Some make responsibility their business. Providing healthier, safer products and energy, these entrepreneurs are seizing the opportunity to develop new markets.
With a policy to end oil  dependency, the Israeli government has put its energy behind Shai Agassi. He plans to make Israel a promised land of clean-running mobility based on electric cars and innovative services.

Agassi plans to make money by making his company, Better Place, live up to its name. Once a step away from the CEO seat at SAP, the Israeli-born entrepreneur has several start-up successes behind him. This time he may have the power to get the world off oil. Partnering with Renault for the vehicles, and backed by the Israeli government, he is bringing affordable electric cars to Israel. Agassi is convinced that his network of services and battery-swapping stations is a viable and convenient alternative to oil.     

As a model, Josie Maran worried about the dark side of beauty: the toxins women put on their lips and nails every day. To make the world a little rosier she created a line of toxin-free cosmetics in sustainable packaging.

Beauty comes at a price, and maybe a health risk. Not regulated like food, the shimmers and shines in make up are often achieved with lead acetate, toluene, formaldehyde and other chemicals, which can be absorbed through the skin. Out of concern, Maran launched a safe cosmetics line, Josie Maran Cosmetics, that is “kind to the natural and social environment,” too. Offering more than a “green” gloss, she tries to use ingredients from sustainable sources that also provide women with work in their own communities.

There is no more basic human responsibility than putting food on the table. Georg Schweisfurth took on the tables of Europe. Cutting out the hippie sub-culture, he brought organics to the middle class.

The market for organic food was once as narrow as the product selection. Packaged in political or esoteric ideology, the limited choices were unappealing to mainstream shoppers. A one-time organic farmer, Georg Schweisfurth wanted to let more Germans acquire a taste for organics. In 1998 in Munich he and three partners founded Basic, an ideology-free organic supermarket. Schweisfurth, believing bigger would indeed be better, helped expand the business to 28 stores in Europe before retreating from management.  

Published by PROJECT M in June 2009