Business
Looking for positive and inspiring business stories? From green operations to employee rights, from innovative corporate structures to diversity and inclusion, the Business section at The Optimist Daily has got the latest innovative solutions from the corporate sector.
Solar fridges lift African farmers’ incomes by 50 percent
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Up to 40 percent of food produced in Africa is lost between harvest and market. Not from drought or pest damage, but from the absence of one thing: refrigeration. The early numbers from solar-powered cold storage are hard to argue with. Provider Soko Fresh Read More...
Period tax scrapped in Pakistan: what the ruling means for women
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Two lawyers filed a court case. Thousands signed a petition. Pakistan just agreed to scrap its sales tax on period products. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb announced the move this month, calling sanitary products “daily necessities that are Read More...
Historic ILO vote gives gig workers labour rights for the first time
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For the first time, gig workers have binding international labour protections. The International Labour Organization voted June 12 to adopt a convention setting enforceable employment standards for platform workers in ride-hailing and food delivery. Four Read More...
11,000 jobs, $1.4 billion in savings: what a decade of green banking built in Philadelphia
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM An impressive $14.7 million from the city. $1.3 billion in economic investment returned. $1.4 billion in energy savings. 11,000 jobs created. Those are the results of the Philadelphia Energy Campaign’s first decade, according to a 10-year economic impact Read More...
5 habits that separate growing teams from stagnant ones
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The strategy is fine. The team is capable. But at the end of the quarter, the needle hasn’t moved. Julie Turpin, Chief People Officer at Brown & Brown, says this pattern almost always traces back to the same thing: habits. “Results that stick are Read More...
WasteBar turns cigarette butt waste into food currency in the Netherlands
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There is a small mobile cart somewhere in the Netherlands right now, and if you bring it a handful of cigarette butts, it will give you poffertjes. Those are Dutch mini pancakes, in case you were wondering, and yes, the exchange is real. WasteBar is the Read More...
The case for making prison phone calls free: new data, real results
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For decades, a phone call home from prison could cost a family several dollars a minute. That wasn’t an oversight. It was the business model. A growing number of state prison systems and county jails have moved to make calls free, arguing that regular Read More...
Chile’s maternity leave expansion led to a three-year employment boost
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In October 2011, Chile extended postnatal leave from 12 to 24 weeks for women contributing to the country’s social security system. The reform also introduced five days of paid paternity leave. A study published this year by economist Francisca Read More...
Julie and Kariba: two elephants getting a second chance in Portugal
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Kariba has lived alone in a Belgian zoo for years. Julie has been with the Cardinali circus in Portugal since 1988, when she was caught in the wild and sold to a German zoo before the family acquired her. Both are African elephants in their 40s. And both are Read More...
Minnesota just banned the apps that make deepfake nudes
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Two years ago, Molly Kelley found out that a close family friend had used a nudification website to make nonconsensual deepfake images of her and dozens of other women. About 80 women in Minnesota were affected by the same person. When she tried to figure out Read More...