What makes Venezuela tick? Who is behind the movement and what does it seek? Filmed through the 2006 presidential elections, a new documentary uncovers the people building a new Venezuela..
Montreal - July 27th, 2008 - Earlier today, Renderyard and Alternative Channel announced a partnership that will see an exclusive, 3-day online screening of Now The People Have Awoken, a new documentary film that addresses the often overlooked model of socialism evolving in Venezuela.
Venezuela has never been on the international stage. Now Venezuela's new assertiveness has brought it to the centre of international controversy: to some it has been stolen by populist dictator, while for others, it is the centre of a continent-wide democratic revolution. There is much at stake. Venezuela sits atop the largest oil reserves in the world, which are being used to foment a new order. President Hugo Chávez, who survived a US-backed military coup in 2002, has supported a number of controversial social programs that have pushed Venezuela onto the United States government, and media, enemy radar. What makes Venezuela tick? Who is behind the movement and what does it seek? Filmed through the 2006 presidential elections, Now The People Have Awoken is a documentary about the people building a new Venezuela.
Using the largest oil reserves in the world to foment a new order in Venezuela, Chavez has supported some of the most controversial social programs in the world. What makes Venezuela tick? All of a sudden Venezuela has taken a leap onto the world-stage. Who else but its repeatedly elected dictator would call the president of the US "the devil"? Having survived a military coup in 2002, Hugo Chavez and the new Venezuela are experimenting with ways of finding political and economic democracy. Is this a real possibility? Chavez is regularly depicted as the dictator squandering the wealth of the nation and blocking democratic freedoms. Perhaps this is true? The film gives voice to the people behind the revolutionary process ongoing in Venezuela, filming during the December 2006 elections, and analysts ranging from an exCIA and Pentagon security analyst to the controversial Venezuelan attorney who authored 'The Chavez Code.' Who is behind the movement and what does it seek? With the interest in Venezuela coming from all sides of the political spectrum, the film engages with the problem of what position to take towards this rapidly changing nation.
To watch the world premiere of Now The People Have Awoken, click here.
Newsletter: How to bring more humor into sustainable initiatives
Alternative Channel presents the Go Brown Initiative Alternative Channel is thrilled to announce the launch of Go Brown, a new video series that tackles environmental issues using the off-the-wall incisiveness and satyrical stylings of producer Allen Hotchner and director Joel Tomar Levin, an extremely talented duo based in New York City. To read this article, click here.
Now the People have awoken What makes Venezuela tick? Who is behind the movement and what does it seek? Filmed through the 2006 presidential elections, a new documentary uncovers the people building a new Venezuela. To read or comment on this article, click here.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Alternative Channel Presents: The Go Brown Initiative
Okay, I've heard all about the need to go green, but Go Brown?
Alternative Channel is thrilled to announce the launch of Go Brown, a new video series that tackles environmental issues using the off-the-wall incisiveness and satyrical stylings of producer Allen Hotchner and director Joel Tomar Levin, an extremely talented duo based in New York City. The team assembled a most hilarious group of actors for the series, many of whom have trained and performed with the Upright Citizens Brigade.
In the satirical vein of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, the video series follows a group of anti-environmental lobbyists, representing the "corporate interests" of a fictitious Go Brown Initiative. Featuring interviews with environmental organizations and local green-projects, the purpose of the show is to instigate debate in an entertaining way. By representing the anti-environment, ignorance-embracing view in such a negative light, the contributions of green organizations will come across as having serious merit.
This new initiative represents a new and exciting direction for Alternative Channel. Our users and partners have come to know us as a destination for informative and educational video content on the environmental and humanitarian challenges that define our era. This will not change, however, with the launch of Go Brown, we bring more fun and humor to our mission to instigate discussion, exchange ideas and inspire change.
Alternative Channel kicks off this hilarious series with 7 episodes that follow the absurd, hilarious antics of the Go Brown Initiative from the Park Slope Food Coop to the New Jersey offices of Terracycle, an environmentally-friendly fertilizer company. In the coming weeks, we'll be releasing additional episodes exploring new locales, interviewing new leaders in the green movement and reaching newly absurd heights. You can expect to hear more from the Go Brown Initiative soon, so stay tuned!
::
About Go Brown's Production Team:
ALLEN HOTCHNER started off his acting career in the supporting role of Gerhart in a high school production of Mister Roberts. While not a main character, he had a handful of lines that were essential to moving the plot along and to this day gets stopped in the street to have lines like “Really, Mr. Roberts?” quoted back to him (it’s actually happened only once but time will tell). High school’s Mister Roberts is also about where his acting career ended, until now with his return to the trade as Go Brown Team member Goldwater. Allen’s actual bill-paying trade is as a video editor. He’s cut for A&E, MLB.com and CSTV along with a lot of other stuff he’s not all that proud of but payed him handsomely. He met Joel when they were studying in the NYU film program and it’s been only a matter of time before they joined forces to produce something awesome.
JOEL TOMAR LEVIN studied film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned a Student Academy Award nomination for his short film "This is Not a Picture." He presently works as a film editor and graphic designer for Rethos.com and the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, and teaches documentary film workshops to high school students. For fun, Tomar enjoys taking long walks in the woods and improvising with life.
Principal Cast
Nathaniel Bates
Pat Cerone
Allen Hotchner
Mark Hambly
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 Chris Advansun and Kassandra Linklater
What does oil consumption and water bottles have to do with ribbons and bows? “Everything,” according to Ken Hubscher. Alternative Channel recently caught up with Hubscher to discuss Ingredients Matter, his new line of ecological, environmentally friendly ribbon.
CA - We are fascinated with the Ingredients Matter project. Give me a sense of where this project originates and what the genesis for this was?
KH - Well, Ingredients Matter International was my idea to try and create an eco-initiative for our company. We are a sixty-year-old family run business, started by my grandfather, and we are the experts in ribbons, bows, and custom packaging for the luxury market. At the end of 2007, after seeing the amazing eco-wave that was just vesting out there in the market place, I decided that I wanted to create something that was unique to both to my personality and to the personality of the company. I thought it would be cool to come out with an ecological ribbon and given that we have been doing ribbon for sixty years, we should be the leaders in sustainable ribbons as well.
I first started doing a lot of investigation into what it meant to be “eco” and what was available in terms of materials in the market place. I then started working with a variety of component manufactures to create specialty yarns that are made from 100% recycled materials including scraps and polyester from manufacturing floors. By using recyclable plastics, which are basically taken in, re-mashed up, cleaned out, melted, and re-extruded into filaments, we were able to take those filaments, chop them into yarns and basically weave replica ribbon out of them. So we are using a 100% recycled yarn to make a 100% recycled ribbon and that was the logic flow behind ecological ribbon.
I then took a deeper look into what the ecological advantages of this were and found that the primary advantage is diverting materials from landfills. So instead of having water bottles and scrap materials all over the place that may have no economic value when they end up in the landfill; we diverted it and turn it into a tangible, usable project.
The second advantage is that you do not need to use virgin oil to produce new polyester and nylon yarn to make more ribbon. This is a huge advantage. The amount of oil used to make ribbon in the world in nominal compared to the amount of oil used in every other industry but we have to start somewhere. I believe an initiative starts with having a collective amount of energy put forth in the same direction and that in turn will create an end result that is sizable enough to measure.
So in the ribbon world, did we solve the oil crisis by creating Reribbon? No, but did we create a product that is part of a consciousness of a market place? I believe so.
CA - Looking on your website, it states that it may be only a small fraction of the amount of overall oil consumption that would go into creating ribbon using virgin materials but technically it is still a huge amount of oil.
KH - It’s all relative like everything in our lives.
Speaking of industry, do you know why it is difficult in the ribbon industry to measure things like carbon footprints? Because most of the products are made off shore and why are they made offshore? Because people have an agreeable idea of what a product should cost, and they all say I’m willing to pay this amount for a product, and we are have become quite conditioned to that.
So in order to have a product that is sellable, which by the way is the only way to sustain a business, is to have it made offshore. One of the things that we are doing is working to have yarns made in North American and then we ship them offshore to produce our ribbons. In a sense, we are kind of organic because we are sustaining a local economy by procuring yarns that are made locally, thus sustaining an industry here and we are keeping it within the parameters of economic affordability of the mass consumer, which makes it a product that can actually make a difference.
CA - To compare the two products, is there a quality difference or an appearance difference?
KH - I challenge anyone in the ribbon industry to do the Pepsi challenge, with the ribbon challenge. I challenge them and they will just be guessing. If you do it a thousand times, it will be a fifty-fifty just by natural statistical odds.
CA - Wow, impressive. Talk to us a bit more about the marketing and where you are today in terms of getting the word out there.
KH - Classically, Hubschercorp, which is the parent company, is an expert in custom ribbon projects. So we cater to retailers, large chocolatiers, confectioners, jewellery companies, and the cosmetic industry. We generally cater to people who purchase ribbon and bows, in a creative way, but as a commodity per say, because they have to deliver a packaged or gift-able product for their consumers. Ribbon is a commodity, so there is a known value for ribbon. And to produce a product that is slightly more expensive than your packaging budget, which every year they aspire to shrink while natural resources cost go up, is going to be a hard sell.
So why would a large retailer switch over to reribbon? Well they won’t unless they were going to leverage a whole marketing campaign off of their new eco green packaging initiative, which is not happening, the paradigm shift is not there yet because budget constraints won’t allow for it. People want recycled paper in their recycling bags, its not there yet, people want biodegradable additives in their plastics, it’s not there yet, it’s still too expensive. But the reality is that people are still going to go to retail stores, even if the prices still go up, and it will eventually keep going up because nothing is going down, except for the amount of oil in the ground. So as everything goes up, it will kind of equalize; a lot of the reasons why these earth-friendly products are more expensive is due to volume issues. Plus the process and materials, because they are derived naturally, are more expensive, and perhaps they aren’t developed enough. You’ll get to a point where the natural evolution of the market place is such that everything will equalize and the desire of the mass consumer will eventually motivate the suppliers or retailers per say to appease their appetite for eco products.
As for our current customer base and whether their actually the target clients for what we’re doing, I would have to say “not exactly.” Our target clientele for Reribbon actually is more a Susie Johnson, the average American consumer, the end user. She sees the value of the overall product and she puts an emotional value on it. For example, she might look at the product and say, “I could buy this regular satin ribbon, for X amount of dollars, or look at this, this is beautiful, it’s all eco packing and its 100% recycled ribbon. I can’t tell the difference and it is within my 10 to 20% threshold of price differentiation that I can except in order to make an earth conscious choice.” Bingo.
CA –You are passionate about this personally, but this isn’t passion absent of a strong business argument and I want to thank you for sharing the story of “Reribbon” with us.
KH – You are welcome. Thank you.
All images courtesy of Ingredients Matter's website: http://www.im-portant.com/index.php
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 Chris Advansun and Kassandra Linklater
Part two - Peter Girard shares how Timberland is leading the way in environmental sustainability, one step at a time.
CA - In the case of working with Timberland, what does it involve with partnerships? Do you work along side non-profits and civil society organizations to accomplish your goals?
PG - We have some partnerships directly with non-profits. A lot of our partnerships that we developed with non-profits are based on their areas of expertise, whether it is in climate change or supply chains and product life cycle. We develop internal programs to try and improve on our environmental goals in a variety of areas and then we will bring in NGO’s and academics as stakeholders to review our programs.
Timberland also takes the approach that we are a transparent company first. One of the ways we’re transparent is our environmental impact. We have become pretty comfortable with bringing NGO’s in and having them comment and criticize our programs to push us to go further. Our CEO actually does quarterly calls with stakeholders to discuss our code of conduct, environmental initiatives, and all sorts of things.
Also, some of the places that we are having a large impact are with our partnerships with other brands and manufactures. When you look at dealing with a complex supply chain, a lot of brands are buying and manufacturing with contractors and they are using a lot of the same ones. In order to get information out of your supply chain, there has got to be those partnerships both with the contractors as well as with other brands. We have done a lot of work with the Outdoor Industry Association and working with other brands to discuss, “what are the things we need to ask our supply chain? Can we start to standardize these environmental questions so that one, we get consistent information out of our supply chain about what the environmental impact of our designs are and then two, start to use that information to make better design choices for our products?” I believe interestingly enough, some of our partnerships with other brands, through industry working groups, are actually some of the most productive right now.
CA - You mentioned Jeffery Schwartz, the CEO of Timberland. Where does the inspiration for driving these efforts to be sustainable come from? Is he just responding to the values of customers or is it really from the executive suite down that this influence and passion comes from?
PG – I believe they feed off each other. It’s clearly Jeff’s passion. He is very much leading the company to strive to be a better business and a business that does right by society. He really lives by the motto of “justice in commerce” and also to serve as an example for other businesses. I think part of having that passion in the executive suite, and it’s shared by all the top level people, is that it brings in employees who are also very passionate about those ideas. So, the question of how a company’s culture gets created, I believe the two things feed off each other. Our executives layout a clear vision for where they want the company to go, but all of these very engaged employees help to create the ideas about how to make a lot of these things happen.
And I think a big part of that is that it’s okay for any employee to have an idea that isn’t tangent to their specific role in the company. For example, you work in finance, but you want to help out with the community garden in the front lawn of the headquarters – that is encouraged. Employees are empowered to take on projects and they are supported in doing different things. So for a company that is doing as many things related to the environment as we are, there are roughly only two people whose job description are task specific with environmental projects, but the amount of people who take it on, either formally or informally as part of their job, is enormous.
CA - How many employees are there in the company?
PG - If you include all of our sales associates world wide, it’s about five thousand.
CA - I am curious if there are any initiatives or projects, that you think customers might not know of, that would be relative to the issue of sustainability?
PG - I think when you look at a lot of our product initiatives; we look at going beyond. Although, I am not sure that the depth and effort necessarily shows up to the consumer. For us to go through and look at the carbon foot print of our products is very important and it is starting to show on the labels. But the fact that we do that across a lot of product categories and that our designers are looking at carbon footprint relative to how they design products doesn’t always translate. There is a lot of complexity there and that is very hard to communicate to consumers and I am not sure it will get less complicated to communicate in the near future. It’s certainly something that we are pouring a lot of effort and research into especially regarding designing for environmental products, carbon foot printing in the supply chain, and looking for lower impact materials and production processes.
CA - Tell me what motivates you in all of this?
PG - I have been working on environmental issues for quiet a while; my entire career has been related to the environment. It started when I was in the six grade and as a class we had a little project to preserve the local marsh, and I thought, “That’s pretty cool.”
I have always been an outdoors person, as far as liking to be outside and being in the natural environment. It is very easy to see how people become passionate about the conservation of natural places but I think for me, conservation was one thing but it also ties to equity. It is one thing to preserve parks, that people who have enough money can go and see, but it is another thing to give people bare access to things like clear air, clear water, and make that really a right for people. When you look at it, people need shoes, and that provides a lot of good, but industry also has a downside. I have always been interested in reducing that downside, and not only in a conservation sense but in a “how do we give things to people that they really want,” like having footwear that’s comfortable to walk in or good healthcare and services, without giving up all of these natural resources and places that we find beautiful.
So, the short answer; it started in the sixth grade.
CA - Thanks so much Peter. I am sure our readers will have a whole new perspective on Timberland.
PG – My pleasure.
Image credits (from top): 1) Timberland's Premium Boot; 2)Timberland CEO - Jeffery Schwartz; 3) Timberland Logo
Peter Girard on Timberland’s leadership in environmental sustainability (Part 1)
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 Chris Advansun and Kassandra Linklater
Most people would agree that carbon neutrality is not something regularly associated with a boot company. But then again, most people are not familiar with Timberland’s policy on the environment. I recently had the opportunity to connect with Peter Girard to discuss ambitious plans to become carbon neutral by 2010.
CA - Before we start, tell us about your background and how you joined with Timberland?
PG - Timberland is actually the first private company I have worked with; my background is in Environmental Science and Resource Management. I have worked for non-profits, state government and actually on a coalition with Environment Canada.
I completed my Masters in Resource Management at the University of New Hampshire which is quite close to where Timberland is headquartered. Some of the things I did as part of my Masters were looking at how do you value and put metrics around a lot of environmental qualities. There are many clean air, clean water, and low carbon impact titles, but they aren’t generally monetized so they can be hard to manage and plan around.
So when I finished my graduate program I had some interaction with Timberland. They were in the beginnings of a project to really look at how to drive metrics into their products and into some of their business processes. That is when I joined the company and that is what I primarily worked on.
CA - Was it intentional to take the skills and the knowledge that you acquired in the pubic sector and bring it to the private sector, or was it that the opportunity arose and you took it?
PG - I think for me, I have consciously transitioned from working with non-profits and government. There was a realization, while there’s a role for regulation; the most cutting edge environmental changes are going to go on in the private sector. That is where most of the money is, and that is where the power to move very quickly is. Business has a great power to do harm, but it also has a great power to do good. For myself, I started in science and then why I moved into resource economics and management was because I thought, “Ah ha, maybe that’s where the more levers of power exist in order to try and make change.” And it was the same thing in work, I started off in NGO’s and government and have transitioned into the private sector because I am constantly looking for places where I can be more effective in creating change and right now I think that the private sector is the place that’s doing that.
CA - Were you surprised that this wasn’t a forestry company, this is Timberland, a garment producer? Did it surprise you that they had such an interest from an environment management perspective?
PG - From a public perspective, this is a brand, a clothing company and a boot maker but historically Timberland is very much a manufacturer and is rooted in manufacturing and putting goods together in the footwear and leather industry. So it is not too much of a surprise that they are interested in managing their resources. Their position with the brand, because there is more interaction with the consumer than say a commodities producer like a paper company, creates a dynamic where there is more of a demand for that information. There is more visibility.
CA - What is Timberland doing that is leading the way, that maybe competitors aren’t, and going that extra distance on sustainability?
PG - Timberland has two broad initiatives that we are moving forward with. One is, as a company, we are moving towards carbon neutral. We have set out a goal of being carbon neutral, in our operations and facilities - things we own, by 2010. The other bold goal is that we are looking at our product and figuring out how to make it a low impact, even a zero impact product.
I think what’s bold about the first one is the timeline in which we are trying to do it. We are pushing to be carbon neutral very quickly for our own operating facilities. First trying to reduce, second trying to purchase renewable energy, and only as a third choice, starting to offset some of our admissions.
The second initiative is moving towards sustainable products. A lot of companies just think about greening their headquarters, the things that they do in the office which in a sense is a lot easier. But the reality is that we are a boot company and we make a lot of boots. When we look at the whole company and we look at relative impact, the majority of our impact is in the materials and manufacturing of the products we make. Digging into that long supply chain is obvious but at the same time I believe we are ahead of some of our competitors at starting to look deeper into where our product comes from and how we can affect the whole supply chain.
CA - Carbon neutrality in two years is extremely tight. What are some of the main challenges in trying to complete it within that time frame?
PG - I think most of it comes down to electrical purchases because most of what we are looking at is office space and distribution facilities. I think two years is very soon but, in the context of what we have been doing, it is not that far fetched. We have been investing in renewable energies in our facilities for many years. Our European facility buys wind power, our actual distribution center in California has solar panels, and just recently our Mid-West distribution facility was involved in a project to directly purchase energy from a small scale hydro company in the area. We have been tracking and looking at our energy use for a while and that has helped it go down.
CA - So it is not quite 0-to-60 in two years, it is more like 70-to-100% in two years:
PG - We’ve definitely started down the path and we are familiar with what we need to do. As per percentages that we have reduced, we still have a ways to go. Although it still is going to be a challenge to meet that goal, I think we are on the path and accelerating towards it.
Next: Peter Girard on partnerships, Timberland’s CEO’s commitment to justice in commerce, and what motivates him personally.
Image credits (from top): 1) Peter Girard, Sr. Analyst Environmental Stewardship; 2)Instillation of solar power at Timberland's distribution centre in California
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Newsletter: Exclusive Interview with Abitibi Bowater’s VP of Sustainability and Environment
It's one of the rarest birds in Canada. And unless habitat loss is reversed, the Eastern loggerhead shrike could soon become extinct.
Today, there are only 27 breeding pairs known to exist in the wild in Ontario. A small population exists in Manitoba. In the rest of Canada, the bird has long since disappeared. Before a captive breeding program began in Ontario in 1997, only 18 breeding pairs were known to exist.
In the past 50 years the shrike has faced a rapid decline, making it one of North America’s fastest disappearing birds. In 2004, there were less than 100 pairs of Eastern loggerhead shrikes in all of Canada and the north-east United States. In Canada it's officially designated as endangered.
So what's causing the decline? Research suggests four main factors may be working against the bird:
*The fact shrikes frequent roadside grasslands where they hunt and nest in bushes means they are often struck by cars when they swoop across roadways to catch prey
* Habitat loss is a significant reason. The bird's essential grassland habitat is lost when it's converted to crops, forests or developed by humans
* Chemicals, including pesticides, are harming songbirds in general, both in terms of food sources and reproduction
* House cats and feral cats are likely another source of the decline. Shrike nests are easily accessible by cats and other predators. Feral cats prowling grasslands for mice are hunting in the same habitat where shrike live and hunt
Conservation groups such as Bird Studies Canada, the Ministry of Natural Resources, World Wildlife Fund, Toronto Zoo, McGill University and Wildlife Preservation Canada are all working on conservation efforts to save the Eastern loggerhead shrike.
This month, Wildlife Preservation Canada released 19 captive-bred shrikes near Orillia, Ontario, home to one of the last remaining grassland breeding areas for the bird. Several of the shrikes are equipped with special radio transmitters so biologists can further track their movements.
If the shrike is to escape extinction, it will be near Orillia, in the environmentally important Carden Alvar where success will be achieved. The grassland habitat of the Alvar is where the Couchiching Conservancy and its partners have protected almost 6,000 acres. More than half of the shrikes in the wild today in Ontario now nest on the protected lands.
The loggerhead shrike is a unique bird. It's not only a songbird, but also a bird of prey that hunts small snakes, mice, meadow voles and insects. They frequently impale their prey on barbed wire or thorns before eating.
Despite the progress being made to save the Eastern loggerhead shrike, there are still worries about the endangered bird's future in Ontario.
Earlier this month, Ontario's Liberal government approved exemptions to the Endangered Species Act which was passed in May 2007. New exemptions for the aggregate and hydro industries will impact endangered species in central Ontario, warns Ontario Nature. Under previous regulations, 42 species and their habitats were fully protected. The new exemptions mean that these species -- which include the loggerhead shrike -- will no longer be afforded the same degree of protection that they once had.
“We’re worried,” said Caroline Schultz, executive director of Ontario Nature in a release. “In many ways, these exemptions will allow business to continue as usual. And business as usual, we know, is pushing over 200 species towards extinction in Ontario.”
WorkCabin.ca is Canada's premiere eco-friendly career site for green jobs, green volunteering, career advice and green news
Welcome to the Alternative Channel blog, your international Web-TV focused on sustainable development and humanitarian causes. Check out our French and Spanish sister blogs. More...
