December 2007

• Catering and Food Services businesses and organizations needed!
• Trends in NOT purchasing
• Values-driven consumers changing the marketplace
• Links of the Month

Catering and Food Services businesses and organizations needed!

The SPP recently posted its first business under the category of Catering and Food Services... the Calgary Winter Club! We're hoping this can motivate more businesses and organizations out there that provide catering services to sign up as a SPP Supplier and be listed so that the greater business community learns about your services and considers you in their social purchasing decisions. Signing up as a SPP Supplier is fairly easy, just fill out one of the Supplier Sign-up forms and email it back to us! If you have any questions, please send them to the SPP by email: info@sppcalgary.org.

Trends in NOT purchasing

We've all seen the massive sales stretching from Black Friday in the US to Boxing Day here in Canada. Companies everywhere are competing for your holiday dollars. At the SPP, we're encouraging responsible use of those dollars, but there's another extreme to the purchasing continuum that is gaining public attention, and that is Buying Nothing. From Credit Card Cup Ups, to Zombie Walks through Malls, to a whole day devoted to 'Buy Nothing'... you can read more about it at: Buy Nothing Day.

Values-driven consumers changing the marketplace

A new report from branding and marketing firm BBMG in the US finds that increasingly conscious consumers are demanding that companies be transparent about their practices and accountable for their impact on people and the planet. Americans are more likely to buy from companies that manufacture energy efficient products (90%), promote health and safety benefits (88%), support fair labour and trade practices (87%), and commit to environmentally-friendly practices, if products are of equal quality and price. For more information or to download the free white paper, visit: BBMG.

Links of the Month

• Net Impact (www.netimpact.org) makes a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world. We offer a portfolio of programs to educate, equip, and inspire more than 10,000 members to make a tangible difference in their universities, organizations, and communities. A local chapter at the University of Calgary is starting up.
• Free Rice (http://www.freerice.com) is a sister site to the world poverty site poverty.com, and is trying to provide English vocabulary to everyone for free while ending world hunger by providing rice to hungry people in exchange for paid advertising on their site.

If you have good links to share, pass them along!

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