Month: April 2024

Originally published on GoDaddy Newsroom

TEMPE, Ariz., April 4, 2024 /3BL/ — Entrepreneurship is booming, and online microbusinesses – those with 10 or fewer employees, a domain and an active website – create jobs and lower unemployment rates across the U.S., according to new research from GoDaddy and UCLA Anderson Forecast.

This means:

At the county level, every microbusiness entrepreneur is correlated with seven additional jobs by hiring directly, indirectly or creating more demand and spending more in their communities. 
 Adding 1,000 new microbusiness entrepreneurs in a county is associated with a drop of 0.11 percentage points in the unemployment rate. This means that studying Miami-Dade County in Florida, with almost 430,000 microbusinesses and 2.1 million people over the age of 18, adding just 1,000 entrepreneurs would reduce the region’s unemployment rate by almost 7% (from 1.6% to 1.49%).

“We’ve learned that online businesses with 10 or fewer employees are creating more jobs than before – up to seven jobs for every one entrepreneur, compared to only two just a few years ago,” said Alexandra Rosen, senior director of Venture Forward. “Our findings show how even the smallest of businesses can significantly drive down unemployment rates in communities across the country.”

Explore the data in full here and learn more in the blog post here. For more information on the state of microbusinesses across the country, visit www.godaddy.com/ventureforward.

About GoDaddy Venture Forward 
GoDaddy’s Venture Forward research initiative analyses more than 20 million online businesses with a digital presence (measured by a unique domain and an active website). Most of these businesses employ fewer than ten people, categorizing each as a microbusiness. While these microbusinesses may be small, their impact on economies is outsized even though they are often too informal or too new to show up in traditional government statistics. To find out more about GoDaddy’s Venture Forward research, visit www.godaddy.com/ventureforward

About GoDaddy 
GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start, grow, and scale their businesses. People come to GoDaddy to name their idea, build a professional website, attract customers, sell their products and services, and accept payments online and in person. GoDaddy’s easy-to-use tools help microbusiness owners manage everything in one place, and its expert guides are available to provide assistance 24/7. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com.

About UCLA Anderson Forecast 
UCLA Anderson Forecast is one of the most widely watched and often-cited economic outlooks for California and the nation and was unique in predicting both the seriousness of the early-1990s downturn in California and the strength of the state’s rebound since 1993. The Forecast was credited as the first major U.S. economic forecasting group to call the recession of 2001 and, in March 2020, it was the first to declare that the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had already begun. www.uclaforecast.com

About UCLA Anderson School of Management 
UCLA Anderson School of Management is among the leading business schools in the world, with faculty members globally renowned for their teaching excellence and research in advancing management thinking. Located in Los Angeles, a gateway to the growing economies of Latin America and Asia and a city that personifies innovation in a diverse range of endeavors, UCLA Anderson’s MBA, Fully Employed MBA, Executive MBA, UCLA-NUS Executive MBA, Master of Financial Engineering, Master of Science in Business Analytics, doctoral and executive education programs embody the school’s Think in the Next ethos. Annually, some 1,800 students are trained to be global leaders seeking the business models and community solutions of tomorrow. www.anderson.ucla.edu

Source: GoDaddy Inc.

AUSTIN, Texas, April 4, 2024 /3BL/ – Whole Foods Market’s three philanthropic projects have united under Whole Foods Market Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to nourishing people and the planet by helping to advance healthy food access, nutrition and economic opportunities.

Whole Foods Market Foundation is committed to partnerships that address barriers to equity, enrich communities, and foster deep, lasting change. Through the work of Whole Planet, Whole Kids and Whole Cities, the Foundation has invested over $167 million in local and global communities since 2005.

“Whole Planet, Whole Kids and Whole Cities have always strived to create a more equitable future for all,” said Carol Medeiros, Vice President of Quality Standards for Whole Foods Market and Executive Director of Whole Foods Market Foundation. “For us, this means everyone deserves improved access to resources that meet their basic needs, nourishing foods, thriving local food systems, and opportunities to improve their economic well-being. By working together as Whole Foods Market Foundation, the three projects can expand their reach and impact.”

Whole Planet, established in 2005, supports organizations that empower people living in poverty to meet their basic needs and become more resilient through income-generating opportunities. It has disbursed over $113 million through partners in 80 countries around the world where Whole Foods Market sources products.

Whole Kids, founded in 2011, supports schools and inspires families to improve children’s health and wellness through their nutrition by providing grants for school gardens, salad bars in schools and educational beehives. Its programs have served more than 10 million children and over 15,000 schools and non-profits in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

Whole Cities was established in 2014 to improve individual and community health through collaborative partnerships, education and broader access to nutritious food in the U.S. and Canada. The project has partnered with more than 250 locally led organizations in over 130 cities to build thriving food systems and improve community health.

For more information on the Foundation, visit wholefoodmarketfoundation.org.

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About Whole Foods Market Foundation

Whole Foods Market Foundation works to nourish people and the planet by helping to advance healthy food access, nutrition and economic opportunities in local and global communities. The registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, based in Austin, Texas, encompasses the projects of Whole Cities, Whole Kids and Whole Planet. For more information on the Foundation’s work, visit wholefoodsmarketfoundation.org. For ongoing news and updates, follow Whole Foods Market Foundation on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) or LinkedIn.

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Media Contact:
Chanta Williams, Director of Communications and Development
Chanta.Williams@wholefoods.com

NEW YORK and LONDON, April 4, 2024 /3BL/ – The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), the global authority on advancing healthy buildings, organizations and communities, and The Instant Group, the largest global marketplace for flexible workspace, announced today a strategic partnership to spur health and well-being practices in coworking and flexible workspaces. The partnership will encompass a range of joint efforts aimed at elevating health, including opportunities to advance innovative solutions to better support people-first spaces for all users of coworking and flexible workspaces.

“We are excited to be joining forces with The Instant Group,” said Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO of IWBI. “This is an organization with an established track record of inspiring ingenuity, especially in the ways it supports the coworking and flexible workspaces on its digital marketplace, which is the largest in the world. As more and more organizations embrace the outsized role workspaces have on health, this presents a tremendous opportunity to elevate the well-being of the thousands of people who use these flexible spaces every day.”

Healthy workspaces, once considered a nice-to-have, have become a must-have in real estate, especially in coworking and flexible workspaces. A growing body of research shows that evidence-based health interventions help support workplace satisfaction, comfort and productivity, while also helping organizations better attract and retain talent. In addition, the extensive research behind the business case for healthy buildings shows that these strategies help drive several economic benefits, including higher rents and longer lease terms.

“Companies that optimize their spaces for health and well-being are transforming their workforce into an even greater asset and developing happier, more productive employees,” said Sam Pickering, Executive Director, Sustainability at The Instant Group. “IWBI has unmatched expertise and experience, and we find them a valuable partner in providing best-in-class health guidance to people, companies, and providers. This collaboration is also a logical follow-up to our Sustainability Index, which launched in 2023 to ensure quality data on building performance and helping operators and occupiers track and report on their performance.”

Next month at the WELL Conference from May 7-9 in Long Beach, CA, IWBI and Instant will also shine a light on several coworking organizations that are leading by example in workplace health and well-being. For more information, please contact carly.yashinsky@wellcertified.com.

About the International WELL Building Institute

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) is a public benefit corporation and the global authority for transforming health and well-being in buildings, organizations and communities. In pursuit of its public-health mission, IWBI mobilizes its community through the development and administration of the WELL Building Standard (WELL), WELL for residential, WELL Community, its WELL ratings and management of the WELL AP credential. IWBI also translates research into practice, develops educational resources and advocates for policies that promote health and well-being for everyone, everywhere. More information on WELL can be found here.

International WELL Building Institute, IWBI, the WELL Building Standard, WELL v2, WELL Certified, WELL AP, WELL EP, WELL Score, The WELL Conference, We Are WELL, the WELL Community Standard, WELL Health-Safety Rated, WELL Performance Rated, WELL Equity Rated, WELL Equity, WELL Residence, Works with WELL, WELL and others, and their related logos are trademarks or certification marks of International WELL Building Institute pbc in the United States and other countries.

Media Contact: media@wellcertified.com

About The Instant Group:

The Instant Group has been rethinking workspace since 1999 with over 600 experts working globally across more than 175 countries. Instant’s digital platforms constitute the world’s largest digital marketplace for flexible workspace listing meeting rooms, virtual offices, flexible office space and coworking memberships. Its global team advises on commercial real estate solutions from serviced offices to fully customized managed offices, and consulting services for portfolio and net zero strategies. Instant’s approach enables agility, hybrid working solutions and improved operational resilience for more than 250,000 businesses every year. Clients include Prudential, Booking.com, Shell, Jaguar Land Rover, and GSK. Instant has global offices including London, Paris, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Mexico City, and Sydney. www.theinstantgroup.com

Media Contact: instantgroup@fticonsulting.com / rachel@winefsky.com

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It’s officially Earth Month, an opportunity to celebrate the planet we all share and remind ourselves of the role we all play in taking care of our world. Now more than ever, there is an urgency to understand the effects of climate change, engage in dialogue with those driving change and take steps to reduce the impact we have on our environment.

As a business, Clorox has long understood that sustainability is not simply a tagline — it’s an intentional and integrated part of our IGNITE strategy. We’ve taken measurable actions to tackle our operational emissions and waste footprints while mobilizing our teammates, supply chain partners and consumers to do the same. While there’s still a lot to do, we believe we’re on the right track, as reflected by our No. 1 ranking on Barron’s 100 Most Sustainable Companies list for a second consecutive year and our inclusion among Newsweek’s Greenest Companies in America.

Here are some of the actions we’ve taken:

Climate 

We’ve established science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets for our operations and value chain emissions globally. To date, we’ve met our 2030 goal for scopes 1 and 2 and our 100% renewable electricity goal in the U.S. and Canada. We also anticipate validation of our 2050 net-zero target by the Science Based Targets initiative in the coming weeks.

We’re proud of the progress made so far, but we’re not slowing down. Amid rapidly evolving regulations in this space, we’re wasting no time advancing our reporting practices and building a scope 3 supplier engagement program to promote decarbonization practices in our supply chain. This will improve transparency, which helps us ensure we’re on track to achieve our net-zero ambition.

Waste

We also continue to make steady progress minimizing our waste footprint by reducing our overall volume of materials, increasing the sustainability of our materials and minimizing the impact left behind after our consumers use our products. Two of our plants in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recently joined the more than 30 Clorox facilities around the world in achieving zero-waste-to-landfill status as we continue the momentum toward our goal of achieving ZWtL in 100% of our plants by 2025 and in all facilities globally by 2030. Meanwhile, in Latin America, our plant in Lima, Peru, is piloting new packaging methods to eliminate unnecessary plastic and cardboard used in product shipping, which advances our efforts to achieve 50% combined reduction in virgin plastic and fiber packaging by 2030.

These wins — and the learnings gathered along the way — are critical to our continued success as we explore opportunities to scale sustainable innovation across our operations.

Mobilizing Our Teammates

In honor of Earth Month, we’re kicking off a special employee giving campaign to build on our Healthy Parks Project. Launched in 2021, this initiative involves working with local organizations to provide better access to green spaces within communities where our teammates live and work. For every employee donation made this month to one of our three Healthy Parks Project partners — Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation, Durham Parks Foundation and Park Pride Atlanta — or another environmental cause of their choice, The Clorox Company Foundation will match it 200% up to $10,000. Through employee volunteering and financial contributions, we’re continuing to spur positive impact in our communities by ensuring that our parks thrive for generations to come.

As we evaluate the next steps in our sustainability journey, we embrace our responsibility to not only drive innovative impact but also to truly get it right. Here’s to another bountiful Earth Month!