I was flying back from Florida late last night on Jet Blue, and I caught Howard Schultz on Piers Morgan. Turns out Starbucks announced it is building a new plant in Georgia, insourcing 140 jobs from Latin America. As the interview went on, I learned of Howard’s commitment to public-private partnerships to drive job growth in the US. In my opinion, this “Create Jobs for USA” program is inspired leadership.

It seems you see this more and more… companies trying to be better citizens, and business leaders who take that responsibility seriously.

Obviously on a different scale, but, here at World Energy we’ve created a program where we do community service as part of our summer and holiday parties (that’s some of our team in the photo above, in fact). We do some good and then have some fun. Not only do we help groups that need it, but also add some depth to what it means to work at World Energy. For some of our employees this is their first job out of college, and hopefully this experience is something they can take forward in their careers.

I welcome thoughts in the comments section below on what else you think companies can do to be better citizens and any positive experiences you have had personally on this front. Most of all, I encourage you to pursue a path to do some good from whatever business you’re sitting in right now.