What is a business incubator?
Business incubators help emerging growth companies survive and grow during the periods when they are most vulnerable. Business incubators often offer operational and/or financial resources to help companies get off the ground or expand.
What is a business accelerator?
Similar to a business incubator, accelerators speed the growth of companies. Accelerators often include a heavy focus on web communications and internet technologies and offer fast test “boot camp” intensive entrepreneurial trainings.
Are business incubators and accelerators important in today’s economy?
Starting a business in today’s economy can be challenging. Ever-increasing regulations, rapidly evolving information technologies, uncertainty in the financial markets and increasing difficulty in obtaining traditional loans, and cutthroat competition all contribute to the need for ventures to utilize incubators/accelerators.
How successful are incubators/accelerators at helping businesses?
Successful completion of a business incubation program increases the likelihood that a start-up company will stay in business for the long term. Studies have found 87% of incubator graduates stay in business for over five years in contrast to 44% of all firms. For every $1 in public subsidy, incubators create $30 in tax revenue. Also, incubators are shown to create 20 times more jobs than other public infrastructure projects.
What is cause marketing?
Cause marketing is a type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a for-profit business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit.
Why is it important for entrepreneurs to know about cause marketing?
Because 83% of Americans wish more of the products, services and retailers they use would support causes, according to Cone’s 2010 Cause Evolution Study: Plus, cause marketing is good for the heart.
What is a business ecosystem?
A business ecosystem refers to a collection of individual, complementary businesses that work together to boost business for all. The businesses may share resources or mutually refer clients. Oftentimes, these businesses are organized into an ecosystem because they are working towards a common goal.
What is permaculture?
Permaculture refers to principles guiding the creation of “permanent culture” or sustainable living. While permaculture principles are most regularly applied to gardening or agriculture, they are applicable in most realms, including business.
What are core ethics of permaculture?
Permaculture combines three key components which can be applied to a garden, life or business:
1. An ethical framework
2. An understanding of how nature works
3. A design approach
What is “zero waste”?
Zero waste is a waste management strategy that maximizes recycling, minimizes waste, reduces consumption, and ensures that products are made to be reused, repaired, or recycled back into nature or the marketplace.
What are the benefits of implementing a zero waste goal?
Cutting use of resources and supplies leads to all of the following benefits plus some: reduced expenses, lower liability, mitigated risk, improved morale and a marketing edge. Businesses also have potential to generate increased profits because more and more customers are choosing to buy from clean businesses. According to Packaged Facts, over the past five years the ethical products business has experienced double digit annual growth compared with low single digit growth in conventional products.
Are there examples of companies that have successfully implemented zero waste strategies?
Yes. Here are a few:
- Hewlett-Packard (9,000 employees) is diverting 92-95% of its solid waste, saving almost a million dollars a year in avoided waste disposal costs.
- Toyota claims a 97% zero-landfill status average over its 14 assembly plants.
- Copy-machine maker Ricoh has had a zero-landfill status at its U.S. plants since 2002.
- Anheuser-Busch has recycled 99% of the solid waste generated at its 12 breweries.
- Subaru claims that 99.8% of the refuse from its Indiana plant is diverted from going to landfills by recycling and reusing parts.
How do zero waste strategies affect local economies?
Research by the Washington DC-based Institute for Local Self Reliance shows that only 1 local job is created for every 10,000 tons of solid waste landfilled each year. Composting the same amount creates 4 jobs, recycling it creates 10, and making new products from the recycled materials adds 25 local jobs.
What is the Project EDEN Resource Recovery Park?
Adbongo is currently organizing a business ecosystem called Project EDEN (Economic Development Ensuring Nature). The Project EDEN plan brings together the many businesses needed to operate a Resource Recovery Park (RR Park), where a city’s waste streams are managed with the goal of zero waste.
RR Parks focus on reuse of products.
Per 10,000 tons of waste,
only 1 landfill job is created;
10 recycling jobs are created;
and between 75-250 reuse jobs are created, lending support for the FACT that RR Parks boost local economies.