The BetterWorld Voice — May/June 2008 Issue

BetterWorld Releases Pathways, 2007 Corporate Citizenship Report

For the third consecutive year, BetterWorld has issued its annual Corporate Citizenship Report, showcasing our social and environmental activities for the prior year, including in 2007, becoming certified as the first and only carbon-neutral telecom carrier in all of North America.

The newly-released document, “Pathways: 2007 BetterWorld Corporate Citizenship Report,” provides readers with a basic understanding of BetterWorld's corporate philosophy and the initiatives taken to help affect positive social and environment change in both the telecom industry and society at large. The report, which highlights in full detail, activities in seven major areas — The Environment, Donations, Volunteerism, Advocacy, Certifications, Products, and The Future — is now available online at the BetterWorld website, accessible at http://www.betterworldtelecom.com/commitment

Last year was a pivotal year for BetterWorld — we made advances on many fronts, including rounding out our product mix so we could truly serve the voice and data needs of practically any social and/or sustainable-minded organization in America; increasing our donations, volunteering and advocacy programs; and adding many exciting and influential customers, which helped move us to unique ground in the US telecoms market.

In addition to becoming certified as the first carbon neutral telecom carrier in North America in 2007, BetterWorld was also certified by B Labs as a Founding For Benefit or B Corporation, acknowledged by One Percent For The Planet as donating at least 1% of its revenues to the environment , as well as WorldBlu for making its Most Democratic Workplaces 2007 List.

Last year's achievements were important for our team, customers and other stakeholders as our words and actions were independently audited and then officially certified, giving BetterWorld's mission and operational philosophy recognized authenticity. Thank you for helping us on this journey and please let us know any input that you have: wecare@betterworldtelecom.com

Appalachian Voices Business League

Highlighting one of BetterWorld's 2008 Priority Action Issues, Mountaintop Coal Removal, we recently attended an event in Richmond, Virginia sponsored by Appalachian Voices, one of BetterWorld's donation and cause partners. The rally was inspired by numerous outcries opposing Dominion Power's construction of a new coal mining plant in Wise, Virginia. 

Dozens of individuals and local organizations held tough through the rain and delivered a strong message to Dominion — the message is clear “No New Coal!”  As the rally drew to an end the attendees collected and boxed up the mile-long petition, signed by more than 40,000 people and hand delivered it to the executives at Dominion.

BetterWorld is a member of the growing Appalachian Voices Business League, which is one of the largest pro-environment business groups in the country. The Appalachian Voices Business League is committed to spreading a simple message to customers, neighbors and political leaders alike: that a healthy environment is good for buisness — and a healthy Appalachian Forest is a critical element to our nation's ecosystem. For more information, visit www.appalachianvoices.org

 

Product Highlight: BetterWorld Web Conferencing

Reduce your organization's carbon footprint while improving corporate communications: Reducing travel reduces carbon emissions. Less carbon emissions mean less damage to the environment. But, how do you conduct day to day business and reduce travel? One solution is BetterWorld's integrated Web Conferencing suite, which can create a virtual meeting with the impact of being there in person.

If you're like many people who cite ease of use as the biggest reason for not using web conferencing, you'll like the simplicity of Web Visuals. It eliminates the intimidation factor by presenting you and your participants a familiar interface. Whether you are reviewing contracts, demonstrating software or editing project plans, it is easy to involve everyone in the meeting and truly collaborate.

Highlights of BetterWorld Web Visuals Web Conferencing include:

Unified Solution

• Audio, web and video portions of the meeting all launch automatically with a single click for meeting entry.

Quick & Easy to Use

• Desktop integration lets you launch a meeting with no additional logins... less than 20 secords to start a meeting.

Cost-effective

• Significantly reduces travel and on-premise expenses.
• Competitive pricing models are more flexible than most services.

Complete and Reliable

• High-performance: Our network is adaptable enough to balance and shift resources during peak loads in order to support bandwidth-intensive services such as mulitipoint video.
• Scalability: As your usage grows, our network can easily scale to meet demand without service interruptions both in ASP and on-premises environments.

For more information and how to get started, send an email to wecare@betterworldtelecom.com or call us at 866.567.2273 x905.

BetterWorld Elected to WorldBlu List for Second Year in a Row

BetterWorld is one of 25 companies that have been selected as annual winners in a “Worldwide Award for the Most Democratic Workplaces” competition sponsored by WorldBlu, Inc., an Atlanta-based business specializing in organizational democracy.

The announcement came as part of the 2nd annual Democracy in the Workplace Day on April 24.. For-profit and non-profit organizations from the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Malaysia were selected from industries such as technology, healthcare, telecommunications, media, manufacturing and retail, representing $8 billion in combined annual sales. 

Among the organizations are DaVita, (the first Fortune 500 company to make the WorldBlu List), Great Harvest Bread Company, BzzAgent, 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, Equal Exchange, Linden Lab (makers Second Life), Pandora, DreamHost, Continuum, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, MindValley, as well as BetterWorld Telecom.

"The WorldBlu List seeks to shine a spotlight on the companies pioneering the next generation of business," says WorldBlu Founder and CEO, Traci Fenton. “The ego-driven, command and control business model is officially dead. WorldBlu List companies represent the future of work.”

Organizations from the for-profit, non-profit, non-governmental and government sectors that have been in operation for at least one full year and have five or more employees can apply for the WorldBlu award. Company employees complete a survey evaluating their organization's practice of ten democratic principles such as decentralization, accountability, transparency, integrity and choice on a leadership level, individual level and systems and processes level.

WorldBlu developed the survey tool based on a decade of research into what makes a world-class democratic organization. The "WorldBlue List of Most Democratic Workplaces" is a list not a ranking.

Upcoming Conferences:
Where You Will See BetterWorld in June

It's that time of year and this season's conferences are lining up to be real powerhouses, here's a sample of conferences where we will be attending in June:

The Business Alliance For Local Living Economies Annual Conference
June 5-7, 20008
Boston University
Boston, Massachusetts