This Company Has Created An Innovative Food-Waste Solution

Food Waste Becomes Compost

East Coast business uses clean technology to take food waste out of landfills and put it into your garden. Imagine a big composting machine that processes food waste by the ton. It’s not only bigger than the compost heap you have stirring in your backyard; it’s faster, too. That’s the idea behind Converted Organics’ high-temperature liquid composting technology. The Boston-based company takes food waste from grocery stores, restaurants, and processing facilities around Boston, New York and New Jersey and turns it into an eco-friendly fertilizer that gardeners can use in their backyards. Unlike your backyard compost pile, where dairy and meat products are a big no-no, Converted Organics accepts all types of food waste, including fruits, vegetables, and meats. “Meats have high nitrogen compounds from additional protein,” says Rob Bayless, the company’s vice president of manufacturing, explaining why taboo compost additives are a key ingredient to the Converted Organics mix. Contrary to backyard composting methods, they then liquefy the food waste. This not only breaks down the material to keep it from producing that nasty odor associated with decomposing garbage, it allows oxygen to more easily enter the mix, explains Bayless. Air is inserted into the liquefied food waste, making […]

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Industry with most female leaders? Marijuana

WomenGrow - Marijuana Industry Women Leaders

Women still continue to earn less per hour than men for the same amount of work in America, but there is one highlight — the marijuana industry. Marijuana Business Daily reports this October that the percentage of women executives in the cannabis industry is far higher than in all U.S. businesses as a whole. About 36 percent of executives in the cannabis industry are women. By comparison, just 22 percent of executives in all U.S. businesses are women. And in some sectors of the cannabis economy, women’s gains are even more stark. In the cannabis testing labs sector, women comprise 63% of executives. When it comes to cannabis processing or edibles — executives are 48 percent women. Women executives are most rare in cannabis investment sector (28%), but that’s still above the U.S. average. By comparison, a Pew Women in Leadership study from 2015 found women are under-represented in Congress (20% women). Women make up just 5% of CEOs in the Fortune 500. Women account for about half the labor force. The cannabis industry is often criticized for using sex to sell products, or engaging in frathouse hiring practices. But the survey shows it’s also among the most equitable. Researchers […]

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Rural Development, The Charakha Way – Gandhi Would Be Proud

Charkha Weaving Cooperative in India

(This post is authored by Rohit Parakh who is Global Chapters Lead with Rang De and has been an active and pivotal part of the fight against poverty in India. He recently went for a field trip to one of Impact Partners organizations, Charkha. Here is his story.) I was recently reading the book India of My Dreams by Mahatma Gandhi which is a collection of his writings and speeches and one of the key points he makes in the book is for India to truly develop its villages have to progress. And for its villages to progress, the poorest amongst the villagers need to be empowered to earn decent wages to help them move out of poverty. He also extensively spoke about production by masses rather than production for masses which could contribute to large-scale unemployment and poverty. It is a testimony how miserably we have failed to live his dreams of India, that after nearly 70 years of Independence we have a situation that in 75% of rural households (nearly 50 crore people), the main earning member of the family earns less than Rs 5,000 a month (i.e. less than Rs 170 a day). Prasanna, who decided to […]

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4 Ways For Millennial Women To Prepare For Leadership Roles

Millennial Women prepare for leadership roles.

Millennial women are set to take on unprecedented leadership positions. Here’s how to prep for them. Coming of age for working women in the “lean-in” era isn’t easy. For millennial women (those born between 1980 and 1994), life and work are blended. The same technology that makes staying connected so easy makes staying “on” after working hours easy as well. Meanwhile, businesses expect more work for less pay, and parenting challenges are leading many women to take more time off work. That helps explain why 34% of millennial women say they aren’t interested in becoming a boss or top manager, according to a Pew Research Center study. Like their male counterparts, millennial women place a higher value on security and flexibility than on pay. But that doesn’t mean they’re satisfied with their working lives. In fact, 75% of millennial women say gender inequality in the workplace is an issue that needs addressing, compared with just 57% of millennial men. Here’s a look at some of those obstacles and what millennial women can do to get past them. No Shortage of Hurdles Despite the presence of several high-profile women at the national level, women hold only 4.6% (or exactly 23) of […]

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Elle’s #MoreWomen Campaign: There’s Room For More Women At The Top

#MoreWomen Elle Magazine Campaign

Elle Magazine UK’s video, #MoreWomen shows how rare it is for women to be leaders on the world stage – by cutting out all the men. The film photoshops out men from pictures of groups of leaders in politics, business, entertainment and the media, revealing that the women left behind often look rather lonely. The treatment is applied to photos from political boardrooms, the UN and Buckingham Palace, as well as the BBC’s Question Time, Saturday Night Live, Masterchef and even University Challenge. The UK parliament would be a drafty place if it replied only on women MPs, as the contrast between these pictures starkly reveals: The pictures aim to highlight how powerful and influential women often stand alone in their field, as part of the Elle magazine #MoreWomen campaign calling for more women at the top. Emma Watson is the only woman left in a picture from the UN: While German chancellor Angela Merkel is alone after all the male leaders are removed from one picture: Hilary Clinton hasn’t got much company when the men in this picture of Obama’s top officials are gone: And Merkel looks lonely once more when the treatment is applied to a group of […]

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Turn Your Purpose Into a 6-Figure Business

6-Figure Purpose

A Message from Carolyn: I know making an impact in your world is important to you. I also get how hard you work to build your business or launch an idea or project so that it can generate the income and the influence you dream of so you can give back BIG. I want to make sure you don’t miss this event for visionary entrepreneurs just like you. I’m joining 28 transformational leaders who have built 6- and 7-figure businesses on exactly how they were able to achieve massive impact with their businesses. I will be speaking on “Creating a Million Dollar Message to Maximum Impact”. My friend Lorna Li is the producer of this summit. She is on a mission to inspire 100K entrepreneurs to build businesses and create projects that make massive positive impact – it’s called 6-Figure Purpose to 7-Figure Impact on October 16 – October 31, 2015. All the speakers are going to share with you actionable, authentic, heart-based business strategies on how you can: Inspire millions of people through social media, elevate awareness and transform our global culture Adopt the success-oriented mindset that millionaires attribute to creating prosperity The keys to overcoming failures and obstacles that have […]

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13 Inspiring Green Women of Instagram

If you think Instagram is merely frivolous selfies and food porn, you’d only be mostly correct. The rest, however, offers some good news for the picture-based mobile app: It’s also a hotbed for powerful green women bringing about change through something as simple as a photograph. Well, lots of gorgeous photographs, actually. We live in a visual world, and as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, perhaps more so today than at any other time in history.  These green women of Instagram will not only inspire you with gorgeous pictures, but with hope for a richer, kinder, and more sustainable world. Chef Alice Waters is renowned for her commitment to local and delicious food along with her learning gardens school programs. And she’s on Instagram! Food porn, garnde porn, inspiration and more! @alicelouisewaters Academy award winner Charlize Theron is an advocate for international health issues as well as sustainability through the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. @charlizeafrica National Geographic photographer Rena Effendi says she’s infiltrating Instagram with “profoundly uncute pictures”—but don’t mistake that for uninspired. She delivers candid images of the world. @renaeffendiphoto There’s nothing more eco than vegan food and there’s no one more valued […]

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UN Serves World Leaders Food Scraps For Lunch

Landfill Salad - Food Waste menu

Some of the most powerful people on the planet ate the food we throw away and leave to rot at supermarkets for their lunch on Sunday. About 30 world leaders — including United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and French President Francois Hollande — were served “landfill salads” made out of vegetable scraps for a high-level working lunch at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York. They were also given water drained from cans of chickpeas, burgers made from vegetables thrown away for being below quality standards, French fries produced using corn typically used as animal feed, and desserts consisting of coffee cherry pulp, cocoa bean shells and leftover nut skins. The menu was created by award-winning chef Dan Barber and the former executive director of first lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign, Sam Kass. The goal of the lunch was to highlight the role of food waste as an “overlooked aspect of climate change,” Ban said at a press conference Sunday. The meal was served to the world leaders after they adopted  17 new Sustainable Development Goals Friday, and created 169 targets, to hit by 2030, which focus heavily on the need to tackle climate change and end poverty and hunger worldwide. The leaders will head to Paris to further these […]

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Are You a Game Changer?

Are you ready to be a Game Changer?

The Pachamama Alliance believes that the great work ahead will require a critical mass of conscious, committed individuals working collectively to communicate a new story for these times, and to actually “change the game.” As a game changer, you embody the following qualities: You understand that all life is connected. You see the human family, in all its diversity, as an integral component in the whole of the web of creation, and are committed to building a society that reflects and reveres the sacred and interconnected nature of all life.  You stand for a sustainable, just and fulfilling future. You stand for and act from an informed vision that a sustainable, just and fulfilling future for all beings is urgent, possible and essential. You recognize that the universe is friendly. You recognize that the universe is friendly and that the evolutionary force that put the stars in motion is moving through us and is a dynamic, self organizing process whose grace and guidance we can trust. You realize that we are called to be evolutionary activists. You realize that the human role and responsibility now is as an evolutionary activist, intentionally engaging with the momentum of evolution to shape the […]

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Leonardo DiCaprio Joins Divestment Call as Fossil Fuels Could Lose Billions in Investment

Divest from Fossil Fuels

A new report finds that over the past year, the amount of money committed to be pulled from companies that produce coal, oil, and natural gas has grown fifty-fold. Over the past year, investors holding $2.6 trillion in assets have pledged to divest from companies that produce coal, oil, and natural gas, according to a report issued Tuesday. The study was issued by the group Divest-Invest, which calls on institutional and private investors to hold themselves accountable for the environmental impacts of their investments. “One year ago today, exactly, we announced that the total [divestment] at that point was $52 billion, and committed to tripling that amount before the U.N. Climate Conference in Paris in December of this year,” said Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the Wallace Global Fund, at a press conference Tuesday in New York. “That means we’ve seen a fiftyfold increase in the total combined assets of those committed to divestment from fossil fuels, and with it, we’ve seen a growing number of commitments to invest in climate solutions,” Dorsey said. The report comes as Pope Francis landed in the United States, where he is expected to press again for immediate and decisive action on climate change. […]

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