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.
Five major palm oil producers switch to sustainable model
Five major palm oil producers announced they will switch to a more sustainable business model. The announcement comes a week after receiving a letter from Green Century Capital Management, an environmental advocacy group with assets clearing $600 billion, urging the companies to make the switch. Read More...
Coal India bets on solar
Coal India Ltd. is considering investing $1.2 billion in solar energy projects to offset carbon emissions. Coal India Ltd. is the biggest coal producer and hopes that the clean energy investment will help clean its slightly tarnished name after the Indian coal and power minister Piyush Goyal called Read More...
New certification grades companies on gender equality
Thanks to certifications like fair-trade and LEED standards, we can support businesses that care about sustainability. But how do we know if a company offers men and women equal opportunities? A new certification, EDGE, rates companies based on how gender-equal their workplace is. Edge takes into Read More...
Public health intrinsically related to job creation
Waiting in a coffee shop for Nicolas Hazard I see him approach the front door, passing a few homeless people on the way in—the very individuals Hazard is going to help. Hazard is the president of the newly formed CALSO, a social enterprise that tackles healthcare issues through job creation. Seem Read More...
PayPal now supports bitcoin
The very name ‘cryptocurrency’ evokes images of shadowy figures sitting behind computers transferring money that for some reason can’t be done through traditional means. While bitcoins are still a fringe form of currency, PayPal has announced that it now accepts bitcoins on its Braintree Read More...
Unusual job titles reduce employee stress
Positions like Chief Happiness Officer, or Manager of First Impressions, may be initially written off as tongue-n-cheek workplace jokes, but a recent study published in the Academy of Management Journal has found emotional benefits can go along with wacky titles. The study looked at the Midwest Read More...
Should meditation be mandatory?
More and more businesses and managers are becoming interested in meditation. The word no longer conjures images of vagueness or flakiness, but is increasingly seen as a practical method for stress reduction. And that’s hardly a luxury in our seemingly ever turbulent modern world. R.W. “Buck” Read More...
New business in Vietnam helps farmers grow mushrooms on rice straw waste
Rice cultivation is deeply rooted in the Vietnamese culture. And so is the habit to burn the rice plant waste after every harvest. In Vietnam about 20 million tons of rice straw go up in smoke each year. That’s bad news for the environment, because the burning releases toxic greenhouse gases, but Read More...
Don’t burn the straw!
Minh Vu, a Vietnamese farmer, has the same problem after every harvest of her rice paddy: What to do with the stems of the rice plants after the threshing of the rice? Usually she chooses to burn them. And because that’s what most of her colleagues do as well, it means in Vietnam about 20 million Read More...
Green spaces bring in big bucks for US
When the national parks were set up in the 2nd half of the 1800s they faced strong opposition—many policy makers couldn’t understand how undeveloped areas would make money. Fast-forward to our times and the US National Park system is as lucrative as any business model. In 2013 alone the Read More...