Measure What Matters! B Impact Assessment
Hack-A-Thon February 20th, Burlington
How does your business measure up? Where do you find room to improve?
Join us at the first VBSR Hack-A-Thon hosted by City Market on February 20th in Burlington, where members can work independently on completing the B Impact Assessment, to learn how your business stacks up and what more you can do to build a business that is best for your workers, community and the planet. Businesses who have already navigated the process will be on hand to help. Representatives from Vermont certified B-Corps, Vermont Creamery, Clean Yield Asset Management, Green Mountain Power and Seventh Generation will be on hand to provide real-time support while you work through the assessment. Two 90-minute sessions will be offered on Wednesday, 2/20 from 9 – 10:30am and 11am – 12:30pm. To sponsor the Measure What Matters intensive workshop series to follow, email Toby.
Get Started on the B Impact Assessment
Networking Get-Together hosted by The Space on Main, February 13th in Bradford
Join us for an evening of networking and education! VBSR members and friends are invited to a Networking Get-Together hosted by the Space on Main. Free for members, $20 for non-members to attend. To sponsor this event, contact Toby. It is the mission of The Space on Main to foster entrepreneurship, innovation, the arts, education, health, and recreation in order to increase opportunity for personal and collective growth in the Cohase Region of Vermont and New Hampshire by providing a creative facility with access to affordable equipment, work spaces, and classes.
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Annual VBSR Public Policy Survey
So far this biennium VBSR has testified for workforce development, access to unrestricted reproductive health care, against association health plans and in support of a Universal Paid Family Medical Leave program in Vermont. By sharing your perspective as a VBSR member on our annual Public Policy Survey, you can help shape how VBSR does our work at the State House. The survey should take about 10 minutes, and you'll have to complete it to log your response.
All Vermonters have a role in keeping our different water resources drinkable, fishable, and swimmable. Learn more about different ways you can get involved from volunteering to advocacy!
The False Choice Between Economic Growth and Combatting Climate Change
From a recent article in the New Yorker: As emissions keep growing, and climate change advances, there is less and less time to make the necessary cuts. “The pace we needed to decline was already much larger than what was happening,” Houser told me. “Now we have to go even faster to meet our Paris Agreement target by 2025”—on average, a 2.6-per-cent reduction in annual energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions in the next seven years. “That is considerably faster than at any point in history,” he said. And it will need to go even faster if declines in other greenhouse gases, including methane and hydrofluorocarbons—which endure in the atmosphere for much shorter amounts of time than carbon dioxide but are much more potent—do not keep pace.
A modest carbon tax of the sort Nordhaus proposed decades ago—one that was then palatable to conservatives—will therefore no longer bring us anywhere near the Paris Agreement targets. But it’s one of many weapons in the arsenal that policymakers need to employ. “The real challenge is finding ways to reduce emissions and maintain economic growth on the timeline demanded by the nature of climate change,” Kenneth Gillingham, an associate professor of economics at Yale University. Read the rest here.
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VEIC will be the 16th Champion Member of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility
VBSR announces this week that VEIC will join the organization’s Champion Members. The support of Champion Members is essential to our year-round statewide efforts to foster a business ethic that sets a high standard within the Vermont professional community, for protecting the natural, human, and economic environments of the state. “We are excited to become a Champion Member and to continue our partnership with VBSR,” said Jim Madej, CEO of VEIC. “I believe that positive and lasting change is driven by socially responsible business. Our efforts to deliver economic, environmental, and societal benefits of clean energy to all people align with VBSR’s work to support ethical business practices.” Read more about the critical of work VEIC.
VBSR Member Events
Cannabis In The Capitol, February 13th
Invasive Species Workshop, Non-chemical Methods, February 17th
UVM Healthcare Leadership & Management Professional Certificate March 15th
Too many Vermont infants and toddlers don't have access to high-quality early learning opportunities. We must make sure every Vermont child who needs it has access to high-quality, affordable child care, learn more.
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