Palm | Kelapa Sawit

John McConnell, the founder of International Earth Day stated “Let every individual and institution now think and act as a responsible trustee of Earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will provide a sustainable future, eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, awaken the wonder of life and foster peaceful progress in the human adventure”. Corporate Social Responsibility incorporates much of what McConnell asserted. Many leaders in business and corporations take part in the betterment of society and environment to fulfill their corporate social responsibility. It is important for every corporation to business to person to be proactive in all decisions made and to protect and improve the betterment of society as a whole including their own.

Trading to buying used clothing has a positive environmental impact as it prevents post-consumer textile waste from entering the solid waste stream. Buffalo Exchange a textile re-sell store is a sustainable company automatically working to protect the environment by reusing and recycling clothing. “Buffalo Exchange, which earned more than $3 million last year on $43 million in revenue, has 32 stores nationally, making it one of the largest purveyors of recycled clothing in the country” (Hamilton, TIME Magazine). The company takes on multiple fronts for the betterment of the environment. On April 21, 2007 their stores across the country raised over $43,000 for the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), they move major industries helping them see the value in protecting public consumer health through the use of greener practices (Buffalo Exchange Website). They collect furs for Coats for Cubs a program facilitated by The Humane Society of the United States, this program enables the furs to be used as bedding for orphaned to injured wildlife (Buffalo Exchange Website). Buffalo Exchange has a tokens for bags policy which provides their consumers with the option of using or not a bag. If the consumer does not use a bag they are given a token (worth 5 cents) they can choose amongst several different charities to which the token will benefit (Buffalo Exchange Website). This company takes on the duty of addressing a variety of their stakeholders’ demands and expectations. They address their environment in a couple different ways as well as their surrounding community and consumers (providing an easy, effortless way for them too to achieve social responsibility) as well as the government in aiding and educating for the greater good and a greener Earth.

-Mathilde Goldschmidt

Readers and writers alike may be interested in Ecotone, a literary journal concerned with nature, environment, and ecosystems. According to their website,

Ecotone is a literary journal of place that seeks to publish creative work about the environment and the natural world while avoiding the hushed tones and clichés of much of so-called nature writing. In the natural world an ecotone is a landscape where two separate ecosytems overlap, a place of danger and opportunity for animals. As we try to reimagine a new literature of place, our journal embraces literary ecotones, writing that breaks across genres and seeks out edges. These edges—between science and literature, the urban and rural, the personal and biological—are places that are alive and electric, as well as new and dangerous.

Around the world the message is the same. In Asia they are also addressing ways in which to help our earth. Many of the same adjustments and attitudes toward change abound in the website listed below. This is very pertinent to the United States, as it is in other parts of our same world. Check it out.
http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/how_help/tips_savearth/green_tips.html

Visit our website:

http://sites.google.com/site/ecomerge2008/