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 National Trust to adopt "siestas" due to rising temperatures
As the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report indicates, there is a lot that we have to do to reduce our impact on the planet if we want it to continue to be a suitable place for humans to live, however, even if we do enough to prevent the worst from happening, we will still have Read More...
This MINI concept takes sustainable car manufacturing to a whole new level
As circularity slowly expands across industries, car companies are beginning to explore sustainable design as the new standard. Emblematic of that is the MINI Strip — a one-off car that resulted from a collaboration between two British brands, fashion designer Paul Smith and automotive marque Read More...
Policy choices tied to lower poverty rates in 2021
We’ve written about the impact of stimulus checks during the pandemic, but the US also responded with additional measures like raising food stamps benefits, barring eviction, and offering financial support to small businesses. It looks like this policy choice paid off; poverty in 2021 is Read More...
Free education takes Congolese kids out of mines and into the classroom
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF, six million children (approximately one in four) were not attending school in 2018. To address this, the following year, the Democratic Republic of Congo became one of the last countries in the world to finally introduce free primary Read More...
You will soon be able to feed your cat lab-grown mouse-meat snacks
Most of the food that we feed or pet cats and dogs is meat-based which, as you can imagine, has its negative impacts on the environment. In fact, producing meat for our cats and dogs has a footprint of about 64 million tons of carbon emissions — that’s more than a quarter of the environmental Read More...
This nonprofit elevates minority neighborhoods by investing in youth
North of Delmar Boulevard in the city of St. Louis are communities that are suffering from generations of racist housing policies and failed real estate markets. This leaves the majority Black and brown neighborhoods full of vacant homes and buildings with no access to key services or community Read More...
This online platform continues to raise Afghan women's voices
The Afghan media industry is very much a male-dominated space (like many countries' media industries), even after years of development and progress. Zahra Joya, a 28-year-old journalist from the persecuted Hazara community often found that she was the sole woman in her professional sphere and would Read More...
These recycled swimming pools are made from old shipping containers
Earlier this summer, we shared a story about the “Airbnb of pools,” but what if that rented pool was also made out of a recycled shipping container? This is the vision of Modpools. Conceptualized by Paul Rathnam, Modpools turns old shipping containers into convenient, sustainable, and efficient Read More...
Volvo will soon use fossil-free steel to make its electric trucks
Earlier this year, Volvo pledged to go all-electric by 2030, while making its entire business operations (including its supply chain) climate-neutral by 2050 — all in a bid to do its part in the fight against the climate crisis. To that end, the carmaker has recently made a deal with Swedish Read More...
Retrofitting demonstrates the profitability of green industry
Research has shown that it is possible for our world to be sustainable and profitable, but transitioning away from the fossil fuel industry requires the transfer of job skills. In England, this shift is already taking place with the growth of the green home retrofitting industry. The Manchester Read More...