I am big fan of TED talks. Today’s post is a collection of three of my favorite talks all related to the topic of Sustainability. Enjoy and let me know what you think if you have minute. Either here on my blog or on Twitter.
Lisa Margonelli: The political chemistry of oil
Majora Carter: 3 stories of local eco-entrepreneurship
Ray Anderson on the business logic of sustainability
Welcome to 2011 everyone. A short post to kick of the new year in terms of posts seemed appropriate today.
This is a great video I wanted to share about the current global warning sentiment and terminology confusion. Way over the top but also so true. Enjoy!
Thanks to David Connor for pointing me to this great video!
I am a Sustainability geek. I think pretty much everyone that follows my tweets, reads this blog or ever met me in person will agree with me.
A large part of this passion about Sustainability is routing from the urgency I feel to convince as many people as possible that climate change is happening and that we need to tackle climate change together to create the future for our children we want them to have.
Today’s video post is a reminder that we all need to do our best to convince everyone that Climate Change is happening. And who would be better suited to deliver this message….Al Gore of course.
If you are based in the UK and you watched TV yesterday evening there is a chance you might have come across this video social media campaign already. Yeo Valley, a UK based farming and dairy business launched a new campaign promoting their organic products this Saturday.
This is a great example of how a new way social media can be target the younger generation and help raise the awareness of Sustainability topics. Younger generation? Yes the whole campaign is aimed to appeal to the 15-25 year olds it seems as it was launched during the advertising breaks of the xfactor TV casting show here in the UK. It was the first ad at each commercial break.
What a great idea! I really like the ad but what I even like more is the fact that this business is family-owned and not part of a multi-national. If it was a part of a multi-national you could expect this as part of a branding campaign but this is a old-style family business embracing social media.
These type of social media campaigns will be the future and I certainly hope we are going to see more campaigns like these.
Here is the official video:
Note: I am in no way affiliated with Yeo Valley just like the this new campaign! 
I am not whether anyone has seen this campaign video by “The 1010 Campaign“. It was launched yesterday as far as I can see.
If not take a look (warning – very disturbing – and this is no joke!)
My view on this campaign video:
I was stunned to see this kind of graphic video. For me this is way over the top. Yes it is different and yes it brings a clear point across. But I am not sure that is the correct point. We need constructive campaigns and not yet another shocker campaign video such as the Greenpeace KitKat video or now this one here. These kind of over the top campaigns actually harms and undermines our cause to raise awareness of the threat of climate change in my view instead of helping it.
What do you think about this campaign video? Please either comment the post or vote in the poll below:
UPDATE:
The video has been taken down. It seems that the negative response was to strong for them!
Update II: This is a link to a reuploaded video if you still care to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx4yr0FFhMQ
I am traveling most of this week and unfortunately do not have sufficient time to write more in-depth posts but I am sure you will enjoy this short video animation on what Sustainability is. I found this by chance while browsing for video post ideas on YouTube today.
This is what I call a nicely realized and straightforward video animation to explain Sustainability. Well done to the creators.
The video interview below I believe represents a very interesting best practice example of how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Cause Marketing can be successfully linked in order to improve products, increase sales, build reputation and do good for the cause that is being supported. In this case, the quality of dog food and the support of dog shelters across North America.
Here Chris Jarvis of 3blMedia interviews John J. Anton, Marketing Director at Mars Petcare about their integration of CSR and Cause Marketing.
Everything in the CSR / Sustainability world at the moment seems to evolve around BP and its action/inactions to fix the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. I am not doing any BP bashing here today. I am only using the current BP oil spill disaster in todays post as an example that CSR needs to evolve beyond its environmental aspects and the attention for detail by its practitioners.
This is my main argument in this post: Best practice such as the latest trend of integrated report, use of social media, etc. are steps in the right direction in my opinion but we need to increase the speed of the adoption of a more responsible business practice across the board within business in your local area and region.
The BP example has shown that big business will not act responsibly if it can get away with it. We therefore need to start at the local level to convince businesses to demand a more responsible business practice from all their businesses they are involved with. Customers and suppliers. Sustainability / CSR starts at the micro level and with clear guidance and support from a governmental level as I argued in my previous post.
This might sound very general and broad but it seems to me that we as Sustainability / CSR professionals are being caught up in the nitty gritty details of working with CSR / Sustainability far to easily and are somehow loosing the view of the big picture and the main purpose of this practice: To champion Sustainability / CSR and to help organizations in the transition to adopt a more responsible business practice.
This is the short video I recently did in partnership with 3blmedia on exactly this topic. Please let me know what you think about my argumentation and whether you agree or disagree.
It is Friday and I am really looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend with my family. The past few weeks/months have been pretty hectic, disruptive and different to say the least. The overall mood with people also does not seem to be the best at the moment. The global economy still seems to stall and mostly everyone you speak to is moaning about how hard the current times are.
I know that life can be hard sometimes but life is also too short. So why waste a single minute of it by moaning?
Todays post therefore features three videos which are meant to be motivational, inspiring and encouraging. These are three of my all time favorites. I hope they will mean as much to you as they do for me once you watched them!
Video 1: Where the Hell is Matt? – A gentle reminder what it means to be human, how great our world is and how important it is to have FUN!
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Video 2: The Robin Hood Tax campaign – A campaign to that forces us to think different. To make changes that are minimal in some areas but seem to be so hard to comprehend.
The Robin Hood Tax – A Good Idea (HD) from Robin Hood on Vimeo.
Video 3: Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 – Just amazing pictures of the power of nature
Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.
Have a good weekend everyone and remember to stay positive. Always, no matter what life throws at you!
A very interesting and funny video from Catherine Mohr as she walks us through all the geeky decisions she made when building a sustainable new house — looking at real energy numbers, not hype. I can really see myself being caught in this sustainable vs. energy conundrum when the time comes to build my own house!
Really worth 6 minutes of your time.