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The last year and a half have been a labor of love helping to get one of the newest BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, www.livingeconomies.org ) chapters off the ground - based in in Charleston, SC, Lowcountry Local First (LLF) had its major launch event this past weekend with over 220 people in attendendance, it is clear that the community is embracing the local first concept and the group is off to a great start.

In addition, LLF is close to striking a partnership with the Coastal Conservation League, whereby we will be focusing over the coming year(s) on helping to rebuild the agricultural system in the Lowcountry region (South Carolina coastal watershed). It all started at a BALLE conference a few years ago where I heard a speech by Bill McKibben that lit the fire to take this timely and important focus back to the Charleston, SC area where I live. Our long term goal is to have 750 members within 5 years, while having a measurable change on the Lowcountry economy and environment.

For more information: www.LowCountryLocalFirst.org

Locally yours - Matt 

Last night the Sustainable Business Network of Washington (SB NOW) held a great, well attended event at Hotel Rouge aimed at spurring the participation of DC-area businesses sourcing their supply chain with green suppliers. Area leaders were in attendence, including Clean Currents, Ecoprint, Community IT Innovators and alongside BetterWorld. SBNOW continues to build its membership, now over 100 businesses, and has really become a force in DC for the sustainability movement.

 We’re all in this together, nothing is more powerful than moving the economy to a green one and what a better way than sourcing our business operations with green and sustainable organizations where possible. For more information: www.sbnow.org.

Matt

My apologies for the blog gap, but a combination of our busiest summer to date and late summer vaca led to a few week gap in the blog - so I thought I’d bring a real doozy for the first one back. We have been meeting and in discussions with the Nature Conservancy on a number of fronts over the summer (in addition to our regular volunteering that we do with them in the DC area) and I can’t help be excited about their new Atlantic Forest project.

At BetterWorld we have our own Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) such as donations of $1M per year by 2012 (which we will hit), as well as being the first carbon neutral telecom carrier in the US (which we just accomplished), to being completely environmentally neutral by 2010 - but the Nature Conservancy has just laid down the motherlode of BHAGs - planting 1 Billion trees in the Atlantic Forest (southeastern Brazil) by 2015.

No place on earth on Earth came closer to total destruction than Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Once a massive green carpet three times the size of California, two centuries of development have reduced it to an area about the size of Virginia.  It contains 2,200 animal species, 20,000 plant species - most of which are only found inside the AF boundaries - but almost 93% of the forest has been lost. The Conservancy is mounting an enormous cooperative effort to bring the forest back and all the amazing environmental benefits that will come along with successful completion of their goals.

BetterWorld is going to be helping, will you? For more information on the AF click here.

Looking forward to a great 2007 Fall and the temps coming down -

Matt