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The Hub is a worldwide network of over 25 collaborative work spaces that provide a creative environment as well as a professional infrastructure to work, meet, learn and connect. As their credo declares, “The Hub is designed to facilitate the creation of sustainable impact through collaboration.”

Hub Bay Area has two work spaces, one in Berkeley at the David Brower Center, and the Hub SoMa, which is in the San Francisco Chronicle building and part of the 5M Project and steps away from the TechShop and Intersection for the Arts, and Square. The Hub is a vibrant community of individuals working to make a difference, and many members are social entrepreneurs, creating new business models to create positive social change through the lever of business.

We’re proud to serve some of these inspiring organizations housed at the Hub, as well as the Hub Bay Area itself. We’re also happy to be members as well of this change-making community.

Here’s what the Hub community had to say to the question - What Change Does the World Need Most?

“Innovation is an unreasonable request” says Adam Lowry, Co-founder of Method, the ground-breaking San Francisco-based company who has taken soap to heights of “coolness” normally reserved for electronics and pop culture. Lowry was just one of many business leaders in discussion at the inaugural Sustainable Corporation conference, put together recently by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and held at Oracle’s campus in Silicon Valley.

Although there were many inspiring stories of sustainability, (including the famous case study of Serious Energy’s groundbreaking eco retrofit of the Empire State building), Lowry’s insights from the trenches stood out. Method is a company so centered on design thinking and product excellence, that their sustainability credentials are an after thought.

Much like software innovation, Method has created a culture and internal process heavy on proto-typing, with resin, shelf design, photography, and bottles all easily created, evaluated and modified. Method’s motto of “progress > perfection” is strikingly similar to Facebook’s “move fast and break things”. Both encourage an environment that supports creative confidence and a norm of learning and creating by the whole team. This is the Method method, which, incidentally, is also the title of a book about the company due out later this year.

Lowry’s claim that innovation is an unreasonable request hinges on the operating imperatives of a company. Because true innovation is sweeping in scope and usually impacts the core functions of a company, it is not readily embraced - no one wants to threaten the engine of a company. However,  sustainability requires innovation, and for that to be possible, a company must have a culture open to change in the first place.

Lowry emphasized that the competitive benchmark of the future is the experience economy, whether the iPhone, the interior of a car, or Method soap. The “how” is the disruptive part of a product, not the what. “Green is not a differentiator,” says Lowry, “people don’t want a badge, they want a better product”.

We’re committed to sustainability here at BetterWorld. But above all, we’re committed to excellent service and world class products. Because caring for people and planet is just one facet of what a really great service and company should do. That’s the future of business.

And that’s the future of telecom too, it epitomizes the change we seek to be within the telecoms industry.

In service,

The BetterWorld Team

As originally featured in SustainableIndustries.com by BetterWorld President Matthew Bauer. A three part series: Reading the tea leaves, accepting the inevitable and bringing focus to the most promising sector of our economy. Part One discussed how we got to where we are. Part Two focused on Trends and Facts helping support the shift to a small business-focused economy, Part Three now pulls it all together and discusses concrete solutions for moving forward into the new Access Economy.

All too often we are just looking at the issues in silos and not seeing the opportunity for truly shifting our economy, society and our species’ detrimental and growing impact on the earth’s biosphere. Taking a page from the wisdom of E.O. Wilson, his book, Conscilience, touches brilliantly on a new approach - managing strategy and policy across multiple silos of specialty at the same time.

As both large companies and governments are shrinking their employee rolls, it seems as though the facts and trends we discussed in the second part of this series, combined with a huge focus on strengthening, teaching and supporting smaller, independent, innovative businesses, will reap the greatest payoff  (in cost-benefit terms) and a national economic discussion well overdue for consideration.

So what can we do, right now to support this shift?

Here are some ideas: New Capital and Formation Options for Small/Startup Businesses On April 5, 2012, President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act into law.  This bipartisan legislation fulfills the President’s call from last fall to reduce regulatory burdens that prevent many small and young businesses from raising capital – specifically by allowing crowdfunding, expanding mini-public offerings, and creating an “IPO On-Ramp” consistent with important investor protections.

Interestingly, I have read a number of articles pushing fear around this and other proposed instruments making their way through Congress and the SEC as being risky. If I want to invest in my neighbor’s business via one of these new or expanded mechanisms, is that more “risky” than investing in the stock market, which is run now run largely by automated hedge fund algorithms? Michael Shuman, co-founder of Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and Post Carbon Institute fellow says the critics have it “180 degrees backward.” Shuman acknowledges that the bill is imperfect, but says:

“Jim Hightower says this bill is about ‘deregulating Wall Street.’ In fact, the bill spells the end of Wall Street as we know it. It allows the 99 percent of us who are not wealthy (’unaccredited investors’) to put our money in the local businesses we love, by removing what were once impossibly difficult and expensive legal barriers. Those barriers had been so high, so misconstructed, so poorly targeted against small business and small investors, that they resulted in almost none of our long-term savings - now totalling $30 trillion - going into the local half of our economy. The JOBS Act ends this monopoly for good.”

Kudos to Steve Case and others for spearheading Startup America Partnership, this innovative and impactive public/private partnership is based on a simple premise: young companies that grow, also create jobs. This is exactly the type of ecosystem that we need to spur our most valuable people and companies to start and grow new companies.

Direct Public Offerings (DPOs) are a little known but mature instrument for raising capital for small to medium-sized companies. Think IPO, but on a smaller scale and investors do not have to be accredited. Most states have them and they are SEC sanctioned – the range is roughly $500K to $5M. The question is, why aren’t more companies using DPOs to raise capital? Watch for this one to explode in the coming years. Google “DPO” and your state or call our friends at Cutting Edge Capital in Oakland to find out what the options are in your state.

Here comes the Access Economy
Look no further than the just-issued Fast Company World’s Most Innovative Companies List 2012 to get one great view into the future economy. The companies and organizations here represent connectivity (Facebook, Twitter), sustainability (SolarCity), huge innovation within traditional industries (HBO, Tesla, NFL, SNHU, Square). From Amazon to Square, disintermediation and reduction of friction are the clarion call. New pathways of connecting and learning, and regardless of where you fall on the Occupy Movement, a truly global movement was created in weeks and months, without a defined leader, without a rich backer and without a particular political agenda. These are all products of our Internet Age, our new Biosphere Consciousness (thank you Jeremy Rifkin for the term). Almost every one of the organizations listed was a small startup at some point - the pathway for starting and creating these companies is now much smoother and the pathway to glory simpler. The next decade is going to be extremely interesting.

Location Based Work is a Dinosaur Awaiting Extinction
“…the madness of American transportation leads to only one conclusion: no solution of the transportation puzzle is possible until work and home are put back together.” - Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale, 1980

There are huge inefficiencies in how we work - if one were to objectively look at the road miles, time in transit, airline miles and redundant/idle commercial building space currently expended in getting to and from the office, the amount of carbon and cost to business is simply staggering. As it occurred, the transition from industry and manufacturing to our services-based economy did not have the benefit of a mature broadband network that reaches over 85 percent of the households now in our country, wireless and wireless data services that cover even more and business models springing up every day that favor remote work versus the old “factory” mentality.

The number one contributor to carbon and environmental emissions in the U.S. is squarely rooted in how we work. Work-related activity creates over 90 percent of the carbon emissions and pollution in the U.S., with buildings and transportation accounting for almost 75 percent of the total. Roughly 3 percent of the U.S. workforce telecommutes a majority of the time today, but if that number was 50 percent of those who can, we would cut our carbon emissions by 50 percent while saving 453 million barrels of oil and significantly cutting the 2.1 billion hours we waste in traffic jams every year. Essentially, it would be the equivalent of taking 15 million cars off the road.

Change how your organization works today – start from a standpoint of removing location (if you are not retail, restaurant, library, etc.) and then work your way backwards. We will all work this way someday soon, the sooner you start, the sooner you will realize lower costs, higher employee satisfaction, higher productivity and less environmental impact.  For more information, check out our BetterWork Resource Page.

Banking Regulation Changes & Move the Money
Small businesses did not cause the economic meltdown of the past few years, but they are paying a heavy price under the threat of downgraded loans from regulators – which is the excuse many banks now use.  We need to get capital to small businesses, both startup and existing, and all you hear is that banks are afraid of the regulator bogeyman coming in to downgrade any business loan that is not the color of diamonds. Whomever the genius is behind this dynamic please refer to the cause of our recent downturn: securitized real estate investments and greed - all centered around Wall Street, not Main Street.

Also, let’s change the access to capital rules. We need to get away from the asset-based lending rules and start angling towards a more realistic structure based on novel ideas such as track record and profitability, and wake up to the fact that we are now a service economy. This change is only inevitable as we continuously shift towards a services-based economy and as real estate becomes less important for non-storefront businesses.

Buy Local, Be Local
Personal: Buy local, be local – COMMIT NOW to shifting 10 percent of your purchasing as a business, non-profit and/or personally to local independent businesses, this creates more jobs, increased community wealth and, well, it’s a lot more fun to shop or eat at a place that’s not run by the global machinery. By localizing our manufacturing and food resources, the impacts are far and wide - huge economic growth and mitigation of the environmental impact of food and manufacturing miles. Seek out the Buy Local network in your community, and get involved, sign your business up as a member/supporter and start to hear the sucking sound of community wealth dissipate. For more information on all fronts local, check out http://www.LivingEconomies.org, which is the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).
Policy: City governments need to get their political and common sense heads on straight, point your budgets and spending at local firms - just do it! If you can’t find a suitable local option, then farm it out or legislate this. This is probably the largest shift a community can make towards keeping dollars circulating in the community.
Public/Community Banking:  Cities should move their money to a municipal bank (check out this recent piece in the WSJ), which will keep more money in the community and fund projects others in the community can then follow. Remember the multiplier affect…this one should be a no brainer.

The End
There’s nothing stopping us now and there is too much momentum to turn back. Let’s make this the point, the juncture where we decide to increase wealth in our communities, to truly tap and expand our entrepreneurial hard wiring, and to increase ownership of business in communities all across the country. It will take effort at all local levels, and in state and federal public/private partnership, but the examples are growing and catalyzing. As a society, we spend so much time railing at the politicians and those in “power,” when in truth the field is ready for transformation. Whether starting a business, focusing on buying local, or transforming your workplace, the conditions have never been more ripe than now. The keys to the Access Economy are well within our reach, we need to start taking these pathways and creating a new manifestation of the global economy, one where the money, power and ownership are distributed via interconnected, intelligent virtual and physical communities.

For centuries, the decisions made by the few with the money and the power dictate the priorities of their government and the stories in the media, and they determine the lives and opportunities of their citizens. There is now something bigger. The people of the world see each other and can protect each other. It’s turning the system upside down and it changes everything. Massive change and transformation is underway, our Biosphere Consciousness is forming. Seize the moment and get on board!

 

Matt Bauer on the Wendel Forum

BetterWorld ’s Matt Bauer recently visited The Wendel Forum, a radio show dedicated to focusing on the legal side of the green economy.

Interviewed by Bill Acevedo, The Green Business Practice Leader at Wendel Rosen, Bauer spoke of BetterWorld’s journey as a company, bringing purpose and mission to an industry traditionally not involved in the green economy and sustainability efforts.

The Wendel Forum is a collaborative effort of Wendel Rosen’s Green Business Practice Group to bring compelling stories and practical explanations of what’s happening in green business to listeners and runs each Saturday morning at 11:30 a.m. during The Green Morning line up on Green 960 AM.  You can hear recent shows on The Green Morning website.

Among the topics discussed in the interview: BetterWork (how to lower costs and carbon emissions, while increasing profits and employee morale through telecommuting, video, web conferencing and other communication tools), the current legislative and economic trends which have created opportunities for small businesses to succeed, net neutrality and regulatory structures necessary to insure an even playing field for carriers, and the pros and cons for crowd funding and Direct Public Offerings (DPOs), two non-traditional capital-raising options for small businesses.

Listen to the full interview for Episode 45 of The Wendel Forum - BetterWorld Telecom’s Name Reveals Its Mission (27:34 mins; mp3)

The Wendel Forum highlights professionals with experience from many different disciplines to address issues of interest throughout the green economy.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President and SF Mayoral Candidate, David Chiu, today held a press conference at the Hub SoMa and laid out his plan for San Francisco to become the beacon and capital of Social Entrepreneurialism, starting with a plan for the City to provide contract bid preferences to CA B Corps or Benefit Corporations. BetterWorld has stood by Supervisor Chiu through this process, which began at a Silicon Valley Leadership Group event a few months ago and culminating recently in a roundtable with Supervisor Chiu with many SF Access Economy and B Corps leaders, including Jeff Marcous of Dharma Merchant Services, Brian Back of Sustainable Industries, David Brodwin from the American Sustainable Business Council, Alex Michel from the 5M Project and others.

“Benefit corporations create value for shareholders and society at the same time. These are exactly the types of companies that we need to be encouraging and rewarding in San Francisco,” said Supervisor Chiu. “San Francisco is known as an international leader in sustainability, economic innovation, and social entrepreneurialism. This first-of-its-kind proposal to provide City contracting preferences to B Corporations reaffirms our City’s leadership.”

Two weeks ago, when Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 261, California became the sixth state to charter this new kind of corporation, joining New Jersey, Virginia, Hawaii, Vermont, and Maryland. A Benefit Corporation is defined as 1) having a corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment; 2) redefining fiduciary duty to require consideration of non-financial interests when making corporate decisions; and 3) reporting on it’s overall social and environmental performance using recognized third party standards.

The City currently provides contract bid preferences to local businesses, a program administered by the Human Rights Commission. The proposed legislation would be modeled after this existing program. “As a founding B Corp, BetterWorld Telecom has been involved with this movement since it was just an idea in 2004. “We would like to thank Supervisor Chiu for his leadership in delivering ground-level results that support businesses that place people and the planet alongside profits,” said Matt Bauer, President of BetterWorld Telecom. “It is due in part fo the City of San Francisco’s support of B Corps that BetterWorld Telecom will be moving its headquarters to San Francisco in 2012.”

Currently, there are over 450 certified Benefit Corporations in 60 different industries nationwide. San Francisco has the most Benefit Corporations of any city, and the Bay Area is the home of approximately one quarter of all Benefit Corporations. San Francisco would be the first U.S. City to provide contracting incentives to these companies, thereby fostering the formation and growth of Benefit Corporations here.

“It’s so obvious that San Francisco would be the first major city to be in alignment with the B Corporation model,” said Jeff Marcous of Dharma Merchant Services. “This isn’t just about finding local, sustainable service providers, but it’s also about working with partners who see beyond a single bottom line motivation.”

“Businesses that are on top of their environmental, health and economic impacts on their customers, employees, and the community are not only more valuable overall, they are less risky,” said Sarah Olsen, the Founder and CEO of SVT Group, a B Corp. “SVT Group is a strong supporter of efforts to make these qualities transparent, so the market has more perfect information with which to make decisions.”

Two weeks ago, California became the sixth state in the country to authorize the creation of a revolutionary new category for businesses that choose to operate in a socially responsible, environmentally sustainable way. Today, I will introduce groundbreaking legislation at the Board of Supervisors to help award more City contracts to companies that are promoting the public good. I want to send the message that San Francisco wants its businesses to do well and do good. If my proposal is adopted, San Francisco will be the first city in the nation that directs more of our city dollars to companies that create jobs and make a positive impact on their communities.

BetterWorld and our colleagues who participated in the process would like to salute Supervisor Chiu for his vision and desire to catalyze the amazing energy and innovation that lies within the San Francisco borders - - we are all looking forward to the coming months and years working together to showcase a new public-private partnership model, helping to pave the way for the fast approaching Access Economy.

In a huge stride forward for business and communities alike, Governor Brown signed into law the historic Assembly Bill 361, creating a new class of corporation, a benefit corporation. The legislation, introduced by Assembly member Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) legally requires benefit corporations to prioritize positive impact on society and the environment, while meeting higher standards of accountability and transparency. Current law requires corporations to prioritize the financial interests of shareholder over the interests of workers, communities, and the environment.

The California legislation is unique, providing the strongest consumer and investor protection, with more rigorous transparency provisions than  the states that have so far enacted benefit corporation legislation. California is the sixth and largest state to enact benefit corporation legislation and has a strong existing base of entrepreneurs connected to sustainability.

Benefit Corporations are identical to existing California corporations except that a benefit corporation is required to: 1) have a corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment; 2) redefine fiduciary duty to require consideration of the interests of employees, community and the environment when making decision; and 3) publicly report annually on its overall social and environmental performance using a comprehensive, credible, independent, and transparent third party standard.

New Jersey, Virginia, and Hawaii passed similar legislation earlier this year, joining Vermont and Maryland who did so in spring 2010. Benefit corporation legislation is on the Governor’s desk in New York and has also been introduced in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Legislation has enjoyed strong bi-partisan support in every state.

“Entrepreneurs, investors and consumers are calling for this type of legislation,” said Assembly member Huffman. “They believe this is the start of something transformational. AB 361 rolls out the welcome mat for businesses and investors ready to create high quality jobs in California and make economic and social contributions that will improve the quality of life in communities across to our state for years to come.”

The California bill had significant business support, including that of more than 200 individual California businesses, including Patagonia and RSF Social Finance, 12 business associations, including the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the U.S. Green Building Council, standards organizations like GreenSeal, and more than 3,000 California citizens.

“California is the seat of innovation; now California entrepreneurs are free to innovate to create value for society, not just shareholders,” said Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab, one of the sponsors of the legislation. “The enactment of benefit corporation law will give entrepreneurs the legal protection they need to maintain their mission and attract needed capital to grow.”

“This is an important and much needed step forward to grow our economy and create more jobs which can also provide greater social and environmental benefit,” says David Levine, co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council whose members organizations represent over 100,000 businesses.

The bill was sponsored by the American Sustainable Business Council, New Voice of Business, and B Lab; and the effort to pass AB 361 was led by a legal working group co-chaired by John Montgomery from Montgomery & Hansen LLP, Donald Simon from Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP, and Jonathan Storper from Hanson Bridgett LLP.

BetterWorld Telecom is proud to be a founding B Corporation and hopeful for the opportunity this new category of business represents for our collective future. We believe in business as a lever of change.

You can find out more about the new Benefit Corporation legislation signing at CSR Wire.

BetterWorld is happy to welcome Bigelow Laboratory to the BetterWorld customer family! Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences is a nonprofit research organization based on the coast of Maine which studies the ocean. Their research ranges from microbial oceanography (examining biological productivity and phytoplankton community dynamics in the world’s oceans at the molecular level - phew!) to large-scale biogeochemical processes that drive interactions because ocean ecosystems and global environmental conditions.
Through their research, they work to understand and illuminate the key processes driving our global ocean ecosystems, their evolution and their relationship to the rest of life on Earth.

Bigelow Laboratory was named after Henry Bigelow, a pioneering ocean researcher who laid the foundations for modern oceanography. Bigelow’s work stressed the interdependence of biology, chemistry, and physical science in studying the ocean. Today the Laboratory trains the next generation of ocean scientists.

Their research and programs take Bigelow scientists around the world to every ocean and to the polar seas.  With an upcoming expansion into a new 64-acre site for their Ocean Science and Education Campus at the East Boothbay, the Laboratory is growing and widening their research and educational impact.

We’re proud to welcome Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences to the BetterWorld family,  one of many organizations working to educate and help preserve our environment for generations to come.

- The BetterWorld Team

What precisely is Clean Tech? This vague, hip and ever buzzing emerging field in and around Silicon Valley is not obvious to someone not already in the know. With terms like “sustainability” and “green industry” being used freely and indiscriminately in public discourse, this event was a breath of fresh air, bringing the vague and broad reaching dimensions of “Clean Tech” into focus.

The panel of experts was convened by the Green Chamber of Commerce this past week in Silicon Valley at the impressive and eclectic TechShop and coordinated by Heather Durham, founder of SVTAGS, a cable television show covering Technology, Art, Green & Sustainability. Among the experts, Mark Mitchell Senior VP of Serious Energy, Olivier Jerphagnon, Founder of the Green Frog of Silicon Valley, Lisa Anne Pinkerton, Founder of Technica Communications, and Alper Ertas, Attorney at Novak Druce. (You can read more about their bios here.)

It is easy to see why there is confusion in discussing clean tech, as the field is not vertical and includes many subcategories including renewable energy, water and energy conservation, green building and building materials.

Although there has been around 2 billion worth in venture capital investments in this field, it is dwarfed by the 10 billion that the Chinese government has invested. Currently, China is the world leader in clean tech.

Social media (as a category) has trumped clean tech recently for Silicon Valley’s venture capital funding, and as a result, some of the financial momentum hasn’t been there for significant strides in research and implementation.

One of the major take-aways from the panel was that in order to have effective implementation and reach of clean tech innovations it is vital to partner with existing large corporations and offer them the opportunity to adopt the new, better technologies into their own massive systems and market share. Particularly with industries such as water and energy, the level of infrastructure and the dominance of only a few companies makes it vital to seek out partnerships and ally with existing players.

The good news is that the natural economic driver of increasingly costly resources already has forward thinking companies like IBM and GE investing in energy and water conservation within their operations.

Mark Mitchell described some of the opportunities within the building industry to vastly reduce energy consumption. Forty percent of the energy we use is spent on running buildings and the top three construction materials that make up the construction are steel, concrete, and gypsum plaster. The technology exists to have carbon neutral concrete, but it is not currently economically competitive. Stephen Chu of Dept. of Energy has said, ” 30% of energy in buildings is wasted.”

Olivier Jergaphron highlighted the disconnect and disparity in new technology inventions that do not benefit the larger U.S. economy and the need for green technology innovations to fuel production and manufacturing in economically depressed regions in the U.S.  An astonishing fifty percent of college graduates in the U.S. are from other countries. Jergaphron also talked about the underlying reality that U.S. lifestyle norms will have to change in the future - owning multiple cars and driving long distances will not be viable. People don’t like to think about this and it’s political suicide to seriously address it at the federal level.

Lisa Anne Pinkerton emphasized the need for individuals and businesses not to wait around for government policies on the federal level to fuel change. If products can be delivered at cost, and with better performance, they will naturally start to be adopted.

What drives the market for clean tech? Information for consumers, such as carbon labeling, local and state policies like the Renewables Portfolio Standard.  Because there are so many facets to clean tech, it doesn’t have the clout of a single industry and it is unlikely that you’ll see any clean tech lobbyists on capital hill anytime soon. So how do we speed up clean tech? “Local initiatives create pressure,” says Lisa Anne Pinkerton.

Other highlights:

Mark Mitchell described the Empire State Building retrofit, an incredible case study for Serious Energy. The job entailed processing the existing glass windows of the building to install panes with greater energy efficient and has an impressive list of successes. Completed in less than 6 months (using the fifth floor of the building), the massive project took less than 3 years to pay for itself, decreased building vacancy by 60% and increased value by 30%. To top it all off, the shiny newcomer to the stock market, LinkedIn recently moved in to this newly green building taking an entire floor.

Olivier Jerphagnon described how a U.S. documentary revealing the dangers and devastation caused by fracking (a method using high water pressure to extract oil from beneath the ground) had such a profound impact in France that they have now outlawed the practice, although in the U.S. and Canada the practice is still in active use.

So what’s the take away?  Opportunities for green tech within energy and water industries will only grow moving forward as resources become more scarce and conservation becomes a business necessity. Will this lead to an ever shrinking horizon? “Don’t underestimate the power of game changers,” says Mark Mitchell. “Innovation, such as a new energy source like fusion could change the entire playing field.”

Here at BetterWorld, we’re hopeful that individuals will adopt smarter green practices before we need them. One of the easiest ways to reduce one’s carbon footprint is by adopting a smarter way of working, we have framework for this, called BetterWork.

In service,
The BetterWorld Team

As is our annual BetterBlog tradition, we mark the passing of each January 1st with some reflection and highlights of the previous year.  As we make the turn into 2011, the BetterWorld team is excited as 2010, on almost every front, was our best to date - from new partnerships, to customers, expanding our mission and furthering our efforts to provide a concrete example and direction for how the telecoms industry can be a social and environmental leader, our pathway has never been more clear.

Early on, back in 2003-2004, we became ardent fans of the constant, steady improvement message of Jim Collins’ Good to Great - which has been our mantra every week, month and year since - “what are you going to do today, this week, this month to spin the flywheel” - taking a page from the wisdom of Good to Great, we aim to constantly improve ourselves and our ability to serve our customers with excellence and a servant’s heart.  Above all else, this is and has to be our number one goal, with everything else coming in a close tie for second.

2010, the year in review:

Customers - We continue to focus on and bring into the BetterWorld family, leading local and national organizations around the country that are all about making it a better world for people and the planet.  2010 was our best sales year to date and we are awed by the impact that our new customers are having on the world today. Further to help simplify and streamline our value proposition to our customers - we launched our Five Promises this year, which gives clear and concise “rules of the road” to our customers, presenting simple expectations and performance metrics, all backed by our 100% guarantee.

…here’s just a short list of our new customers in 2010:

Partnerships: We have many highlights on the partner front this year was the kickoff of our national non-profit donation program with TechSoup Global, the largest technology provider to non-profits in the U.S. today.  Our new donation program with TechSoup, the first of its kind, is off to a great start with non-profits all over the U.S. signing up every day. We look forward to expanding this amazing program in 2011 and beyond and owe a special thanks to our technology partner, Aptela, for making the program possible.

Other partner highlights for  2010 include our national affiliate/donation program with Goodwill International, where we donate a full 3% of revenues back to GII for all Goodwill stores and regions that sign up - - we’ve had a great start to this program as well, with Goodwill sites from coast to coast signing up for BetterWorld services.  Finally, we are expecting big things in 2011 from our latest affiliate partnership that was signed at the end of the year with the Social Enterprise Alliance. Please see the BetterBlog from the last few months for more information about all of these partnerships

BetterWork: We are now into our third year of promoting the benefits of using our vast telecommunications infrastructure to reduce America’s environmental impact, create more jobs and stimulate economic activity.  2010 marked our first major victory, as BetterWorld was named in a $2.5M stimulus grant from the Dept. of Commerce/NTIA to create jobs, through teaching and certifying at home teleworkers in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  We are in the beginning stages of deploying this plan and will be taking this model out to other localities starting in 2011.  Our BetterWork Bottom Line:  No other opportunity exists today for reducing environmental impact and stimulating jobs than BetterWork, read more at www.BetterWorkToday.com.

Environmental and Social Leadership, Mission: Steady as she goes would mark our 2010 Social and Environmental report:  BetterWork was re certified by B Corp and our new results are available at the B Corp site.  We are a founding B Corp company, and use it a single lens to focus our social and environmental mission.  In addition, we remain members of One Percent for the Planet, who certifies annually that 1% of our revenues are being donated to established & impactful environmental non-profits - as a whole, BetterWorld donates 3% of our top line to causes for children, education, the environment and fair trade, which we have accomplished every year since our founding in 2003. Finally, we continue on as one of the “top 40 most democratic companies in the world” as certified annually by WorldBlu.  In sum, our internal focal points are sharpened through our certification process with B Corp., WorldBlu and One Percent & our external focus on how we are going to change the world, is through our development and promotion of BetterWork - - this will remain our focus for months and years to come.

The BetterWorld Brand:  If you stop by our site or the BetterBlog from time to time, you will probably notice that we have redesigned and recast our brand, putting our commitment to excellence, service, products and unique position in the market out front, with more mainstream branding.  We now assume our work on the social and environmental is a given, the bedrock of our value proposition as we now take our brand into the mainstream and offer companies both in our core markets and anywhere in the U.S. to do well and do good through their choice of BetterWorld as their service provider for voice and data services.  As of Q1 2011, our model still remains unique in the $2 trillion global telecom carrier services market.

2011, Looking Ahead - Excitement, innovation and opportunity mark this New Year for the BetterWorld team - as we stand on the threshold of transition and growth, 2011 is set to be a pivotal year for BetterWorld.  We are raising growth capital and expanding the company, but only if we can find the right, patient and like-minded partner(s) & we are in discussions already with a number of possibilities.  During and after this process, our commitment is to not only keep our level of service and mission constant, but actually to increase and strengthen them.  The endgame we seek is not driven by wealth, fame or fortune, but rather, keeping our focus on profit+people+planet as a three-legged stool - with the goal of changing how the companies in our industry see themselves and their role in society, while helping to inspire the world towards a more sustainable future - - paraphrasing Good to Great, to have been part of something that made a difference.

We are humbled by all those that have helped us to achieve, grow and thrive - we will not disappoint you as we move BetterWorld into the future. Thank you for being part of our story, until 2012, onward and upward!

In thanks and service,

The BetterWorld Team

This past week, the excitement ran high at BetterWorld as we launched our national national donation program alongside partners TechSoup Global and Aptela.  The TechSoup+BetterWorld+Aptela partnership creates a unique bundle of telecommunications services that are now available to nonprofit organizations and public libraries as a combination of donated equipment and discounted rates.

For more details of the program click here.

BetterWorld’s hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services allow an organization to replace a traditional phone system — typically a premises-based private branch exchange (PBX) — with a software-based virtual PBX that is hosted by BetterWorld and does not require on-site PBX hardware other than telephones and standard networking equipment. Incoming and outgoing calls are transmitted through VoIP technology over a high-speed Internet connection, which can be provided by BetterWorld or any high-speed Internet service provider.

BetterWorld’s services also allow an organization to employ what is referred to as unified communications (UC) — an integrated system of multiple communication services like telephony, call control, voicemail, email, fax, and presence information (a user’s availability status) that can be accessed from any location with a phone, mobile phone, or any Internet-connected device. For example, faxes and voicemails can be received as email messages, and users can place calls or access other in-office voice services remotely through a web interface.

TechSoup considers this BetterWorld offering a GreenTech product because it allows employees to work remotely just as efficiently as they do in the office, therefore reducing travel, office space, and hardware requirements and minimizing an organization’s environmental footprint.

TechSoup Global distributes donated technology to nonprofits and libraries. More than 133,000 organizations have received donations through Tech Soup. They offer 450+ product donations from over 40 donor partners including Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, Intuit, Cisco, and now BetterWorld Telecom.  We want to express our sincere appreciation to both TechSoup and Aptela for their amazing dedication and work to make this important program possible!

In service,

The BetterWorld Team