Bob Hazard continues Montecito’s desalination history

Rinaldo S. Brutoco is the Founding President and CEO of the Santa Barbara-based World Business Academy and a co-founder of JUST Capital. He’s a serial entrepreneur, executive, author, radio host, and futurist who’s published on the role of business in relation to pressing moral, Want Healthier Houseplants? Conscious Consumption as Social Activism environmental, and social concerns for over 35 years T here is a collective myth of how America started out as a haven for religious freedom. budgets are working nonstop to lure us into addiction to crass materialism and buying “name” brands, by Try Naming Them! H ave a hard time keeping houseplants alive? The key to a greener thumb might just be giving your plant a name. It sounds silly, but naming your plants helps you better remember to take care of them. It allows you to anthropomorphize the plant and empaWhile there’s some truth to that, in convincing us that the latest, greatest thize when it needs water, sun, or a bigger pot. We are also more likely to fact, America started as a business. The thing just must be acquired! Lately remember to check in on it if it has a name. first settlers in Jamestown were comthough, even the biggest brands are Additionally, research shows we do tend to name things when we’re lonemercially organized as The Virginia starting to take notice. ly, which means doing so must help us to feel less so. Naming your plant Company, and granted a charter in For example, our weakened politiwill not only extend its life but also help you feel a little less solitary during 1604 to exploit New World resources cal institutions have abandoned their these isolating times. Research has also shown that talking to plants helps for the British Crown. The early setprotective role for society in the curthem grow faster and stay healthier. So feel free to give your plant a morning tlers in New Amsterdam were Dutch rent Administration’s supervision of greeting or afternoon hello as well. merchants and traders who created business, so the Business Community Maybe name it after where you got it or the name of your favorite TV charwhat became New York. Even New is taking on more responsibility. For acter. This part is completely up to you! England, the home of the Puritans who example, knowing Facebook has totalpurportedly just wanted to practice ly abdicated its responsibility as a You can recycle aluminum foil. Here’s how to do it right. their brand of Christianity in peace, powerful media company to regulate Aluminum is one of the most recycled materials used today. It can be recywas settled by entrepreneurs, printhate speech, racism, Russian “bots” or cled endlessly without loss of quality. With that said, what’s the best way to ers, artisans, and small merchants. outright lies, the business community recycle aluminum foil? We have the answers right here. People who wanted to manage their realized that Facebook would only Check whether it’s possible: Before you can consider recycling any of your own destinies like Benjamin Franklin act responsibly if it saw itself making aluminum foil, you have to determine whether your local provider accepts managed their own enterprises, and less money promoting racist and Antiit. Check your community website or search Earth911’s recycling locator. In ultimately managing a new country American propaganda. So… 240 U.S. most cases, if the recycling center takes aluminum foil, they’ll also accept to be called the United States – a councompanies representing 60 percent of disposable pie tins and roasting pans. try undeniably built by the merchant Facebook ad revenue agreed to boyAssess and clean: Most recycling services and centers ask that you clean class supporting an agricultural and cott Facebook until it grew up and the foil before you toss it in with your other recyclables. If the foil only has trading economy. The 1773 Boston Tea acted appropriately. a few bits of food like a spot of frosting or a few breadcrumbs, wipe them Party was the culmination of several The #StopHateForProfit moveoff and rinse the foil. But if the foil is very dirty with baked-on cheese, lots years of colonists reducing British tea ment organized by a civil rights coaof greasy oil, or burnt sauces and gravies, it’s beyond saving. In those cases, purchases to protest “taxation withlition, including the Anti-Defamation you’ll have to throw it away. out representation” which clearly is a League (ADL) and the NAACP, as Separate items: If aluminum foil is part of a package like yogurt containcommercial rallying cry that ultimately well as Color of Change, was joined ers, paper boxes, or drink containers, separate it from the other materials. launched a new American nation. by a number of very high profile Once the materials are separated, make sure everything is clean. Anything

The World Business Academy has brands, including Starbucks (which that is recyclable can be put in your bin or taken to a recycling center. If foil had the same Tripartite Mission since is Facebook’s sixth largest advertiscan’t be separated from other materials, you’ll have to throw it away. •MJ inception in 1986. The Academy is er), Coca-Cola, Ford, Honda, Clorox, dedicated to catalyzing a shift in 1) Patagonia and other outdoor brands, the consciousness of existing business and Unilever, who all worked togethselves. The boycott members said, whose values are out of alignment leadership; 2) future business leaders; er to send Facebook a powerful mes“This is too little.” And, although with your own. and 3) the general consuming public, sage: Your profits will be reduced when Zuckerberg is pretending to be “ok” I’ve put my life’s work into this toward an understanding that we are you promote hate, bigotry, racism, with it all, the truth is that he spends mission, specifically seeing the busiall in this together, and that business antisemitism, and violence as a way every waking moment on the phone ness sector as a catalyst for change. must be a noble enterprise. Business is to sell ads. For many of the companies trying to cajole his advertisers. All to In 2013, I co-founded JUST Capital the most powerful institution in socipulling ads from Facebook, it’s part no avail. They want real change, not which annually ranks the 1,000 largety so it must promote the common of an advertiser boycott in protest of cosmetic pablum. est publicly traded USA companies good. For many years, the Academy what they say are the site’s failures to Public pressure in business has a by how “JUST” they are. To deterhas taught the Quadruple Bottom stop the spread of hate. These comlong history, going back to the term mine what “JUST” behavior would line, and at last it is becoming widepanies are not acting in a vacuum. “boycott” first being used in Ireland in look like to the average person, JUST ly accepted. What is that Quadruple They are responding to consumer and 1880, when Captain Charles Boycott, Capital annually conducts thousands Bottom Line? It’s looking equally at employee sentiments. They know that a British land agent, attempted to of interviews all across the counPeople, Planet, Profit, and Purpose. being associated with hateful speech evict a large number of poor tenants. try – over 100,000 at this point. By

The third part of our tripartite miswill alienate their employees and their A political action organization called looking at the JUST Capital rankings sion summarized above is to shift the customers, and in a self-interested the Land League convinced Boycott’s published by FORBES and carried consciousness of the “general consummove, speaking out against Facebook employees to walk out, and got the on our website, every consumer can ing public” at large to put its money signals their deeper values. This is a whole community to shun him. Shops tell which companies reflect their with its deeper values, knowing that sign that conscious consumerism is and other establishments refused to values so they can shop there… And when the public does this, business having a moment. do business with him, and the post which companies fall far short of will immediately shift in response. Facebook is finally agreeing to start refused his mail. He ultimately left JUST behavior. As our values shift ever more quickly, moderating some content by flagging Ireland humiliated. Congratulations to all of us who’ve business will shift ever more quickly it or removing it. Finally Facebook The corollary to the BOYcott is the been speaking up with our dollars to to be able to continue to earn contook the action in committing to term BUYcott, where consumers shop get what we want from the Business sumer dollars. You see, businesses in removing some accounts that belong brands and products that share their community. It looks like the best fact work for us! Sometimes this gets to extreme hate movements, or foreign deeper values. The bottom line mescompanies are starting to get the confused in our hyper consumerist governments, after saying that they sage is to vote with your dollar and message, and we will leave the rest economy since the gazillion dollar ad would not moderate content themdon’t contribute a cent to companies behind. •MJ 9 – 16 July 2020 • The Voice of the Village • MONTECITO JOURNAL 23