Search for the hashtag #socent and you’ll find wide-ranging interest in social entrepreneurship on Twitter. Here’s a roundup of a few thought-provoking tweets from the last week:
This week the Seattle City Council voted to create a citywide “opt-out” ordinance for phonebook publishers, as reported here by local anchor Luke Duecy (@LukeDuecy). The new environmentally-friendly policy will save Seattle money—it costs the city $350,000 a year to recycle residents’ unwanted phonebooks. Publishers will also be fined if they deliver phonebooks to consumers who have already opted out. You can read more about the move here.
Independent research group American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (@ACEEEdc) released their yearly report on states’ energy efficiency. The report, which examines utility policies, transportation efficiency, financial incentives, and climate change policies, ranks all fifty states in order of efficiency each year. California holds the number one spot for the fourth year running in 2010, followed by Massachusetts, Oregon, and New York. Check out the whole list (and the exhaustive reasoning behind it) at the ACEEE site, here.
Hey, it’s just like we hoped! New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (@mikebloomberg) announced a car sharing program for city employees in conjunction with private car sharing service Zipcar (@zipcar) this week. Under the new plan, Department of Transportation employees will be able to reserve a special fleet of 25 Zipcars, most of which are hybrids, during work hours. On evenings and weekends, those Zipcars will be available for public use. This measure cuts down on city vehicle ownership, reducing congestion on the streets and pollution in the air.
According to a piece in the New York Times this week, the Internet giant, Google (@google) is taking a 37.5% ownership stake in a brand-new “backbone” for offshore wind energy off the East Coast. The project, which creates an offshore connection to the existing national electrical grid, would eventually allow for huge wind farms, invisible from the shore, to help power cities along the eastern seaboard. It could go into service by early 2016, according to one report. Read more here.
Did you come across any other notable #socent tweets this week? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @dowserDOTorg.
