Cascade Alliance

Five Headline Friday (6/15/18)

Five Headline Friday is back, after a brief technology-induced hiatus.  This week we’re looking at:

How recycling more steel and aluminum could slash imports without a trade war

This author asserts that 2/3 of aluminum and 1/3 of steel imports in the US could be eliminated if we could build more scrap metal recycling capacity domestically.  The challenge is dealing with contaminated metal and the labor-intensive process of separating and sorting.  With federal support, investing in technologies to refine and sort scrap metal could pay off.

Amazon Doesn’t Crush Everyone It Targets

Guess which online retailer is giving Amazon a run for its money, growing and gaining in stock price? Etsy, that’s who.  This article describes Etsy’s rise, along with other retailers that have weathered the Amazon tsunami.

Research finds tipping point for large-scale social change

A new study claims to have figured out a good method for determining the amount of popular support needed to tip the balance to produce action on social change.

Strong Social Networks are Key to Turning Around Communities

Stanford Social Innovation Review promotes the importance of networked communities to provide fertile ground for social impact investments.