New law would place the tenets of socially responsible business at the heart of Illinois companies that want to make a difference.

Last week the Illinois Senate passed legislation that would make our fine state the eighth in the nation to enact legislation that makes the Benefit Corporation (B Corp) a legally recognized entity. If the bill also passes in the House—which is scheduled to vote in May—this could be great news for Illinois companies that want to build business while still maintaining a commitment to being socially responsible.

Results show an upward trend toward sustainability. How does your company fare?

Climate Counts is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that strives to fight climate change by helping consumers use their choices and voices to put pressure on the world’s largest companies to take corporate climate action. Results from their 5th Annual Company Scorecard Report seem to show that global corporations are increasingly acknowledging climate change as reality and are adopting measures to reduce their emissions and environmental impact.

The former City of Chicago Commissioner of Environment paid us an impromptu visit for last week’s lunch.

Tim whipped up a peach gazpacho sourced from our friend (and Mightybytes client) Terry Walters’ Clean Start cookbook alongside a three quinoa salad with tomato vinaigrette and seared vegetables. The learning topic du jour was—naturally, given our guest—sustainability and the state of environmentalism in Chicago.

Mightybytes recently sponsored the Andersonville Farmer’s Market during Green Week on July 13th with an eco-friendly photo booth that didn't use any paper and didn't break the bank either. Here's how we did it.

The market team gave us room for a fancy banner, but not being a seller of produce or creator of fine quality baked goods, we struggled with the best way to represent ourselves amongst the asparagus and cheese curds. Sure, we’re a green company and all, but what, really, does a digital media firm have to offer market customers?

We thought about giving away free web audits, but that’s lame.  Like super lame. Then we considered creating a game show called ‘Let Me Google That For You’, but weren’t sure we could sustain that across five hours of open market time (and some people might not find it very funny). We tossed around a few other ideas as well, but none really seemed to stick until Bryan came up with the brilliant idea to build a photo booth. “And of course it would have to be a green photo booth,” he said, to which we naturally all agreed. So it was decided.

Peter Byck’s film Carbon Nation offers tangible take-aways for affecting change and implementing sustainable solutions on many levels.

On Sunday, April 17th I watched the screening at Facets Multimedia in Lincoln Park during the weekend of its Chicago theatrical premiere. Tim invited me and even though I didn’t have time to read about the film, I’m a vulture when it comes to learning about sustainability (look for my next post on favorite sustainability books). After a few minutes of environmental stats via awesome motion graphics, I realized that this wouldn’t be the doom and gloom evening I had anticipated.