Innovative rural factories are defying America's manufacturing decline

In Oakland, a company created an online crowdfunding platform that allows users to earn interest by financing clean energy projects and gives people with good social intentions a direct line of action. Across the world, there is a growing movement toward people-powered clean energy.

After years of banning labor unions in Bangladesh, garment workers unionized to fight for higher wages and safer working conditions. For women, this isn't traditionally a space they were welcomed in, but now they’re holding their own meetings to ensure women’s safety is ensured on the job.

Solar power is an important renewable energy in Germany, but when the sun is out, it can overpower the grid. Likewise, when the sun is not out, the reception of solar power decreases. Germany has piloted battery installations that store solar energy for use when the sunlight is not plentiful and has successfully incentivized citizens to use them to lower costs.

Raton, a town once surrounded by eight coal mines, now has a main street of boarded-up buildings. There is reason for optimism as the town diversifies its local economy, betting on "a mix of small manufacturing businesses, health care and specialty services, and hospitality for travelers" to endure the sudden decline in mining revenue. Its calculated revitalization may hold lessons for other towns.

A local energy cooperative in Colorado, Delta Montrose Electric Association, is spurring economic development through renewable energy. The program has allowed Delta County to diversify energy sources, and has become a tool for economic revitalization.

In the past, apparel companies were not given financial rewards for acting sustainably, and therefore, on the whole, saw no reason to encourage customers to do so. But now, by investing in industry-level research and developments to clue consumers into their sustainable behaviors, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition is working to change this. The Coalition provides clothing store customers with the sustainability equivalent of a nutrition label, hoping to both encourage sustainable consumption from consumers, and incentivizing environmentally-friendly practices for producers.

A just-announced $6 million federal grant will help end poverty in Memphis, Tennessee.

The cotton industry is turning to a wide variety of innovations such as remote sensing, water regulation, no-till methods etc. in order to combat the varied and complex impacts climate change is having on it.

"Ghost gear" are nylon nets and other waste left behind in our oceans by fishing boats - they cause massive environmental damage, releasing toxins in the water, ensnaring wildlife, and clogging up beaches. Now one organisation, the Healthy Seas Initiative, is working with fishermen and a sportswear company called ECONYL to retrieve abandoned nets from out of the ocean and convert the materials into clothing, carpets, and more.

As major manufacturers keep "pulling the rug" from under urban areas, low skilled job loss increases. Nevertheless, small-scale businesses have instrumental in their ability to counteract job loss in improvised urban areas. Small businesses are using tactics such as creative tax cut regulation to cut corners to pay livable wages to low-income workers.