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.
The bio-fuel start-up that sells cooking gas by the rucksack
Inside a large ramshackle shed a struck match is held to the end of a metal pipe, and a faint blue flame springs into life. Zenebech Alemayehu smiles, puts her finger tips to her lips, then towards the flame, a symbolic kiss for her new biogas business. A single mother with a nine-year-old son to Read More...
Norwegian fund giant puts premium on ethical investing
Norway's mammoth sovereign wealth fund, which gets its money from Norway's offshore oil and gas sector, takes an activist approach to its investing when it comes to ethical issues. The sell decision came from the fund's ethical council. It said the four companies may be responsible for Read More...
Research Suggests Uber Might Be Making Our Roads Safer
There is a lot that can be said about Uber, the popular car service and mobile app. On one hand, the company has been hailed as the gold standard of sharing-economy startups, providing a much-needed service to cities with transportation systems strained by overuse. On the other, Uber has faced any Read More...
The Uber Controversy Highlights A Key Question: Who Is The Boss In The Sharing Economy?
When is a company not a company? A modern-day Zen koan, maybe, but the evidence is all around us—Airbnb, Elance-oDesk, Handy, HourlyNerd, TaskRabbit, Uber. These businesses seem much more like conglomerations of independent professionals that connect to customers through a common platform, rather Read More...
Transcendental meditation is going corporate. Here's why that's a good thing.
Thanks to the continued research touting its advantages, meditation has hit the mainstream. More and more people are willing to give it a try, often despite a measure of initial skepticism. Nowhere is that more true than in the workplace, where everyone from C-suite executives to entry-level Read More...
How the 'sharing economy' could upend capitalism
The gig economy. The “collaborative” model. Whatever cliché you want to use, Zipcar co-founder Robin Chase suggests that large-scale sharing has just gotten started. “This has the potential to reshape our cities in a dramatically positive way,” she predicts. To Chase, “the sharing Read More...
More and more companies are sponsoring volunteering by their employees
Feeling that we are making progress in meaningful work is core to being higher-performing and happier, according The Progress Principle coauthor Teresa Amabile. Not surprisingly, companies and employees that take that same stance in volunteer work are able to grow faster. One way to optimize that Read More...
The sharing economy beats Paris luxury hotels
The Paris region offers 50,000 Airbnb listings—nowhere in the world is more accommodation available on the home-sharing website. Airbnb offers between 380 and 400 Paris properties at over 500 euros a night. Of those, about 40 charge over 1,000 euros ($1,090). And that poses an increasing problem Read More...
7 Lessons From A Successful Corporate Social Responsibility Program
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs are practically a given at most companies these days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean all companies have truly accepted the calling to be good corporate citizens. Some CSR programs are really nothing more than a marketing ploy, and a poorly Read More...
Patagonia Out to Change the 'Filthy Business' of Denim
Knowing how conventional cotton is grown and denim is made, always-a-better-way outdoor apparel brand Patagonia has set out to change the industry. The company has partnered with chemical company Archroma on a new denim collection, launched this week — which is Fair Trade certified Read More...