Sunday November 22, 2009
The Natural Step Sustainability Primers are great tools for anyone interested in sustainability and acting in ways that are less damaging to the environment.
There are both American and Canadian versions of these Sustainability Primers accessible via the link above. The Canadian version is actually four separate toolkits, The Natural Step Sustainability Primer, Planning for Sustainability: A Starter Guide, Sustainability at Home: A Toolkit (Alberta), and Sustainability at Home: A Toolkit (B.C.).
Planning for Sustainability: A Starter Guide is the most useful for small businesses; the guidebook is designed to help organizations develop a strategic plan for sustainability. It's both organized and comprehensive. The downside is to work through the process described in the guide will take two to three months. The upside is you'll really have accomplished something at the end of it, for both your business and the planet.
More on Going Green & Sustainability
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Saturday November 21, 2009
There's a lot of talk about how small businesses do better than larger ones during recession because they're so much more nimble and flexible. But we're all aware of small businesses that have failed in this recession period, too. What's your small business success story? How did your small business manage to survive the recession?
Sharing your story may provide some other small business with the tip or solution they've been looking for. And you get a little free advertising for your business too.
Read how other small businesses survived the recession.
More Places to Have Your Say & Share
Here are some more topics where you can share your tips and advice with other small business people:
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Friday November 20, 2009
The holiday season is supposed to be full of comfort and joy, but for many, it's just plain full of stress.
From gift shopping through gathering together all the trimmings for the traditional turkey dinner, there just seem to be dozens of extra things to do with no extra time to do them.
But there are ways to reduce your holiday stress and you don't have to wait until the holidays officially begin to start doing them. I've found these Strategies for Holiday Stress Relief work well and hopefully you will, too.
Looking for even more ways of lowering your holiday stress level? These articles will also help:
Image (c) Kai Wiechmann / Getty Images
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Thursday November 19, 2009
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's proposed Code of Conduct for the credit and debit card industry is a definite step in the right direction and a step that needed to be taken with Visa and Mastercard about to enter the debit card competition.
The Retail Council of Canada has said credit card processing fees now cost merchants $4.5 billion a year. The council also estimates merchants will pay an extra $300 million to process debit cards if Visa takes 20 per cent of that market away from Interac next year.
The new voluntary Code of Conduct is intended to ensure fair business practices and ensure that merchants are:
- aware of the costs associated with accepting plastic payment;
- given increased pricing flexibility to allow the lowest-cost payment options for consumers;
- allowed to choose the payment options they'll accept.
If you want to actually look at it and see what it says rather than just read about it, here it is: Draft Code of Conduct for the Credit and Debit Card Industry in Canada.
The proposed Code of Conduct is now the subject of a 60-day consultation period.
More: Flaherty threatens card companies on proposed code (The National Post) - Reactions to the proposed Code of Conduct by Visa Canada, The Retail Council of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
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