You MUST have PowerPoint slides and the slides CANNOT just contain text copied from the eText. Please see the slides that I have presented to the class for ideas…you should have something along those lines, a few important notes and some pictures. You most definitely can include video clips in your presentations (and, in fact, I encourage you to look for RELEVANT videos), but these video clips should not take up more than 15 minutes of your presentation (again, they must be RELEVANT). You can even include multiple, shorter, video clips, as long as all the video clips together are under the maximum of 15 minutes. Here is how I would like you to structure your PowerPoint presentations: 1. Background information  Give a summary of the chapters in your section (you can do this chapter by chapter or overall for the entire section) 2. Focus in on the main points of the section and how these relate to sustainability and the topics you’ve seen in the class during the first part of the semester . 3. Bring in 2 outside cases that illustrate the points in the section (in other words, business that are implementing sustainable solutions); you can use either cases that were only BRIEFLY mentioned in your section (you cannot choose anything that was discussed in detail in the eText) or things that were not mentioned at all (so you need to do independent research). Relate these cases to sustainability. MY TOPIC IS; What does the “Small-Mart” economy refer to and why do some think it’s important?  SMALL MART CHAPTER FROM E-TEXT: The “Small-Mart” Economy For many, the idea of a green economy run by big, global corporations is anathema. To be truly sustainable—in the true sense of environmental, social, and economic well-being— requires a return to localization, to smaller, more personal sys- tems of commerce that connect each of us to the origins of the things we buy, as well as to the people who make and sell them. Michael Schuman refers to this as the Small-Mart Revolution, which is the title of his 2006 book on the topic. “Small-Mart” refers to locally owned businesses that are, in aggregate, more reliable generators of good jobs, economic growth, tax dollars, community wealth, charitable contribu- tions, social stability, and political participation, according to Shuman. In his book, Shuman makes clear that this “revolution” is about “far more than fighting chain stores.” In fact, he says, it is notable as much for what it stands for as for what it is against. Shuman is for profit-making businesses, even big ones (under certain circumstances). He is for jobs and, presumably, some reasonable level of consumption. In fact, the only thing for which he is demonstrably against is “the vast web of laws and public policies that directly disadvantage small and local businesses” in favor of large, global ones. Oh, and the global financiers that facilitate this: It’s the capital markets, stupid. Shuman isn’t the first to pitch the notion that local is beautiful. A.

1. You MUST have PowerPoint slides and the slides CANNOT just
contain text copied from the eText. Please see the slides that I
have presented to the class for ideas…you should have
something along those lines, a few important notes and some
pictures. You most definitely can include video clips in your
presentations (and, in fact, I encourage you to look for
RELEVANT videos), but these video clips should not take up
more than 15 minutes of your presentation (again, they must be
RELEVANT). You can even include multiple, shorter, video
clips, as long as all the video clips together are under the
maximum of 15 minutes. Here is how I would like you to
structure your PowerPoint presentations:
your section (you can do this chapter by chapter or overall for
the entire section)
2. Focus in on the main points of the section and how these
relate to sustainability and the topics you’ve seen in the class
during the first part of the semester .
3. Bring in 2 outside cases that illustrate the points in the
section (in other words, business that are implementing
sustainable solutions); you can use either cases that were only
BRIEFLY mentioned in your section (you cannot choose
anything that was discussed in detail in the eText) or things that
were not mentioned at all (so you need to do independent
research). Relate these cases to sustainability.
MY TOPIC IS;
What does the “Small-Mart” economy refer to and why do some
think it’s important?
SMALL MART CHAPTER FROM E-TEXT:
The “Small-Mart” Economy For many, the idea of a green
economy run by big, global corporations is anathema. To be
truly sustainable—in the true sense of environmental, social,
and economic well-being— requires a return to localization, to
smaller, more personal sys- tems of commerce that connect each
of us to the origins of the things we buy, as well as to the

2. people who make and sell them. Michael Schuman refers to this
as the Small-Mart Revolution, which is the title of his 2006
book on the topic. “Small-Mart” refers to locally owned
businesses that are, in aggregate, more reliable generators of
good jobs, economic growth, tax dollars, community wealth,
charitable contribu- tions, social stability, and political
participation, according to Shuman. In his book, Shuman makes
clear that this “revolution” is about “far more than fighting
chain stores.” In fact, he says, it is notable as much for what it
stands for as for what it is against. Shuman is for profit-making
businesses, even big ones (under certain circumstances). He is
for jobs and, presumably,
some reasonable level of consumption. In fact, the only thing
for which he is demonstrably against is “the vast web of laws
and public policies that directly disadvantage small and local
businesses” in favor of large, global ones. Oh, and the global
financiers that facilitate this: It’s the capital markets, stupid.
Shuman isn’t the first to pitch the notion that local is beautiful.
Around the industrialized world, communities have been
exploring alternatives to global mass marketers for, well, as
long as there have been global mass marketers. In the United
States, groups such as the Business Alliance for Local Living
Economies, Global Exchange, the Institute for Local Self-
Reliance, and Co-op America have been actively promoting the
notion of “local living economies” for years. There’s the
international “slow food” movement, founded in Italy in 1989
by activist Carlo Petrini as a resistance movement to combat
fast food. It aims to combat the disappearance of local food
traditions and “people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat,
where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices
affect the rest of the world,” according to its Web site. The
movement claims 80,000 members from Taiwan to
Turkmenistan. Slow food has given rise to the notion of
“locavores,” coined in 2005 by a group of self-described
“concerned culinary adventurers” in San Francisco who
proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown

3. or produced within a 100-mile radius. The idea of the “100-mile
diet” has whet- ted the appetite of a growing corps of eco-
connoisseurs, the twenty- first-century equivalent of the back-
to-the-earth crowd of the 1960s and 1970s, albeit with a bit of
flair not just for the simple life but also for the good life. In his
book, Shuman paints a compelling portrait of how small, local
business networks can work and succeed. In the “Small-Mart
Nation,” many of your neighbors run their own businesses, con-
sumers spend more of their money on locally produced, high-
quality goods and services, some of their savings sit in a local
bank or credit union, and communities don’t bend over
backwards—financially or otherwise—to lure global companies
to set up shop nearby. It’s not that they don’t want automobile
factories, big-box stores, and other
manifestations of globalization in the ‘hood. It’s just that these
enti- ties will have to compete on a level playing field when it
comes to zoning, taxes, schools, policing, and other government
services. If they succeed on that basis, they’re welcome.
Sometimes, “Small-Marts” can be not so small. Shuman tells the
story of the Hershey Chocolate Company. The $4.6 billion
candy company is publicly traded, which normally makes local
ownership impossible, but a local charity, the Hershey Trust,
keeps ownership local by controlling 77 percent of all voting
shares. The trust “is effec- tively the heart that pumps monetary
blood” throughout the region surrounding Hershey,
Pennsylvannia, writes Shuman. So, can “Small-Mart” replace
Wal-Mart? Probably not for a while, if ever, concedes Shuman.
“I believe that over time Small-Mart will reduce the size and the
influence of Wal-Mart with a bunch of local alternatives,” he
told me. “It will never get rid of it, and we may never want to
get rid of it. At the end of the day there are some economies of
scale that some global companies have that are superior to local
companies.” This, of course, is the key to Wal-Mart’s success—
its laser-perfect attention to sourcing, pricing, and distribution,
allowing it to lever- age its size—and clout—as no company has
ever done to keep prices dirt cheap. However, those economies

4. of scale, deployed effectively, could create positive impacts. If
each customer who visited Wal-Mart in a week bought one long-
lasting compact fluorescent light bulb, the company estimates,
that would reduce electric bills by $3 billion, con- serve 50
billion tons of coal, and keep 1 billion incandescent light bulbs
out of landfills over the life of the bulb. Of course, thousands of
small, local merchants could have a similar impact, should they
decide to coordinate, cooperate, or simply get into the same
marketing groove. And “Small-Mart” even offers a model.
Shuman described how True Value and Ace, two U.S.-based
hardware chains, are comprised of individual, locally owned
hardware stores banded together into marketing and buying
cooperatives. They allow local hardware stores to buy
collectively and engage in the kind of global bargaining that
only giants such as Wal-Mart can do.
Local isn’t always better, at least from an environmental
perspec- tive. Consider food miles, a metric that has gained
currency in recent years among sustainability advocates. The
term is shorthand for the distance food travels from farm to
fork, with greater distances sug- gesting that the food has a
larger environmental footprint. This makes intuitive sense.
Transporting great distances requires energy and fuel and
release of concomitant emissions. But food miles turns out to be
short-sighted. Transport, it seems, can represent a relatively
small portion of environmental impacts. So, in New Zealand,
where farm- ers tend to apply fewer fertilizers (which require
large amounts of energy to produce and cause significant
greenhouse gas emissions) and animals are able to graze year
round on grass, reducing the need for indoor animal feeding,
livestock and dairy products use a fraction of the resources as
the same products produced in other countries. A 2006 study
found that dairy products shipped from New Zealand to the
United Kingdom required half the energy and pro- duced half
the greenhouse gas emissions as dairy products produced in the
United Kingdom, even after considering transportation.
Similarly, the New York Times reported in 2008 that wine

5. shipped to New York City from the Loire Valley in France had a
lower carbon footprint than comparable product shipped from
the Napa Valley in California. The reason: The Napa wine is
trucked to New York—a more energy-intensive mode of
transport—whereas the French wine travels mostly by ship, then
is trucked the final distance. Such findings are significant, but
so too are the questions being asked: What is the optimal role
for “local” in a globalized world? How do companies balance
the growing desire for locally based com- merce—whether born
of patriotism, planetary concern, personal security, or other
things—against the economies of scale that are pos- sible
through globalized systems of commerce? How much should
your company—to borrow the famous environmental credo—
think globally and act locally? What’s the “local” story your
company can tell? Is that the story your customers, employees,
and other stakeholders need and want to hear?