Measuring what matters. That's the goal behind a new initiative here at City of Issaquah, which is a 2009 Siemens Sustainable Community program honoree.
Called the "Sustainability Sounding Board," a group of community leaders appointed by Issaquah's mayor, recently unveiled its long-term vision for a sustainable Issaquah, as well as recommendations for how the community can begin to measure its progress toward that goal.
Today Tom Donohue arrived in Colombia where he had a chance to touch base with U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield; make a speech at an event hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce of Colombia; and visit with several key Colombian companies as well as American companies that are well established in the country. We will conclude our visit tomorrow with a meeting with President Uribe and members of his administration.
How often do you think about helping communities that have been devastated by disasters? Many company foundations and community relations staff members think about this topic every day, and even more so now that hurricane season is upon us again.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution on the Administration's plan to restructure General Motors:
We have just concluded a successful trip to Brasilia, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro where Tom Donohue met with senior government officials and business leaders, including the Minister of Health; the Minister of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade; the Vice Minister of Foreign Relations; the National Confederation of Industries (CNI); the Governor of the State of São Paulo; the Federation of Industries of São Paulo (FIESP); and our affiliated AmChams in São Paulo in Rio.
We had our say this morning, and will have more to say later, meanwhile, here is more on the Motown meltdown.
Congratulations, gentle readers, you own a car company! Today is the big day for GM…the once impregnable bastion of American capitalism is headed for bankruptcy this morning. The storied enterprise will be split into two, with its good assets sailing through a pre-packaged, government-backed bankruptcy and the so-called "old" GM that will be wound down and liquidated by turnaround executive Al Koch of AlixPartners.
by Brad Peck
Idaho may be leery of Cap-and-Trade, but on international trade they are very gung-ho. Here is Governor Otter after a trade mission to Mexico:
Of all the proposals floating around the health reform debate to expand insurance coverage, there is one in particular that should give American businesses pause: the employer pay-or-play mandate. Businesses would be required to offer either health insurance coverage to their employees or pay them (or a government entity) a prescribed amount toward their care. This would turn employer-sponsored care from a voluntary benefit, which it has been for more than 60 years, into a federal requirement. This is not only bad policy, it is currently illegal.
The Washington, DC-based think tank, Resources For the Future (RFF) has re-launched its Weathervane website, which has been a source of climate information and data for more than ten years, as an interactive blog. The restructured site will draw on the expertise and perspective of researchers at RFF as well as input from other climate authorities. The site also includes links to a library of RFF climate and energy publications.
The Miami Herald takes a look at the economy:
The title is from this blog post by Alice Heiman. In the video below, from America's Small Business Summit, she gives more tips on how to sell better in this economy, good stuff.
Yesterday, the Institute for 21st Century Energy released a new report that calls for a permanent solution for America’s nuclear waste. The report, titled Revisiting America’s Nuclear Waste Policy, gives a historical overview of the policy decisions that have thus far left us with a $22 billion fund to collect and store used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste—but no actual permanent repository to store it.
From a six passenger plane, I gazed over the rainforest canopy through white clouds and sunlight to see gray rain in the distance not far from where we would soon be landing. My colleagues and I were speechless at this vision of an endangered landscape.
"Blinding Arbitration" an editorial today in The Wall Street Journal urges business leaders and Senators to stay alert on card check compromises. The paper calls both elimination of the secret ballot and binding arbitration "unacceptable job killers."
In the video below Dan Love of Siwel Consulting talks about being proactive in sales and delivers a great quote at America's Small Business Summit "The basic premise is there is someone who needs what we sell, we just have to find them."
This week Tom Donohue is in Brasilia, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro to meet with senior government officials and business leaders, including the Minister of Health; the National Confederation of Industries (CNI); the Governor of the State of São Paulo; the Federation of Industries of São Paulo (FIESP); and our affiliated AmChams in São Paulo and Rio.
A keynote luncheon presentation was given by the Honorable Jon Wellinghoff, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Emerging Technologies Committee (ETC) meeting held May 13, 2009. Wellinghoff discussed FERC regulatory activities related to grid modernization and commented on challenges and opportunities related to making progress in development of the smart grid and facilitating the deployment of renewable energy technologies through transmission grid expansion and modernization.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has posted the negotiating text document that was prepared by the Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) in response to the request from the AWG-LCA at its third session.
2nd post in a series on our journey to create ARAMARK Building Community, the company’s signature community initiative to strength the capacity of the country’s local community centers.
Armed with our research on our existing community activities and our decision to create a signature community initiative for ARAMARK, our team began to formulate the program development strategy.
