by Michelle Lentz
Fast Company has named Enterprise Community Partners the Social Enterprise of the Year. Based in Columbia, MD, Community Enterprise Partners is a largely unknown organization which has worked tirelessly for over 25 years to provide clean homes, in a responsible and sustainable fashion, for impoverished Americans.
Enterprise has provided:
–$9 billion in capital and financing for low- and middle-income housing
–$700 million in capital each year to affordable-housing efforts
–Thousands of “green” affordable-housing units across America
I used to live in Columbia, MD, and it was a rather serene, almost gated community. It was the first true planned community I’d lived in, and I believe one of the first in the US. It was created by James Rouse, who also created Fanueil Hall and The South Street Seaport. He was also the grandfather of actor Edward Norton. Rouse and his wife Patty were the co-founders of Enterprise Community Partners.
Now, Norton and the company his grandparents built have become major players in the green movement as well.
In their quest to find new and innovative ways to fund clean, affordable housing, they’ve invented a mechanism to measure and collect construction related data, real world information about which construction, design and appliance choices make the most impact on removing carbon emissions from the air. (The vast majority of carbon is emitted by buildings.) The information is detailed, granular and site specific, and exists nowhere else in the world.
They’ve turned that rich data into a carbon offset fund, which helps raise money for more green housing. They’re now poised to become a major player in the carbon market, and help save the planet in the process. The money they raise will go to fixing broken neighborhoods all across the country.
All in all it’s an impressive example of philanthropic business. Ellen McGirt has written an uplifting, in-depth article profiling the company over on the Fast Company site. We all need some good news lately. You’ll enjoy the read.
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