New Video - YERTpod12: Gettin’ Da Green Bidness in Illinois

Dear YERTians,

The longer we’re on this road trip, the more we find that ordinary wake-up hours become brutally extraordinary. We take an early one for the team this week to show you the insides of some snazzy environmental business endeavors in da city of Chicago.

YERT woke up at the crack of dawn to meet up with Irv from Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks, an organic farm-fresh food delivery service connecting local farmers to hungry Chicago residents. We followed Irv around to learn about the entire CSA process, from buying veggies, to warehouse assembly of the food orders, to delivering the good goodies.

We also visited Chicago City Hall’s lush green roof, complete with herds of dragonflies and a beautiful array of local and hearty plants. There we spoke with Sadhu Johnston, Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief Environmental Officer for Chicago Mayor Daley, and learned how an intelligent plan can lead to great things for the community and the environment. The more we understand, the more we at YERT believe that the “trade-off” between jobs and the environment is truly a false choice. We’re so frequently struck by this realization that we’ve begun to develop calluses.

We also discovered GreenExchange, which is assembling a business community of green goodness in Chicago– perhaps the best example of eco-strength in numbers we’ve seen on the YERT tour. Emerging from an old factory destined for LEED certification, GreenExchange will be hosting a variety of green businesses under one roof, including Distant Village Packaging and possibly Secure Eco Shred. We speak to both of them and more as we hunt for the elusive fourth bottom line beyond people, planet, and profit…

Grounded,

Julie, Mark, and Ben (Your YERT Team)

team@yert.com

P.S. And now for Breadcrumbs! Want to move your business forward into the green-o-sphere? The following green business resources will help you find the right place to start– after you’ve started recycling and replaced your light bulbs with CFLs or LEDs!

GreenBiz.com

• Great Starting Point: http://www.greenbiz.com/toolbox/essentials_third.cfm?LinkAdvID=15205
• http://www.greenbiz.com
• http://www.greenbiz.com/toolbox/tools.cfm

TreeHugger.com

• TreeHugger Guide to Greening Your Company: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/how_to_green_your_work.php
• TreeHugger Guide to Greening Your Lighting: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/how_to_green_yo_5.php
• TreeHugger Guide to Greening Your Electricity: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/how_to_green_your_electricity.php

WorldChanging.com

• Business Blog Section: http://www.worldchanging.com/business/

Co-Op America

• Co-Op America Business Network: http://www.coopamerica.org/cabn/

Flex Your Power

• http://www.fypower.org/bpg/index.html?b=offices

Green Development Frameworks

• Natural Step: http://www.naturalstep.com
• Global Reporting: http://www.globalreporting.org
• Zero Waste: http://www.zerowaste.org

Other Great Resources

• Rocky Mountain Institute: http://www.rmi.org
• Natural Capitalism: http://www.natcap.org

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This entry was posted on October 17, 2007 at 4:19 am and is filed under Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.