Working For Jobs

by Grist.

Winter’s relentless grip will give way, we promise. Come summer, even those of us deeply
ensconced within a concrete jungle will kick it in under the shade of glorious
greenery. You need a little of that
right now, don’t you? Step in, sit down,
and take in the warm air of these rooftop oases.  

Air drop us in. Never make us leave.

We’d like some home grown tomatoes and a cabana boy, please.

Holy swim party, Batman. Don’t mind if we do. 

This tar roof got a succulent and sedum makeover. We offer to do the weeding.

Meet us by the locust tree. We’ll be wearing the red carnation and a big goofy smile.

This Little Italy rooftop in New York is a little bit of heaven. Honestly, this is ridiculous. And fragrant.

Nature takes it back in Manhattan.  It’s like Jumangi meets Ghost Busters.  We want in.

And we’re done. Do not disturb us, we’re staying here until the warm weather returns for real.

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by Elly Blue.

The first in a series on bikes and the economy.

Imagine getting a $3,000
to $12,000 tax rebate this year. Now imagine it coming again and again. Every
year it grows by around a thousand dollars.

Imagine how this would
change your daily life.

Sounds like a teabagger’s
wet dream, but it’s actually a conservative estimate of how much you’d
save by ditching your car, or even just one of your cars—and getting on
a bicycle instead.

Car-centric conditions
don’t always make it easy to choose the bicycle. Communities designed
exclusively for motor vehicles impose a major financial
penalty on those who are compelled to take on the expense of driving. But if
you’re one of those who lives in a bike-friendlier place, you’ll be doing your
local business community a good turn and padding Uncle Sam’s pockets as well as
your own if you trade four wheels for two.

In the many North
American cities where two-wheeled transportation is taking off, a new bicycle
economy is emerging. It’s amazing how
much money can stay in your community when it isn’t being pumped into the
gas tank, big insurance, and the auto market.

What will this new
bicycle economy look like?

We don’t have to guess.
It’s already emerging along urban, low-traffic bikeway networks nationwide. One
thing is guaranteed: it includes a lot of new bike shops like this
one on a bikeway in Baltimore—one of five new bike shops to have opened
in the last two years in that city. A 2008 study in Portland clocked bicycle-related
industry alone as contributing
$90 million to the local economy every year. Bicycle tourism is another
huge boon to regions that can attract it—in 2010, Wisconsin bragged of a
yearly $1.5 billion bike economy [PDF].

Less obvious synergies
abound as well. People who ride, just like people who drive, buy groceries,
visit the doctor, need a new shirt sometimes, and enjoy dinner and a movie.
They work. Their kids attend school. Despite the media attention given to mega-mileage
supercommuters,
for most people whgo depend on bikes for transportation, life works best with
all these necessities in reasonable biking distance—say, less than five
miles—from their home. Preferably along routes that don’t include riding on
highways or having to zip anxiously across them.

Bicycle parking is the
indicator species of this new economy, with a business’s enthusiasm for its
two-wheeled clientele being easy to gauge by the quantity of bike racks out
front. In Portland, businesses impatiently line
up to replace their car parking with on-street bike racks. One local
grocery store recently opened a location with more
parking for bicycles than for cars.

Then there’s the food
cart boom that’s overtaken Portland—every previously vacant alley and
parking lot, many along
major bike routes, seems to have spawned a semi-permanent pod of them. As a
business model, it’s a natural response to a population that craves cheap
lunch, prefers not to travel far, and doesn’t need a 7’ x 20’ piece of real
estate to park on.

There are many more local
benefits of the bike economy, from lowering families’ health care costs to
reducing a business’s need to invest in costly parking spaces for staff and
customers. And you can’t place a monetary value on happiness.

But as long as our local
governments keep hearing strident resistance to rather than support for safe, bikeable and walkable streets, the bicycle economy
will continue to be reined in—by inadequate infrastructure, terrible zoning,
and giant road expansion projects of the sort that tie up all transportation
funding for decades to come.

The bicycle economy, unlike
its fancier cousin transit-oriented development, is not about new development
or raising property values. It’s about bettering our existing communities. It’s
about making cities and suburbs that are built on an automotive scale navigable,
instead, by human power. It’s about providing the basics to everyone, in their
neighborhood, now—and along with that the choice to opt for that $3,000 to
$12,000 yearly rebate.

There aren’t very many
economic scenarios in this country where everyone wins. But if you had to
choose one single thing that could pull our neighborhoods, towns, and cities
out of this murky pit of a recession, you’d do well to bet on the humble
bicycle.

Next in this series: A realistic, conservative funding proposal for
bicycle economic development.

Related Links:

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Four Seasons Farm/Maitland, NS, Canada (Outside US)

INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY

Positions: Organic Farming Internships/Apprenticeships
Organization: Four Seasons Farm
Location: Maitland, Nova Scotia

Four Seasons Farm offers a unique "seed to plate" experience to learn about sustainable growing in a supportive environment. Family-run since 1992, we specialize in small-scale, organic practices and provide quality vegetables and herbs for restaurants and the Halifax Farmers Market, the largest market in the Maritimes. We are currently seeking two applicants for the full season and four seasonal internships.

Qualifications:
* A strong interest in local, organic, and small-scale vegetable production.
* Applicants who have previous education and/or work experience in agriculture are preferred. However, students or new entrants to organic farming are also encouraged.
* Observant and inquisitive; can follow instructions; enjoys hands-on learning
* Hard-working and highly motivated
* In good physical shape and energetic
* Good communications skills; able to work and live in a cooperative environment

Work/Learn Description:
* Learning and working take place in both individual and group settings; there is individual instruction, group demonstrations, and working with one another to pass along skills.
* Over the course of the season interns will develop skills in the many areas of "seed to plate" farming including: Seeding and transplanting; Compost making, Soil fertility and soil preparations; Irrigation; Trellising and pruning; Weed, pest and disease prevention and management; Managing and improving high tunnels; Crop-specific harvesting and post-harvest care; Farm direct marketing, delivering and selling at a farm market; Cooking and preserving produce
* Detailed instructions are given to develop the skills necessary to perform tasks on the farm.
* It is the detailed instruction along with performing the tasks that develop skills.
* Occasional presentations by visiting folks are organized on relevant topics.
* There is an extensive farming library where the staff can help facilitate independent study.

Responsibilities:
* The regular work schedule generally runs from 7:30-8 am to 6:30-7 pm with a morning break and an hour for lunch.
* Interns should expect to work some weekends on a rotating basis being responsible for irrigation, chickens care and selling at a farmers market.
* Interns are also expected to take part in managing an orderly household, including some simple household chores and taking turns cooking

Additional Benefits:
* Housing is provided in a large family farm house.
* Access to long-distance phone calls, a computer with wireless internet and a laundry.
* All meals are provided mostly family style, with meat and vegetarian options.
* Regular opportunities to participate in meal preparation with menus of your choice and many fresh ingredients.
* An opportunity to explore this beautiful region of Nova Scotia right on the mudflats of the Bay of Fundy.
* The chance to meet others from around the world involved in the local farm and food revival movement.
* A stipend/salary which will be based on experience and length of commitment.

To apply:
* The 2011 season will run from March/April to November/December, with limited room for shorter stays as well. Let us know how we can work with your availability. There is no deadline as positions are filled on a rolling basis.
* Our minimum length of stay is two weeks, though preference is given to applicants with the intention to stay longer.
* We encourage international applicants to the internship. Please ask us if you have questions about arranging for the appropriate work and travel documents early on.
* Please email a cover letter and resume or a letter expressing your interest and background to: drnrjror@ns.sympatico.ca . We follow up with you to have conversation by phone or Skype.
* For more information see our website: http://www.fourseasonsfarm.ca under the "Internship" section

A warm welcome to those who enjoy hard work, tasty food, good conversation and
music, and living with a diverse group of people.


Apply To Job

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by Umbra Fisk.

Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

Not long ago, I saw a video of a Japanese scientist who had created a small machine that converted discarded plastics back into fuel. He was demonstrating it to schoolchildren. Is something happening with this technology? If it is true it could certainly help to save us all.

Judy G.
Bowler, WI

A. Dearest Judy,

The Japanese scientist you speak of is most likely Akinori Ito of Blest Corporation. The technology you’re referring to is the “Waste Plastic Oiling System,” seen in this video. This machine converts polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), and polystyrene (PS) plastics “back into oil.”

“It’s made from oil, so it’s probably not that difficult to convert it back. That’s how we started,” says Ito in the video, which is posted on the United Nations University YouTube channel. To Ito, garbage is “an oil field. A plastic oil field.”

Blest’s oil conversion machine costs about $12,700, and is sized for home use. According to the Blest company website, plastics should be cleaned before placing them in the oil conversion machine. The machine then heats the plastic, creating a boiling liquid. In the video, the process is described rather simplistically: “Gas passes through and then tap water cools the gas and turns it into oil. ‘The oil is OK to burn as is,’” says Ito. It can also be processed more to make gasoline, diesel, and kerosene. In the current Blest machine, 2.2 pounds of plastic garbage converts into 0.26 quarts of oil.

Another machine that does a similar plastic-to-oil conversion is the Envion Oil GeneratorTM. This industrial-size converter turns “petroleum-based plastics into synthetic light-medium oil that can be further refined to produce commercial fuels such as gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, and diesel.” A prototype has been in operation since 2009 in Montgomery County, Md.

Judy, your enthusiasm for this machine is certainly understandable. Being able to convert a soda top into gasoline is innovative. But will such a thing “save us all?” I happen to be excited by the seltzer machine I use at home, and sometimes think it will solve all the world’s problems. Alas.

Let’s temper our enthusiasm for just a moment and think about the potential downsides of such a machine. Is there pollution or toxic residue that results from this process?

According to the United Nations University website, “Blest tells us that, if the proper materials are fed into the machine (i.e., polyethylene, polystyrene, and polypropylene—PP, PE, PS plastics), there is no toxic substance produced and any residue can be disposed of with regular burnable garbage. They also explain that while methane, ethane, propane, and butane gasses are released in the process, the machine is equipped with an off-gas filter that disintegrates these gases into water and carbon.”

That sounds promising. The positive effects on plastic waste management are certainly a plus, as is the potentially reduced waste in landfills and the chance that technology of this sort could reduce dependence on foreign oil sources. But what about CO2 emissions, Judy? Dr. Ito says, “If we turned our plastic garbage into oil, then our CO2 emissions could be much lower.” 

Re-converted oil may be less resource-intensive in terms of extraction and transportation, therefore reducing overall CO2 emissions. But burning oil, even converted and recycled oil, is still burning oil, and it results in CO2 emissions.

Another thing to consider, Judy, is whether this machine addresses the root of our carbon footprint problems—or merely perpetuates more business-as-usual wastefulness.

What do you think, readers? Is a solution like this machine a geoengineering Band-aid or a viable solution that makes sense to you?

Plastically,
Umbra

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by Sarah Goodyear.

The time when having a chicken in your Brooklyn backyard was
interesting has long since passed. I mean, heck, everybody has chickens these
days, right? Or at least bees. Maybe even red bees.

But even in a borough where hipsters regularly tote hoes up
to rooftops to tend rows of heirloom cranberry beans, one crop can still
surprise: Tobacco.

That’s right, Audrey Silk is growing her own to roll her
own, and she’s decided she doesn’t care who knows it. After keeping her harvest
a secret for a couple of seasons, Silk—who is no hipster or starry-eyed urban agriculture devotee—decided to come out in The
New York Times:

[F]or
Ms. Silk, 46, a retired police officer and the founder of New York City Clash (Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment),
a smokers’ rights group, it is not just about the money. It is about the
message. In the state with the highest cigarette taxes in the country, in a
city that has become one of the hardest places in America to find a place to
smoke, Ms. Silk has gone off the grid, growing, processing and smoking her own
tax-free cigarettes from packets of seeds she buys online for about $2. She
expects to produce a total of 45 cartons after planting two crops—the first
in the summer of 2009, the second last summer—and estimates that she will
have saved more than $5,000.

“It’ll
make the antismokers apoplectic,” said Ms. Silk. “They’re using the power of
taxation to coerce behavior. That’s not what taxation is supposed to be for.”

Well,
I’d have to count myself in the antismoker camp. I have directly benefited from
the city’s aggressive policies banning cigarettes in many public places—now
I can go to a bar or restaurant and not come home stinking of smoke and
wheezing. So Silk and I would be at odds about that. (I was a very enthusiastic teenage smoker myself, until I came down
with pneumonia one too many times and quit, agonizingly, at 16.)

But
contrary to what Silk might think, I’m cheering for her and her backyard
tobacco plantation. She’s growing the stuff from seed, and there’s a lot of
labor involved in getting to the final product. It’s not just nurturing the seedlings, transplanting them, and tending the plants through the season with
daily watering. Then she has to wash and dry the leaves, let them age, and
hand-shred them—all before she can ever get to the point of whipping out
the rolling papers and sprinkling in her very own product. It can only be a
good thing to
take time preparing the things you put in your mouth. (I put a call in to
Silk to find out if she’s been smoking fewer cigs as a result of all that hard work, but have yet to hear back.)

Silk
told the Times she’s worried that
the city will pass regulations against growing your own tobacco, and that
“black helicopters” will soon be hovering over her yard. I sincerely hope she’s
wrong. It may not be great for her health, but in the end, that’s her business. And I
applaud her putting down the Parliaments, her favored brand. No more industrially produced tobacco, no more butt
litter—Silk’s solution makes smoking seem almost wholesome.

Hey, Audrey—light
one up for me, willya?

Update: I talked to Silk on the phone this afternoon, and she told me that she is smoking as many cigarettes as she ever has, supplementing her harvest with store-bought loose tobacco when she needs to. I asked her if she’s using any pesticides or fertilizers to grow her tobacco, and she told me she isn’t. She keeps an eye out for tobacco budworms by going out at night with a stick and a flashlight (which her neighbors think is pretty funny) and has started composting to give the plants the nutrition they need. “I’m not green,” she said with a laugh. “But I guess this has gotten me hooked. I love to garden.”

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ethicalDeal/Vancouver, BC, Canada

We’re looking for a full-time ambassador in Vancouver to help us get local, green businesses featured on ethicalDeal. Each day you’ll call (and occasionally visit) restaurants, theaters, spas, retailers, and everything in between to negotiate unbeatable deals on behalf of our subscribers. We hire connected, innovative, and industry-relevant sales professionals. You should be skilled at negotiation and relationship building. Experience with online sales, advertising, and social media are beneficial to an ambassador’s success and fit within our team.

General Responsibilities
Sales
• Prospect, consult, and close local merchants on compelling offers for our subscribers based on each
business’s products & services
• Identify new and creative businesses & activities to be featured expanding the range of offers for our
subscribers
• Present ethicalDeal as a unique alternative for businesses to acquire new customers and gain exposure

Marketing
• Gather the required information for the feature and liaise with writers, designers, and admin staff as
necessary
• Promote your deals through a variety of online and offline tools/strategies
• Manage the discussion board and customer service for your deals
• Attend events and use social media tools like Facebook and Twitter

Requirements
• 2+ years of advertising sales to local merchants (online preferred)
• Experience canvassing and cold-calling into various types of local businesses with evidence of consistent and current success
• Prior experience working from home or virtual office is strongly preferred

Compensation / Benefits
• Competitive compensation, base + commission
• Align your work with your values and help us make green mainstream!

Apply To Job

View full post on GreenBiz Jobs

by Jess Zimmerman.

Yesterday’s final launch of the space
shuttle Discovery provided some amazing images, and probably made a
few of us look wistfully at the sky and think of space panoramas (or
in my case space poop and space laundry, because I just read Packing
for Mars). But even though astronauts
report that gazing down at Earth makes them feel more tender and
caring about their fragile planet, it’s probably best for everyone if
the rest of us remain on the ground.

Even if space tourism becomes
affordable (it currently costs
$200,000, which you might as well spend on an electric
Rolls), some scientists say that frequent space jaunts could
spell
disaster for the climate and the atmosphere:

Martin Ross, one of the authors of the
paper, said that simulations predicted that over 1,000 space flights
a year could increase
polar surface temperatures by 1 °C, and reduce polar sea ice by
5-15%. “There are fundamental limits to how much material human
beings can put into orbit without having a significant impact,”
Ross said, who is also an atmospheric scientist at the Aerospace
Corporation in Los Angeles, California.

Currently, commercial rockets burn a
mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen that release large amounts of
carbon. Several companies are attempting to change this however by
developing a more economical ‘hybrid’ rocket engine that ignites
synthetic hydrocarbon with nitrous oxide. However the authors of the paper say that these
new hybrid engines emit even more black carbon than a kerosene and
oxygen engine.

Oh well, another
dream shattered.

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by Tom Philpott.

Dean Foods is by far the largest U.S. dairy processor. According to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Dean processes 40 percent of fluid milk consumed
in the U.S., which it distrubutes in a dizzying array of brands. Its dominance extends to
organic milk, too—Dean’s Horizon brand is the largest supplier of
organic milk.

Dean’s Horizon organic milk generates plenty of
controversy. For years, Horizon has been sparring with the watchdog
group Cornucopia over its farming practices, like use of conventionally raised heifers on its certified-organic farms. Cornucopia also goes after Dean for putting additives in its
“organic” products. The latest dust-up is over a new Horizon product
called “Fat-Free Milk Plus DHA Omega-3.”

According to Cornucopia,
the DHA in question is a “synthetic additive” banned under organic
standards. Horizon counters that it has been using the synthetic DHA for
years in its organic baby formula, with the approval of the USDA.
Cornucopia shoots back that DHA-laced formula has been shown [PDF] to cause adverse reactions in babies—and adds that USDA recently acknowledged [PDF] that it was “incorrect” to allow synthetic DHA in organic products in the first place.

But the purpose of this post isn’t to referee the latest dispute between Dean
and Cornucopia. Rather, it’s to question the vision for organic being
promoted by Dean with its Horizon products.

The organic-farming movement in the West was galvanized 70 years ago by the great British scientist Sir Albert Howard.
His theory of agriculture can be summed up like this: healthy soil
produces healthy plants and animals, which in turn nourish healthy
humans. In short, there’s no need to tart up properly grown food with all manner of synthetic additives
to make it “healthy.”

In his In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan showed that the practice of isolating and synthesizing
certain nutrients and adding them to food is a mug’s game, a marketer’s
trick. It turns out, we don’t understand all that much about human
nutrition, but we do know that eating foods in their whole state tends
to be healthier than loading up on isolated nutrients in the form of
supplements and additives.

Meanwhile, a growing body of research suggests that cows fed on grass produce milk with a healthier fat profile
than grain-fed cows —higher in the very kinds of Omega-3 fats that
Dean is injecting into
its “organic” milk in synthetic form. “Fat-Free Milk Plus DHA Omega-3” is a deeply absurd product—the natural fats have been stripped
out, replaced by ones conjured up in a lab. In promoting such
concoctions, Dean is straying away from a solid notion of organic, and
moving into the marketing-driven, hyped-up world of “functional foods” —which is probably where a company of its vast size belongs, anyway.
It’s a free country, but I don’t see how Dean should be allowed to use
the USDA organic label as a fig leaf for its latest move away from
organic principles.

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The case for labeling GMOs, food for environmentalist thought, and more

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by Holly Richmond.

On Jan. 25, Mo’Nique, last year’s best supporting actress, announced
the Oscar nominees for this year’s 83rd annual Academy Awards. While there’s
no Inconvenient Truth nor anyone
bragging they’re the
greenest director of all time, we managed to find some sustainable messages
in the contenders for best picture.

127 Hours: James
Franco stars in this grisly film about the mountain climber who had to cut off
his own arm since it was stuck under a rock. As long as he packed it in and
packed it out (his litter, not his arm, silly!), this sounds pretty green to
me. (For reals, though, Franco’s 2008 New Year’s Resolution was
to walk more and rely less on his car.)

Black Swan: Natalie
Portman, star of this creepy ballet flick, is a longtime vegan and green
darling, and she said
the same of director Darren Aronofsky: “Darren is a huge environmentalist
and talks about it all the time.” He forbade plastic water bottles on the set,
and Kleen Kanteen provided the cast and crew with reusable ones. Because it’s
important to be hydrated before any self-mutilation.

Inception: Sleeping
is a great way to save energy, right? But seriously, the Prius-driving Leo DiCaprio is uber-green.
(Remember The Eleventh Hour? Yeah …
unfortunately we do too.) Juno darling Ellen Page is no slouch, either—she appeared
in a video promo for 350.org’s day of climate action last year.

The Fighter: I’ll
admit it, there aren’t a lot of green connections with this boxing flick …
although aforementioned green director Darren Aronofsky was once at its helm.
And you can count Marky Mark as yet another knock-out with an awful
eco-thriller in his past (The Happening).
Co-stars Christian Bale dabbled
in vegetarianism, and Amy Adams took
reusable bags with her to the grocery store (hey, I’m trying here, people!).

The Kids Are All Right:
Annette Bening (who played a green activist in 1995’s An American President) and Julianne Moore star in this comedy-drama
about a lesbian couple and their kids—and a recent
study suggests the LGBT community is greener than its hetero counterparts. And
star Mark Ruffalo’s recently been in the news for his anti-fracking
activism.

The King’s Speech: This period drama chronicles how King George VI
overcame his stutter. It stars Colin Firth, who just might be one half of a new
green power couple: “With friends he opened an
eco-friendly store in west London,” reports Financial Times. And his wife Livia Guggioli has promised to only
wear sustainable fashion on the red carpet.

The Social Network:
Justin Timberlake brought sexy back, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in
the name of clean water, and opened a “green” golf
course? Add him as a friend already. (Same for Rashida Jones—her 2011
New Year’s resolution is to start
composting.) And in real life, Greenpeace gave Facebook a not-so-friendly
poke for using
coal to power its data centers.

Toy Story 3: Clearly
the take-home message of this animated blockbuster is that reusing and
recycling unwanted crap is way better than sending it to the scary incinerator.
Did I say “clearly”? In any case, Tom Hanks (the voice of Woody) volunteers for The Nature
Conservancy, making him our favorite deputy.

True Grit: The Coen brothers directed this John Wayne remake. (Perhaps
you remember their maybe-it’s-a-metaphor-for-climate-change film from three years ago, No Country for
Old Men, or their definitely-mocking-clean-coal video from last year?) The Coens have made composting
and recycling a priority on sets before—they composted 74 percent of the
waste from A Serious Man and recycled
another 6 percent. Keep it up, bros.

Winter’s Bone:
This “haunting
yet beautiful” drama is set in a poor rural community in the Ozarks, “where
drug production and trafficking [are] just as lucrative as livestock and
farming,” writes
one reviewer. With zero farmwashing—instead, broken farm equipment sits in front of houses—perhaps it shines
a dull flickery light on the downsides of Big Ag?

Best Supporting Actor

The Town: This bank-heist
action flick features Ben Affleck as both star and director. As one-half of the greenish Bennifer,
he’s campaigned for Defenders of Wildlife, been in a Live Earth PSA, and dressed
like an ear of corn to promote flex fuels. Co-star (and Mad Men hottie) Jon Hamm voiced green Mercedes-Benz ads during
last year’s Oscars and made the regrettable career decision of starring in
an eco-flick.
Finally, Blake
Lively shops green and has urged her Gossip
Girl co-stars to switch to reusable mugs.

Best Feature Documentary

Gasland: This puppy started getting buzz at Sundance almost a year ago. It’s a scary, compelling look at fracking (hydraulic fracturing), a chemical-intensive method of extracting natural gas, and its negative health effects on the people who live nearby. If “flammable tap water” sounds familiar, it’s probably thanks to Gasland.

Inside Job: Tesla-driving
Matt Damon narrates this documentary about the current economic meltdown. Damon’s
dulcet tones have also graced
green docs Running the Sahara and
Journey to Planet Earth, and he
started Water.org, which aims to get clean drinking water to people in
developing countries.

Waste Land: Trash? Art? Global issues? Yes. Photographer Vik Muniz went to the world’s biggest landfill in Rio de
Janeiro to create mixed-media portraits of the locals who pick through trash there. Then he photographed the portraits—which he made with trash from that very landfill—and sold them, donating his profits back to the locals. For a topic that sounds smelly and ugly, the film sounds uplifting and personal.

Also check out:

An interview with Waste Land director Lucy Walker
The Oscar-nominated green documentary short you have to watch: The Warriors of Qiugang

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• water climate

ethicalDeal/Toronto, ON, Canada

We’re looking for a community manager to engage the Toronto community at events, sponsorships and through social media. Community Managers play an integral part in supporting activities designed to rally the ethicalDeal community both on and offline.

Do you love your GREEN city? Are you the go-to person when it comes to the GREEN scene? Are you the hub of your social world – a connector that knows everyone and everyone knows you? As a local Community Manager, you’ll be an ethicalDeal employee (working out of your home or anywhere with an internet connection!) at the helm of a vibrant, buzzing community of locals who love to discover their GREEN city through daily deals from local green companies.

Community Managers are driven, self-motivated, charismatic and organized as they’re tasked with wrangling a slew of to-dos both on and offline. Every week, you’ll plan, negotiate and execute cool, fun, and buzz-worthy events and campaigns. You’ll meet with ethicalShoppers, attend community events, see and be seen. You’ll do marketing outreach, identifying
sponsorship opportunities with cool organizations and then make it happen! You’ll co-manage the local Twitter and Facebook account, as well as brainstorm and execute social media promotions that engage our community in our vision of making green mainstream. You’ll write our daily deal descriptions that seek to entertain the reader rather than bore.
You might write blog posts, develop community newsletters, take pictures, manage interns and attend head
office parties in Vancouver from time to time. Experience with event management, promotions, marketing
communications, sponsorship and social media is beneficial to a community manager’s success and fit within our team.

Community Outreach:
• Help us build our mailing list by visiting campuses, meet-ups, attending events, securing community
sponsorships, brainstorming and executing online promotions; and using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to engage our community

Event Planning:
• Helping develop, organize and execute marketing events and guerrilla marketing programs (festivals, street ambushes, etc)

Content Creation:
• Writing the daily features, finding and creating creative content for our Blog, Newsletter, Youtube Channel, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook

Requirements
• College/university degree
• Experience with social media, online content creation, marketing communications, guerrilla marketing
tactics, community sponsorships, event planning
• Strong writing and communication skills
• Must have laptop and cell phone available for work use
• Basic knowledge of HTML preferred
• Flexible hours (some evening, weekend work required for events)
• A valid drivers license preferred

Compensation / Benefits
• Salary and bonus
• Align your work with your values and help us make GREEN mainstream!

Apply To Job

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