Better Than Charity | Bruce Taylor | TEDxUW

This talk challenges us to think beyond conventional charitable approaches to how we can solve the need for charity in the first place. Through case studies, he explores how we can prevent root problems that lead to energy consumption, food loss, and illness resulting from unsafe water. Bruce Taylor is the founder and President of Enviro-Stewards Inc., which is a social venture that has been selected by B lab as one of the Best Companies for the World and by the UN Global Compact Network Canada for their Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) award. Enviro-Stewards' projects for Tim Hortons, Andrew Peller, Southbrook Winery and the Campbell Company of Canada have each won Clean50 national sustainability awards.

In 2004, Enviro-Stewards founded the Safe Water Project to empower communities in South Sudan and Uganda to construct water purification systems using locally available materials. The locally owned and operated projects are taught business principles and sales techniques to help local residents understand that investing in safe water is typically 10 times less expensive than their current expenditures on water related illnesses.

Links:

Enviro-Stewards
B Corp "Best for the World"
UN Compact Canada SDG Award
Clean50 Tim Hortons Award
Clean50 Andrew Peller Award
Clean50 Southbrook Award
Clean50 Campbell Company of Canada Award
Safe Water Project

[marilynspink]

Been sharing Bruce's talk with whomever I can. It is such common sense. With respect to charities, we need to be aware of our biases and use design thinking to get the desired outcomes.

[eightballcool]

Excellent talk! This is full of interesting content, certainly new for me, and delivered really well indeed.