Corporate Social Responsibility

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2.27.2008 - 01:24pm ET

CSR News from:	The William James Foundation
News Categories:	Ratings & Awards
	CSR - General

Socially Responsible Business Plan Competition Awards

William James Foundation holds 5th Annual Event

(CSRwire) WASHINGTON, DC., February 27th, 2008 -- The William James Foundation (WJF) will be holding it's 5th annual final presentation round and awards ceremony on Friday, March 7th at the offices of the World Resources Institute in Washington, DC. To RSVP for the event, please contact WJF Executive Director Ian Fisk at Ian.Fisk@williamjamesfoundation.org or sign up at www.williamjamesfoundation.org/030708rsvp. A speakerphone and call-in number will be set up for those who can not come to Washington, DC -- contact Mr. Fisk for details.

The final awards ceremony will start promptly at 5pm EST and run until 7:30pm. It will feature a speech by Seth Goldman, T-EO of Honest Tea, about the recent partnership formed between Honest Tea, an organic/fair-trade company, and Coca-Cola. The centerpiece of the event will be 5 minute presentations and 15 minutes of questions and answers for each of the three finalists.

The finalists include, in alphabetical order:

Atayne, a company that hopes to set the new standard of performance in the technical athletic apparel category by developing a line of planet and people friendly clothing that performs better than the market norm - synthetic, virgin polyester-based apparel.

Biodiversity and Company, who hope to align commercial and conservation objectives to manage and protect the critically endangered Choco rainforest in Ecuador.

Green Pieces, who want to address the huge growth in green building by offering attractive sustainable modular homes that are healthier and more affordable than current options.

The audience will include competition reading judges, current and past entrants, local Net Impact members, and those from general public with an interest in sustainable / socially responsible business. All of whom will be allowed to join the three reading judges in asking questions of the finalist teams.

The prizes for the WJF competition will be awarded as follows. The cash prizes are $3,000 for 1st place, $2,000 for 2nd place, and $1,000 for 3rd place. There are also eighteen separate in-kind awards, which are described at: www.williamjamesfoundation.org/prizes. These prizes are primarily offered by other multiple bottom line firms, such as CitySoft, HIP Investor, Swankin and Turner law firm, Joint Concepts, Social Enterprise Associates, Community IT Innovators, Strategic Sustainability Consulting, Wall Street Without Walls, ThinkHost, and Better World Telecom The three finalists and six Honorable Mention teams will chose from the in-kind prize bucket in order of finish and preference.h

The Honorable Mention Teams include:

Akan Energy will create a distributed network of biofuel production facilities in rural Ghanaian villages.

Ghonsla will provide housing insulation products made from agricultural and urban waste to under-served markets in Pakistan and beyond.

Investors Without Borders is designed to address the missing middle of finance - mall to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are too large for microfinance, but too small to attract the attention of large financial institutions.

Naturally Bamboo will offer comfortable, stylish, natural bamboo fiber products made from sweatshop-free manufacturers and employ office practices that have the lowest impact on the environment.

Universal Acupuncture will be a community for-profit acupuncture clinic in San Francisco, CA, offering acupuncture on a sliding scale basis, in community treatment rooms.

WaterPLUS is a low cost, point of use water purifier for developing communities, based on UV-LED technology.

It was a great accomplishment for these teams to have made it this far in the competition. More than fifty plans entered the competition originally and included for-profit enterprises ranging from crop stabilization in Africa, a sustainable cosmetics company, environmentally focused hardware stores and television stations, ventures that hired the underserved and recently released from jail, and local and international health projects. More than 10 countries were represented, and students and graduates of more than 50 universities were involved.

More than 100 reading judges evaluated the plans, and each plan that made the second round was read and provided with comments at least ten times during the competition. The readers included experts in both social ventures and traditional business plans, community activists, Wall Street professionals, academics, and CEOs of national for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. A list of reading judge backgrounds can be found at http://www.williamjamesfoundation.org/08judges.

The William James Foundation will also join with the Foundation for a Sustainable Future in announcing our first ever Sustainability Prizes. These prizes -- $2,000 for 1st place, $1,000 for 2nd place, and $500 for third place, are to be awarded on top of any prizes awarded through the regular process of the William James Foundation’s competition. The Foundation for a Sustainable Future envisions using business and profits as the mechanisms by which to spread scalable and replicable projects to create sustainability on the planet.

The William James Foundation congratulates and commends all entrants and winners for their hard work throughout the competition process. The WJF helps support entrepreneurs who are committed to multiple-bottom line businesses (people, planet, profit) by providing entrants to our competition with resources to move forward in their ventures and goals and maintaining an ongoing network of participants and contacts.

The William James Foundation also hosts and supports a series of events including a speaker series and tours of sustainable business in the DC area. Please visit www.williamjamesfoundation.org for more information and www.wabas.net to view a shared calendar of events among the sustainable business community.

For more information please contact:

Ian Fisk
The William James Foundation
(202) 462 2943
(202) 403 3402

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