Sponsored Content Provided by Better Business Bureau
At Better Business Bureau Serving the Pacific Southwest (BBB), the definition of a better business has evolved. BBB has been recognizing businesses for doing the right thing and operating ethically for over a century, and now we’re elevating those using their platform to create positive change in their communities with BBB4Good.
BBB4Good builds upon BBB Accreditation, empowering people to choose trustworthy companies positively impacting our community through the power of business. This is especially important in the current marketplace as a changing consumer base seeks to do business with a company aligned with their values. As a business owner, changes can not only keep existing customers, but actually attract new ones. In fact, 71% of consumers would purchase from a purpose-driven company over the alternative when the cost and quality are equal. In the same survey by Porter Novelli’s, 86% of respondents said they would trust a company more if it was led by purpose.
4Ocean, a BBB Accredited and BBB4Good Verified Business, saw an opportunity to work backwards by starting with an environmental challenge and using a business model to help solve it.
“The motivation for 4Ocean was to see a problem and find a solution. Seeing the amount of plastic that’s in the ocean was a big trigger for us to realize how we can find a way to create a sustainable business model that could fund our cleanups,” shares Alexander Schulze, co-founder of 4Ocean.
There are countless ways a business can address sustainable development goals, including environmental, health, ending poverty, and inequity. Purpose-driven companies who offer employee volunteer hours, commit to environmental sustainability in their products, donate proceeds, tackle social issues or hire marginalized communities, may qualify to become a BBB4Good Verified Business.
By becoming aBBB4Good Verified Business, values and promotion go hand-in-hand. BBB’s trusted vetting process for accreditation, and now for BBB4Good, is achievable for any size business. The simple application provides the opportunity for small and Main St. businesses to highlight their impact. Verified businesses can display the BBB4Good Trustmark as a symbol of their commitment to operate under four standards as a vetted, purpose-driven business:
Higher Purpose
Purpose-driven businesses create accountability and transparency throughout the organization, showing the intent, strategy, and reasoning to support a higher social or environmental purpose.
Community Engagement
Purpose-driven businesses invest a portion of their time, talent, and treasures into community impact initiatives that align with their businesses’ purpose.
Authentic Marketing
Purpose-driven businesses focus on ethically and authentically communicating what they are doing to impact social and environmental issues, and genuinely encourage their customers to work together to solve these issues.
Impact Substantiation
Purpose-driven businesses invest their organization’s time, talent, and treasures to further their company’s purpose to support positive, community facing activities, and hold themselves accountable to carry out their commitments.
BBB recognizes the efforts of businesses using their platform to make the community a better place. Eligibility vetting for BBB4Good verification is free of charge. Qualifying businesses will be provided a license agreement to use the BBB4Good Trustmark. BBB’s 501(c)3 Foundation for Education and Entrepreneur Leadership accepts voluntary donations to support ethical education and help small and aspiring businesses gain confidence, grow the skills needed to be successful and make the community a better place.
By validating your social or environmental activities through BBB, you provide customers with the confidence you are committed to a higher purpose. Consumers turn to BBB for trustworthy businesses and now they can expand their search to findpurpose-driven businesses.
Visit us at BBB.org or 4747 Viewridge Ave, #200, San Diego.
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AUGUST 10, 2026
The Secret to a Home That Feels Just Right
Behind every beautiful space is a thoughtful process, and ASID San Diego is helping homeowners understand the value of professional design.
A perfectly designed home rarely happens by accident. Those kitchens that feel effortless and rooms that seem to tell a story the second you walk in? They’re usually the work of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.
It’s knowing which ideas will actually work, which materials will hold up over time, and how to turn a collection of choices into a space that feels intentional. That’s where a professional interior designer comes in.
For the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) California San Diego Chapter, the goal is to help people see interior design as more than just the finished look. Behind every well-designed space is a process built on technical expertise. Designers are educated in everything from professional software and construction details to building codes, space planning, materials, and functionality.
Courtesy of ASID
“People don’t always realize how much goes on behind the scenes,” Kirsten Recce , current president of the ASID California San Diego Chapter, says. “Our designers are not just doing furniture placement and color selection and picking out new fluffy pillows. That’s not what they’re trained for.”
ASID members bring formal education, continued learning, and industry knowledge to their projects, helping create spaces that are not only beautiful, but designed to work. A paint color that changes completely depending on the lighting. A material that looks beautiful in a showroom but doesn’t make sense for everyday life. A layout that photographs well but doesn’t function for the people living there. These are the details where professional guidance can make all the difference.
Still, one of the biggest misconceptions about hiring an interior designer is that it’s reserved for massive renovations, luxury homes, or people who already know exactly what they want. The process can feel intimidating. Where do you begin? Is a designer worth the investment? What if you only need help with one room?
ASID’s answer: start with one hour.
ASID’s Spruce Up events break down one of the biggest barriers between homeowners and professional design: knowing where to begin. Held twice a year, the community program gives homeowners the chance to work directly with an ASID designer through a one-hour, $125 consultation in their own home. Whether you’re looking for advice on furniture placement, window treatments, kitchen and bath updates, remodeling ideas, vacation rentals, color selections or something else entirely, the upcoming September 2026 event offers an approachable way to get expert guidance before committing to a full project. Signups are open through Sept. 7, with consultations taking place Sept. 21 through Oct. 31. Proceeds benefit ASID San Diego’s educational and community programs. Register here!
Courtesy of ASID
“It’s a great opportunity for people who are in that exploratory phase,” Recce says. “Maybe they’re not sure they want to hire an interior designer yet, or they think it sounds daunting or expensive. This gives them a chance to discover what working with a designer is actually like.”
Design is personal. A good designer isn’t just creating a beautiful room; they’re helping create a space that fits the way someone lives.
“We’re a resource to all of San Diego County,” Recce says. “It doesn’t cost anything to pick up the phone and call and ask. We’ll answer.”
Mai Vue was just 34 weeks pregnant when she delivered her baby. Her pregnancy had been complicated, and she’d had a recent second trimester pregnancy loss, which led to her receiving specialized care from Sean Daneshmand, MD, a Scripps Clinic perinatologist who oversees high-risk pregnancies. Dr. Daneshmand and his team took care of Mai during her pregnancy, through the birth of her healthy baby girl and beyond. Mai was part of a program Scripps launched to provide support to new moms in the weeks and months after delivery. The postpartum program, known as Scripps Health’s Fourth Trimester Continuum of Care, provides care for women with high-risk pregnancies to optimize their health after childbirth and reduce the risk of complications in future pregnancies. Click here to learn more.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
It’s estimated that one in five people in the U.S. will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. When you factor in living in a sun-soaked city like San Diego and the outdoorsy lifestyle that comes with it, that figure can jump to as high as one in three, which makes early detection and intervention all the more important. Dermatologists at Bighorn Mohs and Dermatology Center are using innovative imaging methods and advanced surgical techniques to diagnose and treat skin cancer. For certain cancers in sensitive spots, like the face, dermatologists perform Mohs surgery, removing skin tissue layer by layer until reaching healthy, cancer-free tissue. They also use a process called immunohistochemistry to view tissue samples taken during Mohs surgery in far greater detail than previous methods. Read more about how Scripps is advancing skin cancer care here.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
When endurance athlete Isaac Sanchez learned he had cancer, he felt blindsided. He was healthy, surfed often and was training for an Ironman triathlon. But he had to put that on hold to undergo treatment. His physicians at Scripps Cancer Center developed a plan to treat the cancer in his tonsil and lymph nodes that included six-and-a-half weeks of near-daily radiation and weekly chemotherapy. He also worked with a Scripps Cancer Center dietitian to enhance his nutrition to promote strength and healing. Today, Isaac’s back to doing what he loves. Read more of his story here.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
While glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agents have been used to treat Type 2 diabetes for more than 20 years, their recent emergence as weight-loss wonder drugs marked a new frontier in medicine. But their effectiveness has left some patients wondering what to do once they’ve reached their goal. Stopping the medication could mean regaining some, if not all, of the weight. A Scripps Clinic internal medicine physician recently conducted a small study of whether GLP-1 patients who had reached their goal weight could maintain that weight by taking their regularly prescribed injection every other week instead of weekly. Spoiler alert: 30 of 34 patients did. Read more about the study here and what that may mean as pharmaceutical companies roll out oral GLP-1s.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
Chemotherapy and radiation have long been considered gold standards of cancer treatment, but they can cause severe side effects. A promising new approach called theranostics—a combination of “therapeutics” and “diagnostics”—could offer patients with certain types of metastatic cancers new hope. It’s a two-step process that uses a drug that binds to specific receptors on cancer cells. Advanced imaging detects this radioisotope, allowing doctors to then use a second radioisotope that binds to the cancer cells and destroys them. Click here to learn more about how specialists at Scripps Cancer Center are using theranostics.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
