Category: Envisioning the sustainable future

In my last post (and earlier missives) I noted that behaviour is the key starting point to address sustainability issues. If you remember from the posts about community action I proposed an 8 step approach. 1) identify concerns and assets in the region 2) identify the behaviour associated with the concern 3) analyse the systems…

One of the keys to understanding and getting involved in sustainability is to understand the power of the consumer. Let’s look at the basics in this briefing. Back in the 80’s consumers would use their purchasing power to boycott products to make their voice heard. Nowadays, consumers are making an active choice, searching the web…

Let’s give it to you straight as we see it, and try and point you in a constructive direction. We also want you to work with us if you are as serious about it as we are. Today is about the public sector. Lets’s take a physical area, for the sake of this exercise we?ll…

I’ve been following the debate about WHY GLOBAL WARMING IS BRANDED SO BADLY. See Tom Peters blog marketing global warming. Gill Friend (click on title) even got involved. Why should an impending disaster have a BRAND? Does ” Millions of people are starving” have a brand? Or “5000 people control 80% of the world’s economy”?…

We devote this issue to the challenge of the end of cheap oil or “Peak Oil” as it is termed. We really wish our perception of the situation is wrong. But endless calculations, reading, research and meetings with experts all point us in one direction: THE PARTY IS OVER. Get the biggest car you can.…

“If it can’t be reused, rebuilt, refurbished, reconfigured, recycled, or composted, then it needs to be redesigned-or removed from production all together.” said Dan Knapp, founder and owner of Urban Ore, Berkeley’s premier reuse retailer. On March 22 Berkeley City Council made environmental history approving the resolution which officially adopts a 75% waste reduction goal…

There are many, many things that need doing and Beach Bum suggests one that can have a pretty large impact. The world throws away more than a million plastic bags a minute. These things don’t biodegrade and continue to choke landfill and get ingested by innocent animals and sea creatures who die painful deaths as…

Jane from out network posts this report on her first few months with 10,000 steps a day. Hope it inspires you too! Experiences from starting a 10,000 step a day routine. Yep, its true walking more does make me feel good. It has very low “barriers to entry” for getting into good exercise habits. I…

Just seen a preview of the documentary, now available on DVD with much extra material, called “The Corporation”. Cutting in its analysis as widespread in the representatives interviewed, the documentary traces the history of the corporation, illustrating the dire consequences of a corporation being given the same legal status as a living being. along the…