Friday round-up 25/09/09

Interesting news, views, upcoming events and online discoveries this week. Not necessarily all sustainability-related, but all inspiring and well worth checking out.

• Indian civil servant organises planting of nearly a billion trees in one day and provides employment for some of India’s poorest. Initiatives like this put a huge smile on my face and increase my optimism for the future. It shows anyone, anywhere, has the ability to make a real contribution to the health of the environment.

• The Big Schwop - trade your "not quite right for me" clothes for things you love from someone else's "not quite right for me" collection tomorrow at Auckland's Langham Hotel.

• Ian Sanders’ “Juggle tapes” – video interviews with successful people who follow their passions and work on multiple projects at once. Find out how they juggle all the balls in their lives.

• GreenGirlsGlobal organic cotton tee collection on Etsy. Want to buy me one?

• Blog Action Day - October 15 2009 – This year’s topic is climate change. I plan to take part, and hope it will generate an assault of interesting and inspiring thoughts on climate change from lots of different perspectives.

• It’s now less than a month until 350’s international day of action for climate change. Check out 350’s revamped website, where you can check out actions people are organising in your local area, or register your own.

• Learn to make great coffee from the experts online. Video tutorials from the folks at The Falls Restaurant.

• The Sneeky Rumble - two young guys trying to raise money for Curekids. I think it's awesome that these guys are pursuing such a noble cause with such enthusiasm. Can you donate or help them out somehow?

• Emma Watson (aka Hermione from the Harry Potter movies) announced she is launching an ethical fashion line. Great to see someone who is idolised by the next generation using her influence so positively!

10 fun ways to live more sustainably

Who says living sustainably has to be taken with a straight face and involve cutting things out of your life? It's about thinking outside the square and having fun with the changes you make. Here are ten fun ways to use less of the world's resources without feeling like you are shortchanging yourself. What else can you add?

1. Go scwhopping, not shopping. The girls of The Big Schwop organise mass schwops in New Zealand. You bring good condition clothes you don't wear, and you can take home something else you love in exchange. To make this good thing even better, you can have a glass of vino while you schwop. There's one on at Auckland's Langham Hotel this weekend, and registrations are still open. Or, you could organise your own on a smaller scale with a group of friends.
2. Don't give birthday cards. What do people do with them afterwards? I don't know, because I'm never sure what to do with mine once the novelty of displaying them on my desk wears off. They are a waste of trees, and nowhere near as nice as a big hug and a face to face birthday message. Can't see the birthday boy/girl face to face? Call them, email them, Facebook message them, or send them an e-card. Electronic messages are easier to keep too, because they don't take up physical space. The no-birthday card policy is a great excuse if you forgot someone's birthday too: "Forget? No I didn't forget! I didn't send a card because I was waiting to give you this great big hug instead."
3. Switch to loose leaf tea. Besides being all the rage right now, drinking loose leaf tea uses less resources than tea made from tea bags. No bag means less resources used in production. Once you're done with the leaves you can put them straight in the compost.
4. Wear a g-string instead of briefs. To add to the numerous other advantages of g-strings over briefs,  they are also better for the environment because they use up less fabric... hehehe
5. Eat at the restaurant rather than take away. Takeaways are usually excessively packaged, with each thing in its own container, then the whole lot in a bag, with some single use chopsticks or plastic cutlery to top it off. As well as saving resources, eating in is so much more fun than taking it home to eat in front of the TV. Enjoy the chance to really catch up with whoever you are with, or if you are alone, spend some time with your thoughts.
6. Buy a beautiful refillable pen. The amount you invest in a beautiful refillable pen is probably not much more (or maybe even less) than the amount you would spend on "throwaway" Bics over the rest of your years. Think about how much nicer it would be to use a beautiful ink pen every time you write than some temperamental ballpoint. The challenge is to make sure you don't lose it!   
7. Get an Ecotanka. These beautifully crafted stainless steel bottles will last forever, so you can ditch plastic bottles for good. They keep water cool and don't make it taste funny.
8. Go vigilante on your housemates' wasteful habits. Got a flatmate who washes in hot water, uses the dryer when the sun's out and leaves lights on when he/she leaves the house? Tried suggesting that they shouldn't do these things but they just don't care? It's time for vigilante action. Once they've put the washing on, sneak in and turn it down to cold. Dial down the time they've set the dryer to go for. Sneak into their room and turn the lights off. Experience the buzz of being a clandestine eco-warrior!
9. Don't throw away cardboard boxes. Learn to make awesome things from them instead!
10. Spend a Saturday morning trawling local garage sales. Trademe may be a more direct way to find exactly what you are after, but there's just something about looking through other people's stuff. I find it fascinating. And you might find something amazing and out of the ordinary, at a bargain price. Only do this if you actually need stuff though - buying crap that you don't need is still not a good thing even if it's second hand crap.

Do you have other fun ways of living more sustainably? I'd love to hear them - add a comment below.

Update: Cadbury announces Dairy Milk to go Fairtrade

Back in July I wrote about Cadbury's introduction of palm oil into its chocolate. This month Cadbury announced that it was removing palm oil from its chocolate, and that one of its most popular products, Dairy Milk chocolate, is getting Fairtrade certification. What an amazing response to consumer pressure!

There are lots of groups out there trying to get people to employ consumer pressure against other products and corporate practices - why was this particular campaign so successful? I think it was a combination of a number of factors:

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  Cadbury's high profile and huge popularity in New Zealand. This meant that there was a large consumer base who felt personally connected to the issue. The sheer numbers who got behind the campaign meant Cadbury couldn't ignore it.
  
  
  

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  The issue had broad appeal. Palm oil production destroys the habitat of orang utans. Who wants to be responsible for wiping out a species so closely related to us?
  
  
  

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  But, I think what really made this campaign take off was that the media got behind it. It was on the primetime news, it was in the papers, it was on the radio. Everyone knew about it. And then Whittakers got on board and promoted the issue too to try and steal some of Cadbury's market share.
  
  
  

It is heartening to know that, at least where a perfect storm of circumstances exists, consumer pressure can make a difference. How else can we use our collective power to create positive change?

What could you live without?

Image by BJN

Every generation owns more personal possessions than the last. Like magpies we keep adding to our hordes, and the list of things we 'can't live without' is ever-extending. Our society tends towards exaggeration, and this shows in the way we speak about our belongings. I've had people say to me, "I couldn't survive without a car." Or, "I really need new shoes." Would these people actually drop dead if they could no longer use their cars? Of course not. Do these people really need new shoes? Will they have to go barefoot tomorrow if they don't buy new shoes today? Probably not. But the way we talk about our possessions tends to remove us from the conscious choice we made when we acquired them. Every acquisition is a choice, with consequences that the buyer becomes responsible for, even if they aren't actually aware of what the consequences are. Ignorance of the consequences doesn't mean they aren't happening.

It's pretty much impossible to know all of the consequences of buying a particular item. There are too many unknowns. If I pick up a pair of jeans, they might say "Made in China" on them, but they don't say "Made in a sweatshop by children" (I'm not suggesting all jeans that are made in China are made in a sweatshop by children; this is just an example). They don't tell me what miniscule proportion of the retail price was paid to the manufacturer. And they don't tell me what environmental policies (if any) the manufacturer follows. So, we are often shooting blindly when it comes to the consequences of our purchasing decisions.

If you are going to buy something, there are ways to decrease the uncertainty of the consequences:

• Buy from stores like TradeAid, Ecostore or the SAFE store. These retailers have ethical policies in place that the products they sell must meet, and they are open and transparent about the life cycle of the products they sell.

• Read packaging and signs. Many products have to be labelled with their country of origin nowadays, and products that have environmental or ethical kudos are likely to promote it. Look for the the Fairtrade logo, or statements like "Not tested on animals".

• Research big purchases in advance. You can usually find information by searching online to help you make the best choice about what you are planning to buy. Plus there are sites like Greenlist that collate the contact details of responsible retailers and service providers by area and product/service type.

There's another much more effective way to reduce the consequences of your purchasing: buy less. I'm not advocating wearing your current shoes and clothes until they fall apart before buying new ones. What I'm suggesting is that before you buy pair of shoes number 27, you could try thinking to yourself, "Do I really need these? What else could I spend this money on?" I don't know about you, but the thought of spending my money on something like a hot air balloon ride or putting it towards a holiday is even more exciting than buying yet another pair of shoes. I get a bit overwhelmed when I have too much stuff. I live in a small apartment, and struggle to fit in what I already have without adding to it. The clutter makes me feel like the place is always a mess. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way - there are TV shows dedicated to decluttering people's lives.

There are some things I have decided I can live without, in order to decrease my impact on the planet's resources and avoid being overwhelmed by clutter. Here are a few:

1. Buying every book I want to read. I try to borrow off friends or the library unless I know it's a book I will want to read or refer to again and again - then I try to buy it second hand : )
2. Eating meat every day. I've cut down the amount of meat I eat a lot, and surprisingly I don' t miss eating it more often at all.
3. 'Pretty things' for my room. There's nowhere to put them anyway, but I've always had an aversion to knick-knacks. Probably stems from the fact that you have to dust them.
4. Newspapers. You can read the news from anywhere in the world online for free. That is much easier than reading a physical newspaper too. Why must they make the sheets of newsprint so big that it is practically impossible to read one while eating breakfast and drinking a cuppa? Plus, the media usually makes the news so negative I'd rather not read it at all!
5. CDs. I'm surprised there's still a market for these. I find it difficult to understand why someone would go and buy a physical item that has to sit somewhere, gathering dust, when you can buy almost any album online from iTunes, and stick it straight on your iPod (something I couldn't live without!)

What do you or could you live without? Please share with us by commenting below.