To-Go Ware offers conscious choice products and solutions in order to stimulate green and positive practices for our planet. Their mission is to encourage participation of everyday people in the process of changing and improving the world we live in.

To-Go Ware is all about reducing the amount of things people throw away when they are eating on-the-go: reusable utensils, food-carriers and mostly things that are not made of plastic. They carry a line of reusable bamboo utensils and stainless steel lunch boxes made in India.

To-Go Ware supports environmental projects related to human rights, sustainable economies and transparency throughout the world. They work with nonprofit organizations such as WEAVE (Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment). This NGO works with a group of refugee women who live on the Thai-Burma border. WEAVE’s main objective is to provide education and training for displaced women, as well as self-managing and self-sustaining for themselves. They make a line of cotton goods, and produce the To-Go Ware utensil set. The idea of this toolkit is to help reduce our ecological footprints and our wasteful habits. These organic utensils are made of bamboo. Purchasing them encourages not only the environment, but also the advancement and the empowerment of a women’s cooperative.

The To-Go Ware RePEat Utensil set is another type of utensil kit that was designed to support the fight against cancer. Their campaign Together we can “beet” brest cancer donates 10% of the purchased price of To-Go Ware’s beet-colored RePEaT utensil sets sold on To-Go Ware’s web site to Breast Cancer Fund. The utensil holders are made of recycled PET plastic and give a new life to plastic bottles.

These types of initiatives from To-Go Ware’s business are definitely fresh and meaningful. They combine people’s lives with environment and social projects.

You need something for a gift exchange at the office? Something to light up someone really special? And what about the kids? You’d like to be original, but you lack of ideas? Well, this just might be the right thing for you. Every year, Ethiquette.ca dresses a trendy and eco-friendly Christmas list.

Y Focus certified Fair Trade soccer balls, volleyballs and rugby balls are hand stitched in Pakistan by workers who are paid better than average wages, and given additional health and educational benefits for themselves and for their families. No children under 15 are making these balls. All balls are hand sewn with 5 ply twisted polyester thread and guaranteed against manufacturing defects in the stitching.

Using the profit from their local sales, Y FOCUS also raises funds for peace building youth projects in war-torn and poverty stricken countries.

Give a very special gift to someone particularly special. The Canada goose parkas will keep them warm in the coldest days of winter. These high quality down-filled jackets are made in Canada while paying decent wages to its employees. Find different design and colors on Canada goose’s official website.

This year, Ethiquette.ca suggests an organic and faire trade delicacy, a South African wine. The winds of change label is made from organically-grown grapes and transformed by the workers of the Sonop Wine Farm. This wine is certified organic by the SKAL certification agency and Fair Trade by the FLO (Fairtrade Labelling Organisation).

An innovative blend of rich spicy shiraz and a brooding Pinotage (typical from South Africa) . Full-bodied ripe tannins with good length and structure. Pairs well with lamb and game as well as grilled meats and pasta.

To see the complete wish list, including the prices and points of sale, visit

©Mahlum

The buzz around the December UN climate summit in Copenhagen is increasing. Some of you may be wondering what it’s all about. Why is this one meeting so important? And does it really matter if it succeeds or fails?

The answer is that it matters a lot, especially if we want to tackle global warming rather than just talking and arguing about it.

Global warming is a global problem requiring global solutions. The atmosphere doesn't stay within federal or provincial boundaries. It is a global commons. Greenhouse gases emitted in Canadian provinces mix with those from every other part of the world and affect everyone. A molecule of carbon is a molecule of carbon. It has the same impact on the environment whether it came from a smokestack in Toronto or a taxi’s tailpipe in Kuala Lumpur.

The science of climate change is evolving rapidly. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s last report is now two years old, and the research in that report is more than four years old. Recent scientific information shows that the impacts of climate change are happening much more quickly than expected. The polar ice cap is melting at an astonishing rate. Ocean levels are rising more rapidly than predicted. And weather-related disasters are mounting.

©Linda Winkler

We have no time to waste. Copenhagen is our moment. In fact, two years ago the world agreed that the Copenhagen summit would be the deadline for forging the next global agreement to strengthen and build on the Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto was always considered to be the first step by industrialized countries, whose fossil-fuel-powered growth created the problem. Establishing the legal framework was an important part of that first step, as were very modest emission reductions. But Copenhagen has to be more than just another small step. Science suggests the issue is urgent, so this step needs to be much bigger if we want our actions to keep pace with increasing climatic changes.

Industrialized countries need to accept binding commitments to reduce their global warming pollution much more dramatically in the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol, after 2012. But we also need to craft a companion treaty to Kyoto, one that lays out the kinds of actions that major developing countries, like India and Indonesia, will take to curb their emissions.

A recent study commissioned by Global Humanitarian Forum president and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan indicates that 50 of the world’s poorest countries collectively produce less than one per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Yet, these very same countries have been disproportionally affected by climate change. Thus, an essential part of any fair climate agreement must include support from industrialized countries to poorer nations – support in the form of financing and clean technologies so that poorer nations can wean themselves off fossil fuels and better adapt to the impacts of climate change.

This principle – that rich countries like ours have filled up the atmosphere with pollution in the course of our development, and that it’s now our responsibility to assist less-developed countries to follow a clean path to prosperity – is one that goes back to 1992. It was enshrined in the Rio Convention and reiterated in Kyoto, and again two years ago in Bali. But we have yet to meet that promise, and it is time we did.

Visionary leadership requires active and engaged citizens to keep the politicians’ feet to the fire. Your efforts have never been needed more to help make this happen.