Thursday, June 19, 2008

Iwith.org summer photos contest, shoot the digital gap

Use your photos to portray the well-known ‘Digital Gap’ and participate in the competition Iwith.org Summer 2008.

Despite its difficulties to arrive, the summer will inevitably arrive and, with it, also the holiday season for most of us. Iwith.org, an international NGO headquartered in Barcelona and Switzerland, is encouraging you to take photos with a purpose and to send them to us by email to participate in the Second edition of the Iwith.org photo competition on the Digital Gap.

The Digital Gap is the distance between people (communities, states, countries...) who use Information Communication Technologies (ICT) as part of their daily life and those who haven’t got any access to these or, even if they do, don’t know how to use them.

The idea of this competition is to try to capture this gap in a photograph to share it with Iwith.org and the internet users that visit their site. Iwith.org believes that “it doesn’t need to be a negative photo or a photo that shows a prejudice against that difference, but simply a photo that portrays the existence of this gap. At Iwith.org we believe that technology and the Internet are tools for development and, therefore, whoever is left outside the ICT is missing out on the opportunity of achieving by himself/herself increased wellbeing”.

Competition rules

1.- The Iwith.org summer photographic competition aims to make people aware of the ‘Digital Gap’ through images captured during the holiday period. The photographers of the selected photos will be considered as members of Iwith.org for a year, until September 2009.

2. Anybody can participate in this competition, without any restriction of age nor residence, presenting a maximum of 3 photos.

3. Subject: we will select photos that help raising awareness about the ‘Digital Gap’.

4. The style and format are free and you can use any image-editing program. Iwith.org reserves the right to adapt images from a resolution of 650 x 450 pixels to 72 dpi for its publication in a virtual gallery.

5. The photographs should be sent through a safe form which can be found on Iwith.org’s website. The pictures presented without any details of the photographer could potentially be discarded by the jury. Iwith.org won’t be held responsible for the accuracy of the data provided by the photographers.

6. The selected photographs will be published on Iwith.org’s virtual gallery under a Creative Commons license, which allows them to be reproduced, as long as the photographer is mentioned, for any non-lucrative activity undertaken by Iwith.org.

7. The title of the photo, the name of the photographer, any comments and the name of the association, NGO or educational centre of provenance will be mentioned in the virtual gallery.

8. The deadline for sending your photos is the 1st September 2008. The photographs will be published from 8th September 2008.

*If you wish to view the photographs that were selected last year, please click here: http://www.iwith.org/album/FotosVerano07

*To send your photos, please click here: http://www.iwith.org/forms/fotos2008

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Newsletter: Pangaea: global adventure for environmental awareness

Click here for the original Newsletter E-mail

Mike Horn embarks on "one of the most remarkable voyages of exploration ever
South African adventurer Mike Horn has embarked on a global adventure whose mission is to share knowledge and to initiate environmental solutions for future generations. The global expedition, named Pangaea after the supercontinent that existed 250 million years ago, will cover 100,000 kilometers, crossing all the continents and oceans and reaching the North and South Poles. To read or comment on this article, click here.


Video contest winners to be announced at Green Drinks Paris, June 30th
Alternative Channel will be present at Green Drinks Paris at Zango on June 30th to announce the winners of the 2008 Alternative Channel Sustainable Development Video Contest. The cash winnings, totaling 8,000€, will be divided equally between the French and Spanish winners. At our Forum on Social Networking and Responsible Media on April 30th of this year, Alternative Channel assembled a panel of contest judges to select from among hundreds of submissions.

Mike Horn embarks on “one of the most remarkable voyages of exploration ever undertaken”

South African adventurer Mike Horn has embarked on a global adventure whose mission is to share knowledge and to initiate environmental solutions for future generations. The global expedition, named Pangaea after the supercontinent that existed 250 million years ago, will cover 100,000 kilometers, crossing all the continents and oceans and reaching the North and South Poles. Horn will tackle this epic adventure aboard his vessel ‘Pangaea’, a 35-metre environmentally-friendly ocean-going yacht (below).


The expedition's mission is to unite the continents again, through the Young Explorers Programme, with a powerful environmental message. Said Horn of his mission: “I will explain how I want to share my experience with future generations, providing the stimulation for them to find solutions and ultimately a sustainable balance between nature and mankind. This is the most exciting venture I have undertaken. It is a treasure hunt to uncover the solutions I know are there. By working together, with ingenuity, drive and resourcefulness, the energies of our individual efforts can complement each other and create a collective momentum to inspire change. Together we can tap the world’s most powerful energy source – the younger generation.”

Mike Horn is arguably the world’s greatest modern-day explorer in all terrains, conditions and climates. He has undertaken exceptional feats of endurance, determination and courage, extending the boundaries of human achievement. Among his exploits have been Latitude Zero, an 18-month circumnavigation of the Earth around the Equator, the Arktos Expedition, a solo circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle lasting 27 months and the North Pole Winter Expedition, the first ever night expedition to the North Pole, starting from the northern most point of Russia and ending two months later at the North Pole.

After 15 years of exploration, Mike Horn, in partnership with his sponsors, has committed to share the wealth of knowledge and experience he has acquired from past expeditions on a new Pan Global Adventure for Environmental Awareness. The aim of the Pangaea Expedition is to cultivate respect for the environment and the protection of its resources for the sake of future generations.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

June 15th: European Wind Day

On June 15th 2008, the second ever European Wind Day will be celebrated across the continent. The day will see special events of various kinds, including open houses at wind farms, demonstrations of wind-powered cars, painting competitions and more.

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), organizer of the event, believes that "European citizens should have the chance to make their voices heard in today’s energy game. On the wake of last year’s success, the European Wind Day 2008 offers you the possibility to discover how wind turbines work, how much energy wind can deliver in Europe, and many more fascinating facts about this clean and infinite source of energy."

The day will have something for all ages, including such events as technology demonstrations, conferences, public debates, contests and races. Last year, more than 40,000 people participated in the first ever European Wind Day. This year, event organizers are planning for an even greater success.

American Renewable Energy Day, or "ARE DAY," is a similar, U.S.-based event that culminates around an industry conference, this year to be held in Aspen, Colorado on August 23rd. Attending the event will be Ted Turner, Peter Buffett and a host of movers and shakers from Washington and the energy sector. ARE DAY does not focus exclusively on wind energy, but wind technologies will take center stage at this 5th annual event.

For those of you unable to participate directly in European Wind Day but eager to learn more about wind energy, click here to visit an online resource center created by the EWEA.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

World Environment Day

World Environment Day, commemorated each year on 5 June, is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations attracts attention and ignites political action towards environmental issues.

The World Environment Day slogan for 2008 is Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy. Recognizing that climate change is becoming the defining issue of our era, UNEP is asking countries, companies and communities to focus on greenhouse gas emissions and how to reduce them. The World Environment Day will highlight resources and initiatives that promote low carbon economies and life-styles, such as improved energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, forest conservation and eco-friendly consumption.

World Environment Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Another resolution, adopted by the General Assembly the same day, led to the creation of UNEP.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Newsletter: Exclusive Interview with Seventh Generation’s Gregor Barnum

Click here for the original Newsletter E-mail

Exclusive Interview with "Director of Corporate Consciousness"
Alternative Channel's Alex Salzman in an exclusive interview with Gregor Barnum, senior executive of Vermont-based Seventh Generation, one of the sustainability movement’s most innovative companies. To read or comment on the interview, click here.

World Environment Day
From all of us at Alternative Channel, we wish you a contemplative and productive World Environment Day. Every June 5th, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) uses this occasion to attract attention to the plight of our environment. Today, UNEP urges governments, companies and communities to treat climate change as the "defining issue of our era." To read or comment on the interview, click here.

Job Seekers Recognizing Importance of Finding Green Workplace
Work Cabin, a recently launched Canadian website devoted to 'green' jobs,' reveals a job market increasingly concerned with the environmental responsibility of prospective employers . To read or comment on the interview, click here.




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Association Communication et Information pour le Développement Durable (ACIDD) is an association specializing in communication and education on sustainable development.

Monday, June 02, 2008

What Gets Seventh Generation’s “Director of Corporate Consciousness” Out of Bed in the Morning?

Alternative Channel's Leaders in Sustainability Series

Leaders In Sustainability is an exclusive series of interviews with those at the fore of the sustainability movement, both in the corporate and non-profit sectors.
By Alex Salzman
May 19, 2008

Don’t let the altruistic job title fool you – Gregor Barnum and his cohorts at Seventh Generation are relentlessly pragmatic about building a sustainable company. I recently caught up with Barnum, who is part ethics scholar and part corporate visionary, to explore his company, “Earth to Earth” thinking and his nouveau take on the corporate social responsibility movement.

AS – What is your current role at Seventh Generation? How would you describe “corporate consciousness?”

GB - Ultimately Seventh Generation has been living by this Iroquois quote of long ago: “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” This is probably the most telling statement as we move towards a new level of sustainability. But how do you begin to frame sustainability? If you look at the idea of where you take your stuff from the Earth, how you manufacture it and how it actually ends up in the hands of the consumer, our question is this: How is this all going to impact people not even born yet?

And so in the midst of being a part of the world of corporate responsibility, I’m beginning to get a stronger and stronger sense that most companies are still framing corporate responsibility as an object; something outside of its core strategy and operations, outside of its every day world. In a strange sense, our mission with corporate responsibility is to make my job completely obsolete. Every person in this company should, in their every deliberation, be thinking about what their impacts are at every stage in the company’s evolution and at every point in the product’s journey from Earth to factory to consumer. To us, the question of corporate responsibility is this: How are we all moving people to think about their impact on the present Earth? How are we seeking a different level of well being for generations as yet unborn?

AS – Tell us about the company culture? Does this mission permeate every corner, every department of Seventh Generation?

We’ve really taken on the challenge of building the company culture by understanding the need to get everyone’s thinking beyond the cradle to cradle mentality, shifting to Earth to Earth. Cradle to cradle means: “Where can we get in our present framework, within the span of one generation.” We brought someone onboard the company a few years ago whose role it is to get the company focused on regenerative business. She’s been in the systems-analysis world for about 30 years, and we’ve been working with her to make corporate responsibility intrical to the evolution and the strategy of the entire company. We’ve actually begun to make our business regenerative. This means that, instead of being in the business of making things that are less bad, we’re focused on making every system touched by our business better. This keeps us away from approaching corporate responsibility as something apart from the core of the company. We’re thinking much more pragmatically, and approaching sustainability on a whole other level. So the culture is really geared up.

AS - The consumer sees the products on the shelves but doesn’t sit in the boardroom or see the factory floor. Are there any company innovations that the consumer might not see?

GB – Our real innovation is in our thinking. We think about things as total systems. Our business is a system. The consumer’s home is a system. Like all companies, we’re just trying to sell more of our products through more channels. But we’re also taking on this question that, if we’re all about making people’s homes and environments less toxic, what else do we need to do accomplish that, beyond our line of cleaning products? Most people don’t realize that the air inside their homes is 2.5 to 5 times more toxic than the outside air. We’re in the early stages of building a system of products and services that will help people build more healthy homes. When our customers walk into their living space, we want their health to be nurtured and enhanced. So this system approach can be pretty interesting.

We’re also innovative in our approach to sourcing. As a company always thinking about regenerative business, we see lots of opportunities to help and educate people and companies along our value chain to understand their real impacts. How can we get them thinking about reducing their packaging in a whole new way? Reducing their CO2 output? Using other means of electricity?



AS – How does Seventh Generation educate and engage your consumers using social media and online communities?

GB – We do a few things. We distribute a number of short films that inform people on who we are and how we’re doing what we’re doing. This has been helpful.
We’ve also launched a few programs in Vermont that get small communities of people together to share ideas on how they can reduce their carbon footprints. It’s based on a book called The Low Carbon Diet. I think the internet is the best way to reach out to and encourage people to move out of this present paradigm.

AS – Rethos, as you know, stands for rethinking one’s ethos. What’s your rethos?

GB – I believe it was Albert Einstein who once said that people are harnessing about ten percent of their potential. If we begin to realize and trust that, basically, the constructs that we’re currently working within are just one phase of an evolution, and that we human beings are truly untapped from the standpoint of what we can become, then the slate is left pretty much wide open to designing a world that we are today incapable of understanding. One of the most fascinating questions to me is: “What is the next evolution of our relationship with nature?”

AS – Spoken like a true philosopher. Thanks for doing this.

GB – Thank you, Alex.


Seventh Generations Home Care Product Line, 2008