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A Wonderful New Source of Solutions
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By Inspired Protagonist - October 9, 2009

Solutions MagazineSolutions Journal is an online and print publication dedicated to solving the mounting environmental, social, and economic problems of our time. Its aim is to encourage and promote integrative solutions to issues ranging from climate disruption and the loss of biodiversity to poverty, energy, overfishing, air and water pollution, soil preservation, and human population growth, just to name a few.

While there are already plenty of isolated discussions about these problems and an abundance of individual technical solutions, the new magazine and website will provide a much-needed forum devoted to systemic approaches that put all these pieces together and prompt intelligent conversation about what can and should be done.

What do we mean by systemic approaches? A system can be a community, a corporation, a government, or even the entire global environment. If you want to solve a problem, you need to look at these systems in their entirety and at several, nested scales, from local to global. Rather than focusing on a single link, look at the whole chain. When you start looking at the world this way, it becomes clear: everything is connected.

Comments
A pleasure to hear you speak at Brandeis
Posted by NancyTWS | Fri, Oct. 16, 2009

Hi Mr. Hollender ~

I've been meaning to post a comment here since catching your talk at Brandeis which I enjoyed very much.

One of the topics you brought up was the fact that you have to constantly face the fact that your company, by its very nature, is one that is based on consuming and that it is tricky to tell businesses you work with that consuming less is really a part of the solution. This is likely oversimplification, but perhaps the focus on key measures, regardless of the industry, should be on market share instead of total sales.

It reminded me of an organization you might like to look into, (if you haven't already):

It's Big Green Purse...

here's the link to their "about page."

And, briefly, it's based on the pretext of empowering conscious women consumers to expedite change by the power of the almighty dollar they control... Reminds me of a conversation recently at a Net Impact Boston event about whether positive change in responsible business practices is top down or bottom up...consumer-driven or driven by conscious thought-leaders like yourself. I say, enthusiastically, "BOTH!"

In the following link, the founder of Big Green Purse talks about all people being encouraged by industry to reduce their consumption by 20%, something I thought you would find particularly interesting...

http://greenwoman.typepad.com/biggreenpurse/2008/06/manufacturers-m.html

My business is about changing consumer habits by educating and empowering about the impact of our choices on self, those in need and the environment... I'm just starting out and learning from folks like you, Big Green Purse, and conscious capitalism proponents like Whole Foods' John Mackey.

Once I get my seed funding, I can put my plan into action, fine-tune it and bring it to scale. Wish me luck! I'll follow you on Twitter.

Carpe Diem ~

Nancy Gallant
Social Entrepreneur
Founder/Time Well Spent
Ipswich, Massachusetts
Twitter ~ @NancyTWS

Jeffrey replies:
Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Sun, Oct. 18, 2009

Dear Nancy,

Thanks for your comment. I met the founders of Big Green Purse a few years ago but will definitely go back and check them out.

Jeffrey