Many entrepreneurs relish the opportunities to give back that are created by their livelihoods. Increasing their impact on their communities while cultivating professional success is a strong motivator for so many people. For Austin Veith, founder of Denver-based development company First Light, giving back is a priority on both a local level and a global level.
Globally, Austin Veith and First Light are addressing climate change and the need to be environmentally conscientious. For their consumer-facing brands that offer physical products, they have implemented a policy requiring all packaging to be made of 100% recycled, plant-based, fully compostable materials.
First Light also implemented a companywide, carbon-negative operational plan. This means that every purchase made on their retail platforms removes more carbon from the ecosystem than it contributes. This is accomplished by calculating the carbon footprint for everything from production to packaging, to shipping, and even to the impact of back-office operations. First Light then purchases carbon credits to offset the carbon generated by those activities that are unavoidable, plus an additional amount above and beyond what they produce to make what Austin Veith calls, “a small contribution” to reversing the course of climate change.
While many companies would consider these efforts enough, Veith’s work with a local organization called Time To Breakthrough (timetobreakthrough.org) actually eclipses his environmental efforts. Breakthrough provides soft skill training and business education courses to current and formerly incarcerated individuals in Colorado.
“We have worked closely with Breakthrough, including visiting penitentiaries to teach business courses and in establishing post-release education programs,” Veith says. “We have also hired or worked with multiple graduates of the Breakthrough program who were previously incarcerated. We believe strongly that there is a place in our community for those who may have made mistakes, but have paid their debt to society in full. We feel that a living wage that can support a family is critical to individual success and the viability of our community overall. We also believe that everyone deserves an opportunity to have a career and not just a job.”
After completion of the program, Austin Veith and TimeToBreakthrough.org helps graduates gain employment through a partnership with a well-known fortune 500 company as part of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative. The ultimate goal of the program is to lower the rate of recidivism, by helping graduates establish a career that will put them in a position where they can afford the cost of living and not have to return to criminal behavior in order to provide for their families.
Austin Veith is extremely passionate about the work that Breakthrough is doing, citing our country’s reliance on incarceration and unwillingness to reintegrate reformed individuals into society: “Many people see The United States as having an incarceration problem. Not only do we incarcerate a higher percentage of our population than any other country in the world, but we also foster sentiments within our society that make it nearly impossible for people to become responsible and productive citizens again, even after they’ve paid their debt to society. This creates a never-ending cycle of imprisonment that wreaks havoc on the individual as well as their family, not to mention the tremendous economic cost to the community.”
Currently, there are more than 16,000 people incarcerated in Colorado. Of the 9,000 people released from Colorado prisons every year, around 54% return to prison within 3 years, with barriers to employment being a significant reason for their return. As incarceration rates increase, unemployment increases, and recidivism rates increase.
Austin Veith is painfully aware of the struggles experienced by those who typically break the law: “Yes, people break the law. Sometimes in egregious and violent ways. But they are still people. People that more than likely had a pretty rough childhood. People that are twice as likely to have come from a broken home. People that are 3 times as likely to have been physically or sexually abused as children. People who are 4 times as likely to have not graduated high school, 5 times as likely to have experienced extreme poverty, and 10 times more likely to be homeless.”
Through their profit-generating work, as well as their volunteer-based efforts, First Light is truly creating opportunities for everyone that has the pleasure of working with them.
