Announcing the DCSBN / BetterWorld Telecom Affiliate Partnership: Helping to Make it a Better World, One Call at a Time!

The Washington DC Sustainable Business Network – BetterWorld Telecom Affiliate Partnership: Helping to Make it a Better World, One Call at a Time!

Now you can enjoy a win-win opportunity for your business or organization – help support DCSBN while also reducing your office phone and Internet bills by an average of 28%!

Services Available for Businesses and Non-Profits

• Business Local Calling
• Dedicated Internet
• National and International Long Distance
• Toll Free - 800
• Conference Calling
• Calling Card s
• VoIP- Virtual PBX, Unified Communications
  

DCSBN Member Benefits

• Lowest Rates Available - Save hundreds or thousands off your telecom bill each month.
• Support DCSBN Every Month - 5% of every monthly bill is donated back to DCSBN
• 100% Money Back Guarantee – offered every month of active service, no risk in switching to BetterWorld Telecom
• Switching to BetterWorld Telecom Takes Only a Few Minutes --Let BetterWorld evaluate your recent bill and prepare a summary of savings
• Opportunity to work with a personalized, committed, and triple bottom line service provider, supporting competition and not the industry monopolies that most organizations use today
  

More on BetterWorld Telecom

• Member of The Washington DC Sustainable Business Network
• 3% of all BetterWorld top-line revenues are donated to organizations that advocate social justice and sustainability
• Clients include: Patagonia, The Enterprise Foundation, Seventh Generation Zero footprint – BetterWorld is working to offset all of its carbon emissions and paper use
  

The process for evaluating and signing up is very simple and takes just three easy steps:

1. Contact and send your organization’s latest phone bill(s) to BetterWorld Telecom
2. They return a comprehensive “before and after” analysis of your phone and Internet services showing you the savings and donation generated by switching
3. BetterWorld coordinates the entire process; it takes on average just a few minutes of your time.
   

For more information: Contact Ali Gunertem, at 703-797-1750, ext. 903 or wecare@betterworldtelecom.com or fill out and fax this form to: 866-567-2273

IRS Classifies DCSBN as Tax Exempt Charitable Organization

As of November 14, 2006 DCSBN has been classified by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax exempt, not-for-profit. This finding means that retroactive to the date of its incorporation -- June 9, 2004 -- DCSBN has been granted tax exempt status as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Therefore, contributions to DCSBN are tax deductible under the IRS code.

A special thanks to Mona Tandon and Evan Reese with Van Ness Feldman for all of their help during the entire process!

D.C. Could Be First Big U.S. City to Go 'Green'

The nation's capital is poised to become the first major U.S. city to require private developers to build environmentally friendly projects that help save energy and reduce pollution.

The Washington DC City Council is expected to approve a bill next month that would adopt standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council, which requires "green buildings" to use recycled materials and devices such as low-flow shower heads, toilets and faucets.
The buildings also must have energy-efficient applicance and take steps to improve air quality by relying less on artificial heating and cooling. Sidewalks must be designed to encourage walking and plants must be drought-tolerant.

Going green costs more, however. Proponents say the extra cost of construction ranges from 2 to 4 percent, but opponents say it can cost 11 percent more.

Under the bill, all new city-owned projects, including schools, would have to meet the green standards within two years. By 2012, every new commercial building over 50,000 square feet would have to meet the guidelines.

"This is big," said Cliff Majersik of the Institute for Market Transformation, a nonprofit environmental group that promotes green buildings.

Majersik said smaller cities, such as Pasadena, Calif., have adopted similar laws, but Washington DC would be the first large city to force private developers to meet the standards.

Bill Hall, a lawyer who represents building material manufacturers, said lobbyists representing some building industry groups are fighting to get communities to use more lenient standards.

"Failure to include these other rating systems would be like the D.C. Council mandating that only Google's search engine can be used in the District to the exclusion of Yahoo and AOL because Google is the most widely used," Hall said.

The Green Building Council has certified 500 buildings in the U.S. as green, and more than 5,000 are awaiting certification, advocates say.

D.C. officials have said the Washington Nationals' new ballpark is being built to green standards.

Mid Term Election Analysis: One Point of View

On September 7, I posted an opinion piece that stated that this mid-term election would give insight into the mindset of the American people and whether or not government scandals such as secret prisons and sexual predators would lead to a call for change.

So, with all the talk of who 'won' and who 'lost' I think it's time for a bit of reality here. The Republicans lost the majority in the House of Representatives, and may have done so in the Senate, the later by the slimmest of margins. This is not the resounding victory, that the Democrats would like to claim. Instead I see it as an expression of disapproval for the GOP, combined with a real skepticism about politicians in general.

In short, the American people have voted for change - but it seems that we are unsure where to find it and are now firmly sitting on the fence.Based on a social responsibility model (listening to changing customer needs and desires) combined with the necessary role of government to lead, here are the lessons I believe that either party needs to learn.

1. End the war in Iraq. Enough with the posturing and fingerpointing. We all know how we got into this mess. What we need now is a new policy and an action plan to get out of it. Here is a simplified action list, for the first 30 days. A) Provide every man and woman serving in the Armed Forces with the tools and equipment that they need to do the job. This includes body armor. And it also includes B) a definition of success and C) develop and implement a plan that focusses on stablizing the region, allows self-determination in Iraq and eliminates the safe haven for terrorists that has been created.
2. It is time to identify, prosecute and remove everyone, regardless of party affiliation, who has succumbed to the temptations of power including (a) sexual predation and (b) corruption through financial incentives. Behavior that has no place in corporate offices cannot continue to take place in the halls of Government.
3. The political parties should take the next two years to develop their own 'contract with America' style platforms outlining what they stand for and stop relying on malfeasance and corruption on the part of their opposition as their strategy.
4. In business we have shareholder meetings. In America we have the right to express our views, the right to peacefully assemble, media that is free and unfettered, and the right to vote. Those are powerful tools. We must hold ourselves as well as those we elect accountable.

House and Senate Considering Anti-Sweatshop Legislation

Companies with supply chains in Asia should take note of legislative developments in both the House of Representatives and Senate.

Identical versions of the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act are being reviewed by committees in both the Senate (S. 3485) and the House of Representatives (H.R. 5635).

Introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) and Representative Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) respectively, the bills are both at the first stage of the legislative process, where committees consider whether the bill should be presented as a whole. The Senate bill has four co-sponsors - all Democrats, the House has 55 - again all Democrats.

The purpose of the Act is to “(1) prohibit the import, export, or sale of goods made in factories or workshops that violate core labor standards; and (2) prohibit the procurement of sweatshop goods by the United States Government.”

Core labor standards are defined as follows: “(1) the right of association; (2) the right to organize and bargain collectively; (3) a prohibition on the use of any form of forced or compulsory labor; (4) a minimum age for the employment of children; and (5) acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health”. The Act interprets “acceptable conditions” as determined by “laws, regulations, or competent authority of the country where the labor is performed”.

It should be noted that during this process, bills may undergo significant changes in markup sessions and that the majority of bills never make it out of the committee stage.

Similar legislation is set to become law in the UK this winter.

For more information, click the title of this post.