The second World Humanitarian Day takes place today, August 19th, to honor and celebrate the work of humanitarian workers. The 19th of August has been chosen by the United Nations to commemorate the work of humanitarian workers as it marks the day when 22 employees of the UN, including the UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, were killed in a bomb attack in 2003 in Baghdad.

In the spirit of World Humanitarian Day today, thank you! to all the humanitarian workers around the globe for the important work you do. This year the focus will be on the actual work and achievements of humanitarian workers in the field, with the theme being “we are humanitarian workers”.

This day of recognition also provides an opportunity to remember and honor those who have lost their lives while helping others. A total of 102 humanitarian workers died in the exercise of their functions in 2009. For more info on the events leading up to the establishment of World Humanitarian Day, please visit the Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation.

At DiasporaCamp DC we had a fun chat with Obi Onungwa of African Investment Corporation who shared thoughts with us on doing business in Africa and how the African Diaspora can play a role in development on the continent.

Katrina: Thanks for sharing your experience related to business in Africa and for telling us about African Investment Corporation, Obi. What brings you to DiasporaCamp DC?

Obi Onungwa: Well, I was invited by a friend of mine, Lorel who works with the AngelAfrica organization. He mentioned the DiasporaCamp as something he would like me to come out to here in DC. I heard Africa and investment and I figured, hey this is definitely a place I ought to come to, and here I am. It’s been a very fruitful experience – lots of students, professionals, professors who have come and contributed their ideas on how the diaspora can give back to the continent.

The greatest insights I’ve gained today is that the diaspora has a very big role to play in development. I think most of my generation really acknowledges that we are privileged. We’re fortunate – those of us who were born and raised here in the States to African immigrants. There’s this wave to sort of give back to the continent – to use our professional lives to bridge it to something bigger than ourselves. So events like this really remind us and challenge us to get creative with how we can actually do something a little bigger than what we’ve got here in the States. I think that’s the big takeaway.

I’m from DC, born in Silver Springs, Maryland. My parents are Nigerian and I’ve been there fairly regularly since I was a kid, so I guess that makes me a Nigerian-American.

The African Investment Corporation is based in Bethesda, Maryland. They invest in small and medium-sized businesses on the continent, and essentially consult them and show them how to navigate the western marketplace. How to grow their businesses larger than what they are, provide private capital for these small companies.

One of the ones we are working with right now is called Cola Coffee they are a Cameroonian coffee company based in the capital of Cameroon and they produce organic coffee.

The biggest blockade I think for small and medium-sized businesses is infrastructure. It’s infrastructure, it’s really safety, it’s a number of things we take for granted here in the business climate that these guys are dealing with every day. Business in Africa truly is a unique monster. It’s a unique beast and it takes a certain perseverance, a certain attitude to succeed there.

A lot of the laws we have, the legal framework that we have for our businesses here in the West is simply not in place for most African businesses. And that’s probably the greatest challenge that they face.

Katrina: How have the challenges of infrastructure in Africa been addressed today at DiasporaCamp?

Obi: You know, interestingly enough, I was surprised that infrastructure has not been a theme that has been addressed today. I think that that is hands-down probably one of the biggest things to address when we talk about business on the African continent as a proper framework to facilitate businesses.

It’s not like we don’t have the ideas, and it’s not like we don’t have the businesses – but it’s really like a climate, it’s a culture if you will, it’s the framework to support the business. And that really has not been addressed today – maybe it will be addressed later on.

Katrina: When it comes to infrastructure in Africa, what role can the Diaspora play?

Obi: Well there’s a whole wave of engineers who are here in the disapora. And engineering is like the unparalleled career choice of Africans and we’ve got our parents all pushing us to becoming engineers. My dad is still bitter to this day that I did not become an engineer. So we’ve got literally thousands and thousands of engineers here in the United States, engineers of all sorts that if they just channeled even a little bit of their talent, they could rebuild Africa, literally. So absolutely, it’s definitely here in the West.

Katrina: How will you integrate insights from DiasporaCamp into your ongoing work?

Obi: Well there’s an organization I work with that’s very similar to DiasporaCamp known as Harambe Endeavor. And essentially the missions are the same – they look to challenge those in the diaspora to think about Africa and to think about how they can bridge their professional efforts to something broader than themselves. So, one of my colleagues just arrived here and we’ll be discussing how we can contribute to this experience and to what we’ve got going on.

Thank you again Obi for taking a moment to join us for a quick chat and for sharing your thoughts on DiasporaCamp and business in Africa!

Obi Onungwa | African Investment Corporation

About: The African Investment Corporation’s goal is to be the leading investment advisory firm identifying finance and investors for strategic projects, market access and opportunities on the African continent. Website: www.AfricanInvestCorp

At last week’s DiasporaCamp DC in Washington, DC we had a great time chatting with Rad Shakur, co-founder of CasaDiCulture. Check out the video above to learn about Casa di Culture (a mix of Italian and English meaning ‘house of culture’).

The online company was started by three sisters in 2007, as the brand for the modern nomad. Items combine culturally inspired designs paired with flight-friendly and travel-comfy items like t-shirts, wrap skirts and tube scarves. All of the designs are inspired by the sights, smells and sounds of their travels. Each item is thoughtfully designed; most of the t-shirts are 100% organic cotton and are printed with non-toxic inks, and all of the accessories are handmade and/or hand-casted. To join the Casa Di Culture community, you can also visit their online blog and join them on Facebook.

Thanks for your time to chat with us, Rad!

Rad Shakur: At CasaDiCulture we call ourselves the brand for the modern nomad. It was started three years ago by three women, originally from the Washington, DC area, but our experiences took us abroad. We’ve lived, studied, and traveled, and just have friends from many different places. So when we came back here it was hard to find others who were just interested in traveling or just getting to know other people. So that’s why we originally started the company – to promote diversity and then in our products we use organic cotton and non-toxic inks to promote social awareness as well.

So we have a platform on Facebook and you can find us on Twitter. We also like to do blogs and write about current things like international fashion, write about environmental issues, so we try to be holistic in our approach. But our items – we carry t-shirts because we figure that’s kind of the most global thing that young people wear. In our t-shirts we use international and global images that remind us of the places we’ve been – the sights, the sounds, the smells. So, that’s what we do.

We design in-house. Like the skirt I have was designed in-house: this is Batik sourced from Africa. But everything we do, these earrings (for example) – we have a jeweler … so everything we do we try to work either with entrepreneurs but most of the stuff is done in-house. We have a printer and they use non-toxic inks. Everything else – we have button earrings, we have soaps that we make handmade. So we do it ourselves.

We carry t-shirts, we carry skirts, earrings, and also bamboo tea which is very good for blood circulation. So we carry several different products but we’re all online so it’s accessible. We do have some wholesalers like on here in DC and there’s a boutique in Switzerland that carries our stuff and we’re expanding. We’re based online and the url is www.CasaDiCulture.com, and it’s a combination of “casa” “di” “culture”, three languages that we put together.

Thank you so much Radia!

Rad Shakur | Co-Founder, CasaDiCulture

About: Started by three sisters in 2007 as the brand for the modern nomad, CasaDiCulture is an online company featuring items that combine culturally inspired designs with flight-friendly and travel-comfy items like t-shirts, wrap skirts and tube scarves. Website: www.CasaDiCulture.com

We had the very good fortune last week in Washington, DC to meet up with Richard Cambridge, Head of the African Diaspora Program (ADP) at The World Bank.

Richard kindly joined us to talk about the Bank’s development priorities in Africa, as well as its strategy for engaging the African diaspora to help achieve development goals on the African continent. Check out the video above to learn about the African Diaspora Program at the Bank. Have questions or comments? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Thank you, Richard, for your time and for sharing background and insights on how the African diaspora plays a role in the Bank’s development priorities on the continent.

Part I: In Conversation With Richard Cambridge, African Diaspora Program, The World Bank

Richard Cambridge: My name is Richard Cambridge. I’m from Guyana in South America. I’ve been with The World Bank over three decades. I’ve been here for a while and have worked in most regions of the world, but have concentrated my efforts and my passion with Africa. My mother was born in Ghana, previously called The Gold Coast. And, growing up in Guyana, we had a lot of images and ideas about the continent which I then took further in my studies. I did my doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, and subsequently taught at Harvard University and did some post-graduate work at Stanford. And a lot of this had to do with Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, in particular.

When I came to the Bank I worked as a young professional first in the Africa region and then in other parts – Asia, Europe, Middle East. And now I’ve been asked to head a program dealing with the African Diaspora. It’s an honor and a privilege to do that. But the real leadership comes from my immediate supervisor who is the regional vice president for the Africa region at The World Bank. Her name is Obi Ezekwesili. She was the former minister of education in Nigeria. And when she came to the Bank, she was the one who said, “You are missing a large group of Africans who live outside of the continent but can make contributions to the development of the continent.

So along with another colleague who is now the governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania, we were asked to think about how we could put in place a program to engage the Diaspora in the development of the continent.

To do that we started first to work with the Africa Union. The Africa Union has a definition of the diaspora which we adopted. It says that Africa has a fifth region – and that is the diaspora. Any African who lives outside of the continent and is as interested in the development of the continent are defined as the diaspora. We know in North America there are 39, 40 million African Americans, African descended people, there are about 115 million Africans in South America, primarily in Brazil, Colombia, Peru. There are another 5 or 6 million African descended people in the Caribbean. I consider myself from South America but a part of the Caribbean. And so on. In Europe there’s another 4 or 5 million African descended people. These form the part of the diaspora.

What is common is that this group, this fifth region, has the skills, talent, and resources to contribute to the continent. Skills, talent, financial resources. As a bank, we of course initially focused on finance. The estimates are that sub-saharan Africans who live abroad send home between 10 and 40 billion dollars per year back to their families on the continent. And those resources, of course, can be leveraged for development in many different ways.

So as an area for the Bank’s involvement, this whole question of finance and working with the banking sector and looking at the cost of transferring money became a big priority. But we did not stop there. What we said was, “the refrain that you hear consistently about Africa is, “you know, we would like to do something on our continent but there’s just no capacity.” So there’s always this question that Africa does not have the capacity to implement development projects.

I think the evidence says the contrary. There’s not only a lot of talent in those countries that we have to identify and work with that talent, but the development business for many decades has been based on this notion of funding consultants from abroad to come and do the job. I think under the leadership of my vice president and the Bank in general has moved away from that. We know that development does not work unless there is ownership – and certainly, local solutions to local problems become very important.

So in the capacity area we first looked at what is available domestically at home. But we know that the diaspora also contains huge numbers of very skilled people. One of the numbers that i like to use and talk about is the number of Ethiopian doctors who reside in the United States of America, and in Chicago, are larger than all of the doctors in Ethiopia. The same in Mali – a large number of Malian doctors and other professionals are in Paris rather than in the country.

And you can do the same in many, many countries. So the question is, how do you get this talent, this skill to contribute to their home countries? We know that some governments simply do not have in place policies or programs to attract back the diaspora.

I’m a diaspora. I haven’t gone back to my country. I have been educated and I love my country, but I also have a family. I know I can be employed in any part of the world. And so in a global economy, highly skilled people, whether it be African, European – people go where the jobs are. So you find in North America large numbers of Africans working in highly skilled positions. The same is true in Europe, increasingly in the Gulf area. And I’m told, though I have no direct experience, even in Australia and in the Pacific, in those areas, large numbers of Africans are living and working in those parts of the world.

A couple of months ago we had a dialogue with the Chinese because there has been a lot of discussion about Chinese in Africa. And we were told that there is a place called Africa Town in Guangzhou Province where over 100,000 Africans live and do business with the Chinese. They’re not there to work in factories as low paid workers. They are there because they are the intermediaries between China and Chinese businesses that want to sell their goods and services in the African continent – and also from Africans who want to do trade and work with Chinese by selling their goods to China. So it’s a very interesting use of brain power.

There have been a lot of discussions about brain drain – Africans leaving the continent. There’s also a discussion about brain waste – that you get in a taxi in Washington, DC or New York City, and you talk and here’s a young African with a degree but he or she is driving a taxi or working in some service industry. That’s brain waste. But brain gain is when they decide to use those skills to help back home.

The example we like to use is the tertiary education. Higher education at the university level, where professors using the media can, in fact, contribute – they can teach, they can mentor virtually. They can also go back home for short breaks or vacation. But they have careers here, they have families abroad. The notion that everybody will pack up and go back home is unrealistic. They are going to stay. They are international people, they will go where the opportunities are. They are trained to work in certain conditions. Those conditions may not exist immediately at home. But over time it does.

We look at India – India is beginning to attract back some of their diaspora. China has done it. We see in Latin America some of the countries are attracting back home their diaspora. But by and large, once the diaspora leaves, and the second and third generation, the heart is still with the home and you still want to contribute, but they’ve made lives of their own.

My example is perhaps not unique. I came to the United States, met my wife in college. She’s from Minnesota, my children were born in the United States, and we’ve made our life in the United States. We think about the Caribbean, we think about Guyana. My son went back to Guyana for the first time last year and loved it – and said to me, “Dad, I didn’t know really who you were until I visited Guyana.” This is not a unique experience, I think many people have this same experience – we think about our country.

So the bottom line here, I said all this to say: what is The World Bank doing with this diaspora agenda? Three main things: First, we work with governments to ensure that governments have in place policies and programs for an enabling environment that will encourage the diaspora to return home – or encourage them to invest and to think about their countries.

This is very important. We don’t think about it often, but there are little things that make a difference i nhow somebody feels welcome. I use India as an example. They have a ministry that deals with the diaspora, and when you arrive in the airport in New Delhi or other places, as a diaspora you are treated separately. There’s a special line for the diaspora so people feel like they’re welcome. So policy is the first area we work on.

The second areas, as I said, are remittances and financing. And even now, we are thinking about ways and means in which we can collaborate with the diaspora so that they can invest this 30 or 40 billion a year for development of the sub-continent. And there are many ideas out there. The Bank, with our partners in the international finance corporation, we’re looking at how we can do this. So, many minds are working on channeling these resources for development.

And the third and main area is the skills, the brain gain area. How can we find mechanisms, work with the diaspora so that they can contribute knowledge, their skills, their education to the development of their countries?

So that’s the program, that’s where the Bank has been. I know for a long time, in parts of Africa, the view of the Bank has been one that’s been negative. Every time I meet a young African, they say, “but you guys are about structural adjustment”. That’s the term that’s always used. But the Bank has not been in the structural adjustment business in Africa for more than a couple of decades.

There’s been a lot of review, we’ve thought about it, we’ve said “mia culpa”, we’ve made mistakes. And now we’re moving ahead in a much more positive manner because we know, and the world knows, that for development to be effective there has to be ownership. The Bank cannot prescribe anything to a country. It wouldn’t work unless that country owns it and has country ownership.

The second thing that’s equally important is country leadership. Countries have solutions and ideas that they know will work in their circumstance. We can bring our global expertise, and we can share with them that yes, you believe that this solution is the right solution but we’re here to tell you that in some other circumstance in other parts of the world, maybe this solution needs some nuancing and doesn’t quite work that way.

But country ownership, country leadership, mutual respect are very much a part of the development agenda, the Bank embraces that. That’s what we do. And the programs for the diaspora are based on that.

It’s their money, it’s their decisions. They are going to determine what to do. And the Bank is not going to be the one saying “you must do this or you must do that”. And the diaspora are not governments. These are independent people doing what they want to do to support their families. And we support that.

Thank you again Richard for sharing background, thoughts, and insights on The World Bank and on international development in Africa. And thank you, as well, for your time to join us for this conversation.

Stay tuned for Part II of our chat with Richard Cambridge which will be published tomorrow. To learn more about the African Diaspora Program at The World Bank, be sure to check out their site and visit the Africa Region team on Twitter @WorldBankAfrica.

Richard Cambridge, Ph.D. | Head of African Diaspora Program | The World Bank

About: Richard Cambridge completed a PhD in International Economics and Politics at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and is currently the Head of Diaspora Relations, Africa Region, at The World Bank. For additional background, please see Richard’s full bio. The African Diaspora Program (ADP) seeks to further enable and enhance the human and financial capital contributions of African Diasporas to the economic development of their home countries. The program was launched in September 2007 and focuses on strengthening policy, financial, and human capital development in Africa through a portfolio of activities and support in partnership with the African Union (AU), partner countries, partner donors, and African Diaspora Professional Networks and Hometown Associations. Website: www.WorldBank.org

Following up on a successful event last summer, DiasporaCamp DC takes place again this Saturday, July 24, 2010 with the aim to bring together the African Diaspora and people interested in Africa to exchange ideas on entrepreneurship, innovation, and development in Africa.

With over 100 people planning to attend DiasporaCamp DC 2010, the gathering is certain to be an amazing event. We’re happy to announce that the envisionGood team will be in the house to help capture highlights of the event via video interviews. DiasporaCamp DC 2010 takes place at the School of Advanced International Studies – Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

The theme of DiasporaCamp DC 2010 is “Financial Innovations For African Small & Medium-Scale Enterprises”. Given that access to capital is one of the greatest challenges that ventures face, the event’s focus on investment capital for start-up, small, and medium-sized businesses is certain to be informative. Stay tuned for insights we gain at DiasporaCamp DC 2010!

P.S. For highlights from last year’s DiaporaCamp, check out the video below featuring our globetrotting producer Shara Karasic‘s interview with Ashifi Gogo, CEO at Sproxil.com, PhD Innovation Fellow at Dartmouth College, Co-founder at mPedigree.org, and 2009 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. In this interview, Ashifi talks about BarCamp Diaspora, mPedigree, and the future of scientific research in Ghana.

Nelson Mandela, freedom fighter, international statesman, and former President of South Africa, spent 67 years of his life serving his community and fighting for the rights of humanity. Today, July 18th, is his 92nd birthday.

In celebration of the life’s work of Nelson Mandela, non-profit organizations 46664 and the Nelson Mandela Foundation invite the global community to join them in support of an official Mandela Day. Recognized by the United Nations, Mandela Day is an international day to honor the legacy of Nelson Mandela on his birthday and call people to action around the world to take time out to do something good for others in the community.

To celebrate Mandela Day, here is a list of ideas that come to mind. Since we’re based in San Francisco, many of the ideas below are local SF opportunities. What are your favorite ways of getting involved in your community?

10 Ideas & Resources To Find Volunteer Opportunities To Celebrate Mandela Day:

1. Check out volunteer projects or start your own at Citizen Effect
2. Provide technology mentorship at Community Technology Network in San Francisco
3. Check out volunteer opportunities at One Brick – San Francisco
4. Mentor youth through Glide in San Francisco
5. Become a coach or running buddy at Girls On The Run in San Francisco
6. Help build houses with Habitat For Humanity
7. Volunteer with Streetside Stories, to help youth with writing and video projects in San Francisco
8. Check out volunteer opportunities at Volunteer Match or Idealist.org – or put your professional skills to good use, in a few minutes or less at The Extraordinaries
9. Run For Teachers or join the AIDS Walk in San Francisco today
10. Have more time and want to travel? Hands On Disaster Response has a great program for volunteers who want to help out in Haiti

Suggested Reading:

To learn more about Nelson Mandela, this autobiography is a great read: Long Walk To Freedom: An Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

We all know the impact that a quality education can have on the life of a child. Education helps lift people out of poverty, helps to combat disease, gives people a stronger voice, and creates opportunity. Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa and international statesman, said it best:

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
- Nelson Mandela

If you are in San Francisco this weekend, there’s a fantastic event called Run For Teachers that is taking place this Sunday, July 18th, 2010 to support education in Africa. We highly recommend checking it out.

Founded in 2009 by Steven Lurie, Run For Teachers is a 5K memorial run (or walk) honoring his late sister, Tracey Lurie-Sklar, a teacher, mother, daughter, sister and community leader. Born in Africa on June 13, 1962, Tracey passed away on November 6, 2008. The run is in honor of her work with students both in the US and abroad and her spirit. Proceeds from the event will benefit Teach With Africa.

Teach With Africa is a non-profit organization also based in San Francisco that works to break down the economic and social barriers to education in Africa by sending teams of educators to implement projects in underserved communities through an exchange of teaching and learning.

For highlights from last year’s Run For Teachers event, be sure to watch the video at the top of this post. For background on Teach With Africa, the video below provides a great behind-the-scenes view.

Run For Teachers is sure to be a great event, providing an opportunity to come together for a wonderful cause, while having fun, meeting new people, and getting some exercise at the same time. What could be a better combination!

P.S. Coincidentally, July 18th just so happens to also be Mandela Day, an annual celebration of Nelson Mandela’s life and a global call to action for people to recognize their individual ability to make an imprint and change the world around them. If you are in San Francisco, you can join Run for Teachers to benefit Teach With Africa, and celebrate Mandela Day all at once. : )

This is Part II of a three part series featuring Josh Nesbit, Co-Founder of FrontlineSMS Medic.

Thank you Josh for taking the time to meet for this video interview.

In this interview, Josh talks about the business model that sustains FrontlineSMS: Medic and explains the difference between his organization FrontlineSMS: Media and the umbrella platform developed by Ken Banks, FrontlineSMS. We also learn about another member of the FrontlineSMS family, FrontlineSMS: Credit, which uses mobile phones to support microfinance.

FrontlineSMS: Medic is a mobile phone platform that helps rural community workers in developing countries to access health information via SMS text message. The service has been deployed in ten countries, and saves community health workers’ time, enabling them to treat more patients and save countless lives. In Malawi alone, FrontlineSMS Medic has saved clinics $US 3,000 in fuel, 2,100 hours of travel time, allowing clinicians to identify and treat two times the number of patients infected with TB. Check out the video to learn more about FrontlineSMS Medic, its business model, and impact around the globe.

The Full Transcript

For Part I of this three part interview series, please check out: How Mobile SMS Saves Lives in Africa | Josh Nesbit, Co-Founder FrontlineSMS: Medic

Katrina: So here I am with Josh of FrontlineSMS Medic. [How has your organization evolved since the SMS platform was first rolled out and community health workers began using the platform in rural Malawi, Africa?]

Josh: What’s happened since then is that organizations like Partners in Health, the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative have grabbed hold of particular use cases that they’re most interested in. For example, in Nano, Malawi we work with Partners in Health to implement an SMS program focusing on follow-up for HIV to make sure that people who start treatment, stay in treatment. And that’s something like 40 text messages every couple of days.

So, once you have that laptop in place, the GSM modem set-up, and some local training, the costs are really minimal.

Katrina: Fantastic. And can you share, what is the difference between Frontline SMS: Medic and the umbrella platform, FrontlineSMS, developed by Ken Banks? How do you differ? You have similar names and you’re using the platform, so how are you different?

Josh: Ken and I work very closely together, and I am actually a FrontlineSMS Ambassador. So, I joined Ken on the core FrontlineSMS team and it’s been really exciting to work with people like him. And to work with people like Ben Lyon, who has created a FrontlineSMS: Credit to repurpose the FrontlineSMS platform to be used by microfinance institutions to link in to mobile money transfer systems.

We’re basically seeing a family of tools and a family of teams develop. And we all share the same DNA. So part of what I get to do is to interact with other people in other verticals – to try to help them to feel empowered to start things up and to build new tools.

Katrina: Can you share, how do you sustain FrontlineSMS: Medic, given that you have an open-source platform?

Josh: Right. So, FrontlineSMS: Medic is a full-fledged non-profit. We are a pure non-profit. So, we’ve turned to grant giving foundations, social innovation groups, and the like, for start-up capital to help us get started, get running.

Katrina: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Josh. Best wishes with FrontlineSMS: Medic. And everyone can find you on the web at …

Josh: HopePhones.org, medic.frontlinesms.com. And we’re all over Twitter, you can find me @joshnesbit. You can find us @smsmedic or @hopephones.

Katrina: Wonderful, thank you so much Josh.

Josh Nesbit | Co-Founder, FrontlineSMS Medic / HopePhones

About: FrontlineSMS Medic advances healthcare networks in under-served communities using innovative, appropriate mobile technologies. HopePhones is a campaign of FrontlineSMS Medic that enables people to recycle old mobile phones to support the work of FrontlineSMS Medic.Website: www.medic.frontlinesms.com

Photos in Video via Creative Commons Flickr thanks to: Ken Banks, kiwanja.net, whiteafrican, and a.drian

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• Where a Cellphone Is Still Cutting Edge (nytimes.com)
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When it comes to sustainability, we know that the most sustainable choice we can make is to reuse what we already have or buy “barely used” products. On those occasions when we are looking for a new product, however, the next best choice is to buy sustainably. Launching in July (this month!), a new social enterprise in San Francisco, California called Spheresavers aims to help consumers save money on products and services from sustainable businesses striving to balance people, planet and profit.

What does it mean to “buy sustainable”?

According to Wikipedia, a sustainable business is “any organization that participates in environmentally-friendly or green activities to ensure that all processes, products, and manufacturing activities adequately address current environmental concerns while maintaining a profit.”

How much money can you save?

According to Spheresavers, the amount you can save depends on the business, but it can range from 10% to 50% (or more). Beyond the savings, Spheresavers will introduce consumers to great products and services that are vetted for sustainability.

When does Spheresavers launch?

To be notified of the launch and learn more about this start-up, be sure to check them out at Spheresavers.com.

Can clubbers change the world? Michel Smit, Project Lead for Sustainable Dance Club (SDC), a social business dedicated to showing that having fun and taking responsibility for our environmental impact can go hand in hand, thinks so.

Launched in 2006 through a partnership between Enviu -Innovators in Sustainability and architect studio Döll Lab, Michel explains in this talk given at PICNIC’s Green Challenge that SDC’s challenge is to make as many dance clubs and festivals all over the world sustainable in a cool and hip way. The team aims to inspire more young people to lead a more sustainable life style.

Why focus on clubs? In Holland, Michel explains that over 1.5 million young people go to clubs each week. It’s the place where young people communicate and learn about new products. However the clubbing industry, reports Michel, is one of the businesses that at the moment does not think much about sustainability.

In a study to determine the impact of clubbing on the environment, SDC looked at ten clubs in Holland serving over one thousand people, discovering that clubs on average used 30x the amount of water that an average household of four would use. In addition, the clubs produced 40x more waste and used over 150x more energy. Finally, they discovered that one club alone produces roughly 400,000 kg of CO2 a year. Putting this into perspective, it takes 24,000 trees a year to compensate for this amount of CO2.

The concept for Sustainable Dance Club is amazing: by harnessing the power of movement, Sustainable Dance Club turns clubbers from consumers into sources of energy, triggering thoughts about sustainability in a new way. In an environment where the DJ usually reacts to the energy of the crowd, Sustainable Dance Club has also developed a way to make the energy produced by the clubbers visible on the dance floor. So as you dance, you can see the energy you are producing.

The environmental impact is impressive:

• 30% energy consumption reduced
• 50% water consumption reduced
• 50% refuse generated
• 30% CO2 emissions reduced

If you are in Rotterdam, be sure to check out Club Watt, the world’s first Sustainable Dance Club. Dance on! : )

(Photo thanks to llRed on Flickr.)