The New Leaf On-line ‘Marketplace’
We will show in succeeding chapters, the significance of New Leaf’s partners and how they are interconnected, through mutual interest, by the New Leaf World on-line ‘Marketplace’. These partners are:
- New Leaf’s socially conscious consumer members.
- Rural indigenous populations.
- New Leaf’s indigenous projects (i.e. Maya Global 2012).
- Corporate Sponsor partners.
- Academia co-development partners.
New Leaf World ‘Marketplace’ is an e-commerce company that will seize the attention of socially conscious consumers by giving them exactly what they want. This increasingly significant, retail demographic wants to buy products with true and verifiable social and environmental benefits—not just products hyped as “green” with no reliable authentication. The New Leaf World ‘Marketplace’ will showcase indigenous products from locally owned small businesses (i.e. Maya Global 2012) that meet the complex needs and requirements of fair trade and planetary sustainability. New Leaf selects, invests in and prepares each company for participation in the global economy.
The New Leaf World ‘Marketplace’ takes the metaphor of the “Global Village” to a new practical reality by integrating two temporarily distinct market structures: the ancient model where local people mingle with small traders to both buy goods and exchange information and the modern e-commerce site where goods are viewed and purchased by people using machines in their homes with no human interaction required. New Leaf will offer a seamless collaboration between conscious consumers, social entrepreneurs, and truly “Green” producers that will achieve a conglomerate society sharing a new public identity and manifest solidarity of cultural purpose that will go well beyond more narrowly defined Internet businesses such as Amazon, Facebook, or eBay.
New Leaf and its indigenous projects’ supporting members and other visitors are part of the very large, and growing, number of socially conscious consumers:
- 66%-79% of Americans agree it’s important to buy products with social and environmental benefits. (BBMG Conscious Consumer Report; & Cone Cause Evolution Study)
- 51%-61% of Americans are willing to pay more for such products. (BBMG Conscious Consumer Report; & Global Edelman Good Purpose Study)
- 90% of all people consider themselves conscious consumers. (Earth Advertising Report)
- 233,720,372 people over 18 live in the United States. (2010 U.S. Census)
