2008 June at Susan Labandibar

Archive for June, 2008

The BALLE conference

The BALLE conference was this weekend. BALLE is the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. Last year it was in Berkeley. This year was Boston’s turn. BALLE is cool. It’s not just a bunch of people who care about the planet getting together. It’s a bunch of business owners. It’s not about talk. It’s about action. It’s about food security, green jobs, and creating community. And it’s about climate change.

Bill McKibben was one of the keynote speakers. His new website: 350.org is all about getting global CO²levels back down to 350 ppm (they are currently at 387 ppm, up from 278 ppm in pre-industrial times.) My key takeaway from his speech was that, as business owners, we need to do more than simply try to reduce our carbon footprint. We need to leverage the power of the business community to affect public policy on the environment.