dipping.

Kraszewski, meanwhile, was fretting over the more serious effect of what to do with their lives. This all led Grant to advise that they begin making whale tail-shaped tortilla chips and donate a percentage of the profits to ocean conservation.

In February 2006, they trademarked the name and started creating a business organisation they hoped would follow the model of Newman'south Own and Ben & Jerry'due south. The fries are and so far available in virtually two dozen Whole Foods stores in Southern California and Redmond, Washington; several other independent stores; and some aquarium cafeterias and gift shops.

Kraszewski says that so far, only $ane,000 has gone to body of water conservation, since in the terminal yr their startup has fabricated $259,000 in revenue, which, of course, isn't all turn a profit. But the duo has fabricated sure the coin went to something meaningful to them, rather than a nonprofit'southward administrative costs. They diverted it to a nonprofit in Magdelina Bay in Baja, Mexico, where information technology was used to buy a boat for a local who measures the h2o quality of the bay, which is dwelling house to many greyness whales.

What's Fueling the Movement

Coming together Consumer NeedThen why are so many entrepreneurs coming to these conclusions now? Information technology may simply exist a new generation'southward way of thinking, a feeling that for too long businesses have had a reputation for merely caring nearly the lesser line, when the bottom line is really something beyond merely making money.

But there's besides the consumer to consider. "At that place's been a ocean modify in values in terms of what consumers want," says Piasecki, besides president and founder of the AHC Group, an energy and ecology consultant to companies such as Toyota, BP, Chevron, DuPont and Dow Chemical. "In the past, they only wanted cheap and convenience. Now, there'due south a mounting wave of interest in having it be a superior product, more than durable, of college quality, and they also want it to address some of the critical concerns in their neighborhood."

A company has an border if its intentions are good, just the product or service still has to exist superior or at to the lowest degree equal to its competitors. Walker, the co-founder of GrandCentral, is adamant that if his visitor is a success, it will be considering the public loves the concept and product, not considering they offer free services to the homeless. "I don't know if anyone would want to choose an junior service for themselves because a visitor is doing some expert works," he says. "No one's going to purchase the three-wheel motorcar, because the company donates to Greenpeace."

Trip Sweeney and J. Scott Zimmerman of Step Up Travel Satisfying customers while improving the globe is what the owners of Step Up Travel, LLC are aiming for. The Washington, DC-based visitor is a full-fledged travel agency that will help patrons become anywhere they desire to become, although they're committed to finding socially minded consumers who want to steer their tourism dollars to tertiary earth countries. If the idea of going on a nature tour of Madagascar or taking an art grade in Peru while renting a firm there is more than appealing than staying at a Holiday Inn in London, so this is the travel agency for you.

The business was conceived by two medical students, Trip Sweeney, 28, and J. Scott Zimmerman, 31, who are currently on sabbatical from their studies to get the company going. They were both training at a hospital in Brazil when they came up with the business idea. They noticed a lot of people needed help, not just in the hospital, just outside of it as well.

"Information technology's not just patching up the wounds and stitching patients," says Zimmerman. "When you're a doctor in a hospital, it's kind of like a doorway to the culture. Y'all larn a lot about what'due south going on in the community when you treat drug dealers who go shot up, to the military policeman who has a bullet in his head, to the impoverished people with larva in their leg."

And Sweeney hasn't seen much deviation between being a doc and an entrepreneur. "What's been consistent in our studies and in creating this business is that we're always asking why something works this way, and non that way, and when we need to fix a trouble, nosotros create a solution," he says. "Y'all have to exist innovative, creative and study your options when it comes to patient care."

That's how Michael Binninger is approaching his business. He owns Java Detour, a franchised coffeehouse chain in 17 locations covering California, Nevada, Minnesota and Wisconsin. When 2 of his customers--members of the Nevada Paralyzed Veterans of America--approached him with the idea of making his coffeehouse more than wheelchair-friendly, he paid attention.

Michael Benninger (right) of Java Detour Binninger agreed to spend a day navigating his coffeehouse in a wheelchair to experience the issues some of his customers were facing, and more chiefly, to motivate him to practice something about it. Information technology didn't have much convincing; Binninger found he couldn't even open the front door to a Java Detour without some serious maneuvering.

So over the summertime, his chain will be retrofitting all of its coffeehouses to brand them more accessible for customers in wheelchairs. Some of the changes include lowering the menu boards to their middle level, modifying countertops and implementing a hotline to have beverages delivered to auto and tables. The biggest expense will be the $1,800 per store improver of a door that will open with the push of a push button.

For Binninger, the business decision was a no-brainer. "Will I really sell more java," he asks. "Probably non, but I endeavor to stride across that. It's not all dollars and cents."

In fact, when it comes to improving the globe, information technology's more often dollars and sense.