fires underway all over this vast country
Here is an audio report I’ve put together looking at the fires that are happening all over Brazil at the moment.
How to realign behaviour to tackle big challenges in a world that is on the edge of a nervous breakdown?
In an age of fluid information flows and ridiculous interconnectivity, I’m on the look out for neat, smart things that can have a big impact, fast, taking the sustainability message out into the wild and engaging with the seemingly unreachable. Read more
Collaborative consumption has a huge role to play in shifting attitudes to owning more ‘stuff’ and showing up those who talk about sustainable consumption and shifting more units in the same breath.
Corporate efforts so far have mainly dealt with work around reducing waste, reducing resource use in production, raising labour standards, promoting certification standards and adding socioeconomic benefits to products and services. All good but, at its heart sustainable consumption must mean buy/use less stuff. Read more
Leaders say the funniest things – these days it’s only worth listening if it’s funny.
Before the internet went social and we still lived in an age of push, companies that wanted to engage with big issues through their CR programme would pump out mega treatises on their approach to dealing with their social, economic and environmental issues. Read more
There is no contest in a footrace between a well-oiled, just-in-time-schooled car maker, looking to shift as many units as possible in a new market, and a decision-by-committee megacity administration trying to put in place an urban infrastructure fit for the 21st century. Handily, the auto maker also gets to socialise the losses (more gridlocked roads, fuel dependency, air pollution, deterioration of public space etc) and move on. Read more
Have you seen the app which takes your photo and makes it look like you’re really fat? Yes. And the game where you land all the planes on the runway? Yes, that too. Hey, how about this thing with the funny red monster that repeats everything you say? Please leave me. Please just leave me here to die. (C Brooker)
The above clip from Futurama and the article by Charlie Brooker in today’s Guardian, add a dimension to the e-waste/toxic mineral/assembly line debate which I think points to a smarter future for the consumer electronics industry. If you add together conflict minerals, e-waste, toxic chemicals used in production, and the now well-documented unrest among Chinese assembly line workers, the satisfaction footprint of our gadgets is miniscule. Read more
Why at a corporate level is the C-suite so hot on sustainability while at a consumer level green/ethical marketing is seen as false / unbelievable? Read more
This is a short research note prepared for a conference in Mozambique. It explores post-crisis opportunity in really going for a water tight approach to sustainability across the board in tourism development. Read more
Samsung Electronics has overtaken Hewlett Packard as the world’s biggest consumer electronics company by volume with $117.9bn sales in 2009. How does this tie into its environmental performance? Read more
