Not Business as Usual

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Many new initiatives want to boost local communities by working on the wider "macro" level, including Green Economics Movement Strategies (GEMS), the brainchild of Boulder, Colorado, philanthropist and investor John Steiner. GEMS would act as a trusted source for consumers hoping to support ethical businesses while encouraging the sort of collective buying that would have a major influence on the economy. GEMS would benefit locally owned businesses, as well, by offering technical assistance tools. . . . A group led by Odwalla juice co-founder Greg Steltenpohl expects to complete by the end of the year the initial planning phase of the Interra Inter-Cooperative Initiative, a financial transaction network linking socially responsible businesses and consumers. The network would employ smartcards that would allow members to store and exchange value with each other in an account similar to a frequent flyer account. . . . Banker and entrepreneur Joe Sibilia, meanwhile, hopes to reshape the investment world with his Springfield Stock Exchange, an Internet-based stock market for socially responsible companies. . . .

The Web is also home to the ManyOne Network (www.manyone.net), launched in April by longtime information technology wizard Joseph Firmage. Beyond providing a state-of-the-art Internet portal that will provide a solid alternative to AOL, ManyOne offers such services as the Cooperative Trading Network, which helps communities exchange goods and services locally and worldwide. . . . On the legal front, Brooklin, Maine–based attorney Robert Hinkley has proposed the Code for Corporate Citizenship as an amendment to state laws governing corporations. The code would extend the requirements of corporate responsibility beyond shareholder return, adding that such return may not be "at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates, or the dignity of its employees."

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