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.
Urban Organics
An abandoned brewery in a ‘food desert’ in Saint Paul, Minnesota has started its second life as an agricultural business and fish farm. The company, Urban Organics, works with aquaponics– a growing technique that creates a symbiotic relationship between fish and plants where crops are Read More...
Adding tech to agriculture grows the same amount of produce with 1/2 the water.
The average American uses 80 gallons of water per day for bathing, laundry, drinking, etc. That number blows up to 2000 gallons per day if you factor in the water used to produce the clothes you wear, or the water used to refrigerate your food, or the biggest culprit– agriculture. Agriculture Read More...
Rooftop farm grows 5 tons of veggies, 1,800 pounds of fish
Have an old industrial building with a large roof lying around? Probably not, but if you do Urban Farms will deliver a full-scale rooftop garden–aquaponics system. The package is a modular system and includes a greenhouse, a modified shipping container that could be used as an office or kitchen, Read More...
New technologies take water out of the washing and textile– dying processes
Innovative technologies created by British washing machine manufacturer Xeros, and Dutch textile–dying company DyeCoo have removed the water from the textile cleaning and dying process, saving millions of gallons of water and preventing waterway contamination. Researchers developed the waterless Read More...
Connecting the developing world via high–altitude balloons
On June 15, 2013 Google announced Project Loon– an attempt to provide schools in developing countries Internet connectivity via high–altitude balloons. A year after announcing the initiative, Google’s balloons are off to a promising start, “we’ve definitely crossed the point where Read More...
Coffee couture
Jason Chen, founder of Taiwanese textile manufacturer Singtex, made what may be the company’s most important decision because his wife told him he smelled bad. They were getting coffee at a Starbucks, and he had just been to the gym. “Why don’t you just put coffee grounds in your Read More...
Inflatable concrete makes semi–permanent structures in 2 hours, could be a game–changer for disaster relief
Domes are structurally sound, but creating one out of concrete is difficult, time consuming, and until now not very feasible. Architects from the Vienna University of Technology have created a type of concrete that inflates, and creates exactly shaped domes quickly and easily. The inflatable Read More...
From soap recycling to daily food delivery, these companies are rethinking the way they do business
Global soap project– This Atlanta based initiative collects partially used soaps from hotels around the country, recycles them, then donates them to people living in developing countries, and to needy communities around the US. Plated– Grocery shopping is a chore, but Plated makes shopping and Read More...
The homeless project
Above: Greg Kloehn sits in a partially finished cart in Oakland, California. Outside Greg Kloehn’s studio in West Oakland, CA you can see his creations sitting on the sidewalk– wood boxes about 10 feet long, 4 feet tall and about 4 feet wide. Kloehn is an Oakland based artist and carpenter, he Read More...
The forgotten solution
When you purchase an airline ticket for less than $35, or a piece of chicken for $1, you know that most likely that’s not the true price. Environmental responsibility and humanely raised foods are not free. And yet, for many that’s no reason to stop buying these products. This constrains Read More...