Taxes go up, taxes go down (sometimes). Does it ever seems to make a real difference on the ground in your neighborhood? The typical temptation is to strive to cut costs and then reduce spending. What if instead of cutting spending we changed spending to create virtuous circles of savings and improvements?
Heavy rains and flood waters flow across the impervious surfaces of roads and parking lots. That flow pushes pollution on those surfaces–plastic bottles, cigarette butts, motor oil–into stormwater management systems. That pollution then dumps into lakes and streams. This system is how so much plastic ends up in our oceans.
Is healthcare a right or a social good? I examine the relationship between human rights and social goods.Continue reading
A recent World Economic Forum article stated that 90 percent of plastic pollution flowing in the ocean from rivers comes from just ten rivers. This statistic makes me incredibly hopeful about preventing plastic pollution and cleaning up our oceans.
Critics of government spending claim that building quality infrastructure for the social good is not affordable. Focus on utility and low cost, they say. No need for grand stone building with imposing facades. Their concerns touch on two core marketing topics, design and pricing.
“That’s the way we’ve always done it.” More stifling, even deadly, words are hard to find. Changing the way we look after the social good can be hard. It pays to start small. You may not sway an entire country, but you can impact your community. It often starts when you change local regulations.Continue reading
In their recent report card, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave US infrastructure a grade of D+. ASCE also said bad infrastructure costs U.S. households $9 per day in higher prices, poor service, repairs, and wasted time. For just $3 per day, they say we could fix the problem. Those numbers sound small,...Continue reading
Governing common shared resources such as water supplies relies on layers of resource management. Each level of management has different roles and responsibilities, from neighborhoods and cities through to regional, state, national and international governance. Currently, the way many cities approach water quality is inefficient because resource management is not regional. Water agencies ignore problems...Continue reading
Are you designing and distributing low quality charitable products? How do you know? Just because your clients may benefit from, and even rely on, products that are free to them doesn’t mean you can give them crap. It also doesn’t mean they stop becoming savvy consumers just because something is free to them. Your products...Continue reading
Large Pacific storms are pummeling the Bay Area this weekend, which is keeping me from surfing. Since I can’t safely be in the water, I can at least enjoy announcing (via NatGeo) that Palau and Chile have created new marine protected areas in the Pacific.