[MPWG] Fw: SEED Initiative - Newsletter Issue 1 - Summer 2009

Tue Jul 14 08:32:56 CDT 2009

Sharing a new newsletter with you.  The links don't work when I forward 
the e-mail, so you'll have to go to the website (<http://www.seedinit.org/
>) and look for the hyperlinked items mentioned in the newsletter below. 
Here are some highlights that I thought might interest MPWG:

SEED Awards
Note that there have been no SEED award winners in North America - 
unfortunately, this is because SEED focuses only on "developing" 
countries:
"The SEED Awards for Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Development is an 
annual international competition, designed to support locally-led, 
innovative, entrepreneurial partnerships in developing countries which 
have the potential to make real improvements in poverty eradication and 
environmental sustainability."

That said, SEED does have information that is useful for us here in the 
U.S./North America.

The "Entrepreneurs toolkit," with "tools and processes helpful to social 
and environmental enterprises" of various kinds, has several interesting 
topics:
Under "Marketing:"
Consumer market: North America 
Consumer market: USA
Retail Product Opportunities: USA
Sustainable Products
Markets for Sustainable Products in Canada and the USA
  Under "NTFPs"
Not much there

Publications:
Critical Success Factors and Performance Measures for Start-up Social and 
Environmental Enterprises (IISD: Boyer, Creech & Paas, June 2008)  "Eight 
critical success factors and fourteen performance indicators identified 
through this investigation (44 pages) form the basis for a robust rapid 
assessment process for social and environmental enterprises. Such a 
process can be self directed by the enterprise leaders, to determine in 
the early stages of their development whether they have the critical 
elements in place for successful growth."
Leadership
Partnerships 
Proof and clarity of innovative concept..
Business planning and marketing
Triple bottom line planning
Short and long term benefits management
Community engagement
Risk management

Recognition and Reward Programmes that support Entrepreneurship for 
Sustainable Development (IISD: Paas & Creech, April 2008) 

Thank you,
-Patricia

Patricia S. De Angelis, Ph.D.
Botanist - Division of Scientific Authority
Chair - Plant Conservation Alliance - Medicinal Plant Working Group
US Fish & Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 110
Arlington, VA  22203
703-358-1708 x1753
FAX: 703-358-2276

Promoting sustainable use and conservation of our native medicinal plants.
<www.nps.gov/plants/medicinal>

----- Forwarded by Patricia De Angelis/ARL/R9/FWS/DOI on 07/14/2009 08:54 
AM -----

"SEED Initiative" <newsletter at seedinit.org> 
07/14/2009 04:00 AM
Please respond to
newsletter at seedinit.org

To
"Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov" <Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov>
cc

Subject
SEED Initiative - Newsletter Issue 1 - Summer 2009

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SEED Awards 2009 
SEED announces the 2009 Winners     Read more...

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Issue 1 / Summer 2009 
This edition: 
We are delighted to present you with our first SEED newsletter.
Over the last few years SEED has grown its programme significantly and we 
are keen now to engage actively with our audience on our activities and 
progress. To this end, we intend to publish the newsletter quarterly. It 
will feature the Latest Highlights, and provide updates on the SEED 
Winners and on our Research and Learning, Events and Publications .
We sincerely hope that you will find the newsletter of interest. To help 
us to understand what works for our readers, we would be grateful for any 
feedback. Please send it to newsletter at seedinit.org.

News at SEED 
SEED?s development 
Since it was founded in 2002, SEED has continuously evolved its programmes 
of awards and of research and learning. At the beginning, there were just 
5 SEED Award Winners every 2 years but the SEED Board decided in 2008 to 
make the SEED Awards a yearly event. This year, 20 Winners have received 
SEED Awards. 

Entrepreneurs toolkit 
Beyond the annual SEED Award, the SEED Initiative works to learn from the 
experiences of the individual start-ups to derive tools and guidance that 
can be helpful for all entrepreneurs who are aiming to deliver social and 
environmental benefits. The latest tool, a major online resource developed 
by SEED in partnership with the International Institute for Sustainable 
Development (IISD) and the Commission on Environmental Cooperation of 
North America (CEC) was launched at the UN Commission on Sustainable 
Development (CSD) (see Events and Publications). Set up as a wiki, at 
www.entrepreneurstoolkit.org , this tool is designed so that social and 
environmental entrepreneurs around the world can share their experience 
with setting up and running their businesses.The wiki is ready to be used 
and we invite entrepreneurs to add their own knowledge. Read more.... 
Website development 
SEED has now developed a new website; http://www.seedinit.org/. We would 
greatly appreciate your feedback (admin at seedinit.org ) 

SEED Winners 
2009 Winners
During the SEED reception at the annual meeting of the CSD, we announced 
20 SEED Winners for 2009, from a record pool of 1140 applicants. The 
winning partnerships are again truly innovative start-ups in the 
developing world. SEED once again offers its congratulations to these 
Winners and looks forward to working together to bring about sustainable 
development through entrepreneurship. For the press release please click 
here.
Over the next 3 months, each of these 20 winners will receive a package 
worth $5000 to assist with business planning and developing a growth 
strategy. Then, in late August, the International Jury will select 10 Gold 
Winners from the 20 Winners. The Gold Winners will receive about $35,000 
worth of tailored support, networking and profiling, over a period of 
about 9 months. By the end of that time, they should be well on the road 
to getting established. For more information about the SEED Awards, 
including how to apply, click here. 
Past Winners
2008 SEED Winner in Thailand, Andaman Discoveries, selected as finalist in 
the BBC World Challenge 09. Read more....

Events and Publications 

UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)
SEED was delighted to participate in the annual UN Commission on 
Sustainable Development (CSD) event in New York in May, where we ran 
events in the Partnerships Fair and the Learning Centre. One of the 
highlights for us was the SEED reception, where the 2009 SEED winners were 
announced. Taking advantage of the concentration of national delegations 
engaged in the CSD, the reception was intended to direct the collective 
attention of the conservation and development community to the 
contributions local entrepreneurs are making to attaining international 
sustainable development objectives. This was brought alive by having 
representatives of each of the 2008 winning partnerships at the reception; 
they used the opportunity to describe policy actions that from their 
perspective would help budding social and environmental entrepreneurs to 
establish and scale-up.
We were pleased to have as the speakers Gerda Verburg, the Chair of the 
CSD and the Netherlands Minister of Agriculture; Olav Kjørven, Assistant 
Administrator of UNDP; German State Secretary, Matthias Machnig; Julia 
Marton-Lefèvre, Director General of IUCN; and Achim Steiner, Executive 
Director of UNEP. 
Read more?

Annual Report
SEED has released its first Annual Report chronicling the Initiative?s 
main activities and achievements for the period May 2006 ? December 2008. 
The Report provided the opportunity for SEED to not only profile its 
recent successes, but also to review progress leading up to the expanded 
programme in 2008, as well as briefly to preview 2009 and beyond. To 
download the Annual Report click here. 

Research and Learning 
A central and defining feature of SEED's programme is its commitment to 
research and learning from the experience of our winners. The 
International Institute for Sustainable Development, which carries out the 
research on behalf of SEED, has produced several major reports that distil 
out key findings from SEED?s 2006-8 Research Programme. The reports are:
Critical Success Factors and Performance Measures for Start-up Social and 
Environmental Enterprises (IISD: Boyer, Creech & Paas, June 2008) 
Scale-up and replication for Social and Environmental Enterprises (IISD: 
Creech, June 2008) 
Typologies for Partnerships for Sustainable Development and for Social and 
Environmental Enterprises: Exploring SEED winners through two lenses 
(IISD: Creech & Paas, June 2008) 
Recognition and Reward Programmes that support Entrepreneurship for 
Sustainable Development (IISD: Paas & Creech, April 2008)
These are disseminated to the wide community of social and environmental 
entrepreneurs and to policy- and decision-makers. From these reports, a 
number of support tools have been developed. Read more...

SEED Insights
The SEED Insights summarise the lessons and knowledge gained to make them 
readily accessible for practitioners. The Insights cover 3 themes:
1.      Starting and growing a venture
2.      Monitoring and assessing progress
3.      Information and recommendations for policy- and decision-makers
Read more?

Home | About | News | Awards | Research & Learning | Entrepreneur Support
Contact | Terms | Sitemap
Copyright The SEED Initiative. All rights reserved.

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