By: Joanne Dowdell (board member representative) and Fran Teplitz (staff member representative), co-chairs of Green America’s Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Team Green America Staff Contributors: Brooke Bennett, Anya Crittenden, Emma Kriss Black History Month February 2023 The national theme of this year’s Black History Month, Black Resistance, recognizes how Black…

It’s a new year—the Earth continues spinning, progress inches its way forward despite the deeply rooted challenges the world still faces, and it’s time to plan for the year ahead. For entrepreneurs, that means looking at business practices for as successful a new year as possible. One of the most important practices to pick up or strengthen is a commitment to sustainability and these green…

Greenwashing. You’ve heard the term before. A company and its products are “eco-friendly.” A business is on track to be “sustainable” by 2025. This strategy, greenwashing, is a way for companies to make unsubstantiated claims that their services, products, and/or processes are environmentally sound—i.e., not adding greenhouse gas emissions to the air, not leaving a massive carbon footprint, not…

As communities and activists around the world attempt to deal with the immense cost of the climate crisis from unprecedented flooding in Pakistan to the longest recorded heat wave in China to wildfires and the new “smoke season” in the American West, questions arise regarding how much individuals can effect change when what is needed is immense system change. At Fair Planet Advisors, we…

For Nasser Abufarha (above, left), endeavoring to make Canaan Palestine [GBN] a green business was always about more than the sustainability practices he believed in. It is, first and foremost, a way to honor his ancestral land and the thousands of years of history it held, including the olive trees, standing strong and representing a sacred way of life.  The company, which sells local…

Gloria Ware, CEO of Get the Bag, appeared on Channel 19 News in Cleveland, OH on August 8, 2022, on the talk show CRIBBS in the CLE, Josh & Maria (Cribbs) Live. Get the Bag, a Green Business Network {GBN} member, achieved GBN certification this year for its fulfillment of our social justice and environmental sustainability standards. Get the Bag is dedicated to advancing Black businesses and…

“The only way for sustainability to truly work is if we share best practices—it can’t live as a trade secret.”  That’s according to Alex Lassiter, founder and CEO of Green Places, a company offering sustainability services and software to businesses both large and small.  What Lassiter means by that is gatekeeping—corporations and wealthy, powerful people at the top keeping…

The climate deal that has become law continues to support the fossil fuel industry. We need stronger leadership to protect Black, Indigenous, people of color, and frontline communities who face the most harm from fossil fuels. Sign the petition below to President Biden to urge him to declare a climate emergency. !function(o,t,e,a){o._aoForms=o._aoForms||[],o._aoForms.push(a);var n=function(){…

Green America’s Green Business Network Director Fran Teplitz spoke with Andy Mebert, CEO of Yaya Maria’s soap company, a Green Business Network member, about his sustainability journey that includes using a credit union:  Fran: For starters, please tell us about your business – the range of goods you offer and what motivated you to create these soap products.  Andy: Yaya Maria’s…

Guest Blog By Green Business Network Member: Leslie Samuelrich, President, Green Century Capital Management As the 2022 proxy season winds down, we at Green Century° are excited to share that nearly 30 major corporations have committed to action in response to our shareholder proposals on environmental issues. Furthermore, several of these proposals achieved record-breaking shareholder votes…