Eat Less, Not Local?

It's hot here in the DC region this weekend - pretty early in the season, if you ask me. So how can we contribute in the fight against Global Warming? Changing our eating habits (and discarding some earlier preconceptions) may be a bigger part of our battle kit than we thought:

It's how food is produced, not how far it is transported, that matters most for global warming.... In fact, eating less red meat and dairy can be a more effective way to lower an average U.S. household's food-related climate footprint than buying local food.

That is from a new study by Christopher Weber and Scott Matthews at Carnegie Mellon.

[GlobalGiving]

When the Shoe Fits...

Since starting GlobalGiving several years back, I have noticed a major sea change in the nature of so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). When we started, many companies felt that, to avoid criticism, they needed to make a show of doing something socially responsible. They often engaged PR firms to make them look good or created a small foundation to tout in their annual report.

This is changing quickly as many companies, large and small, are baking social impact into their company culture and products. The main reason for this, in my experience, is the rise of a younger generation of managers who really care about the future of the world and their neighbors in developing countries.

The good news is that many of these companies make stellar products as well, and I am going to start highlighting some products that I have used and like.

The blog posts below about the Girl Effect relate to a new program being launched by Nike. And my current favorite running shoe is the Nike Free (top photo). These things are so comfortable that I sometimes wear them around the house as slippers.

And I just returned from a trip to Tokyo, where I wore my new Terra Plana Vivo Barefoot Dharmas, which were fabulously comfortable, functional, and stylish (very important in Tokyo!) They are now my new favorite casual shoes.

Terra Plana is a new company founded by Galahad Clark whose mission is to make sustainable shoes. Both the Nike Frees and the Vivo Barefoot shoes are based on a philosophy that having heels on shoes makes us walk wrong and wrecks our feet.

PS: If you have similar products to recommend, please send me your suggestions.

Why we should invest in girls

If you want to know why investing in girls has such a huge impact on the world, check out this great new campaign by Nike. And then click below to see how your $25 can make a loan to a girl in Uganda to raise chickens.

The Girl Effect

I like this:



[GlobalGiving]

Helping Myanmar for Mother's Day

A friend writes from Myanmar:

This is the worst disaster I have ever been in. The situation in Yangon is growing more desperate everyday as there is no electricity or water and food is getting very scarce. Just today, a women on our street came to us with here three young children. Her mother had been killed in the cyclone and the children had not eaten in two days.

We have made it to the only location in Yangon with an email connection tonight (tuesday).We are save and fine... but the situation here is very, very grim. Tremendous devastation.

We have staff in practically all of the affected areas and are desperately trying to find out the condition of about 40 that are still unaccounted for.

Relief isn't what we do, but we are being pressed into it given the circumstances.If Global Giving could join an appeal that would be very much appreciated.

Will write as soon again as soon as we can. Thanks again for your concern.

I and many others are going to help Burma for Mothers Day. Nothing would make our own mothers happier. If you want to join us, please click here and do what you can.

www.globalgiving.com/myanmar


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Brainstorm = Marketplace of Ideas

Many things will be needed to avert a climate change disaster - including lots of new investment and changes in policies and behaviors. But none of that will work without massive innovation. And innovation requires a combination of new ideas, dedicated people, money, and a mechanism to implement and scale up those ideas.

That is why the Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference last week was so compelling. It was more than a brainstorm - it was a marketplace of ideas. The list of attendees was impressive - leaders from corporate American (ranging from Wal-Mart to Coca Cola to Monsanto), the non-profit sector (Environmental Defense, NRDC, Conservation International), the financial sector (Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs), academics, and several government officials.

In my experience, what distinguishes Fortune Brainstorm conferences from many others is that they are really conversations rather than a series of speeches, and this one was no exception. It was really exceptional to see leaders from fields that are often at odds with each other actually talking to each other and collaborating on a solution rather than fighting over who is at fault. Even Greenpeace and McDonald's shared a panel and talked about their collaborative work to reduce deforestation in Brazil.

Hats off to Marc Gunther of Fortune Magazine for creating this conference. You can read a lot more about electric cars, "farming carbon," turning Coke green, and rabble rousing over at his excellent blog.

[And kudos to David Kirkpatrick for creating the Brainstorm Conference series itself.]

[GlobalGiving]

I am an idiot

I am an idiot, according to my colleagues here at GlobalGiving. That is because I am clueless about a lot of popular celebrities who are in the news these days.

But my cluelessness reached a new low (high?) this past week at the excellent Fortune Magazine "Brainstorm Green" conference, which was all about global warming. During a break between panels, I turned to introduce myself to the guy sitting next to me. He had been listening closely to the speakers and had been taking a lot of notes. Obviously a scientist type or policy wonk.

Me: Hi, I am Dennis Whittle. Nice to meet you.

Him: Hi, I am Chuck Leavell. Nice to meet you.

Me: What do you do?

Him: Oh, I grow trees in Georgia. I also play the piano a little bit. What about you?

Me: I work at GlobalGiving, which is sort of a marketplace for goodness. What kind of trees do you grow?

Him: I have been trying to create an approach to sustainable tree farming using native American species.

Me: Oh, very cool. And what kind of music do you play?

Him: Oh, all kinds, really.

Me: Do you ever play in public?

Him: Sometimes.

Me: What's the name of your band?

Him: Well, I've been in different bands, but since 1982 it has been the Rolling Stones.

Me: Oh, yes, I have heard of that band.


* * *
(Chuck's bio is here for any of you other clueless readers out there.)

[GlobalGiving]

Scaling up microfinance

Microfinance is not a magic bullet, but it is part of a broad array of things that can improve lives in developing countries. (Others include better education, healthcare, basic services, rule of law, small business promotion, and infrastructure.)

A big question is how to scale up microfinance so it can be available to a lot more people.

If this is an issue you are interested in, I recommend Rob Katz's recent post over on NextBillion. He reports on a recent conference in New York hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, where the speakers included Roshaneh Zafar, founder of Kashf Foundation in Pakistan, which lists projects on GlobalGiving.

The panelists discussed a range of issues, including interest rates (don't cap them, they agree) and commercialization. The need for increased competition in providing microfinance in many countries is clear.

Rob concludes as follows:

I was especially struck at how easily Iskendarian and Zafar can move from discussing the business aspects of microfinance to the social aspects. Their organizations seem to have been able to merge these two goals – financial sustainability and poverty alleviation – without compromising either.

[GlobalGiving]

How to get a Prius cheap

Trimming the amount of meat Americans eat would not only help the planet — a mere 20 percent reduction is the equivalent of switching from a Camry to a Prius.

That is from The High Price of Beef in Sunday's NY Times Magazine. By this measure, I have had a couple of Priuses in my garage since the late 1980s, when I reduced my beef consumption in half. I initially did this because the quality of beef was poor in Jakarta, where I lived for five years.

Around that time, a lot of research came out about the health effects of eating too much red meat, so when I returned to the US, I kept my red meat consumption low. I didn't eliminate meat altogether (I like it too much), but I swapped quantity for quality - eating good cuts of meat fewer times per week.

More recently, I have begun eating mostly organic beef, again primarily for health reasons. I pay more for it, but eat even less of it. So my wallet wins, my health wins, and the global climate wins.

And I can tell my friends that I have not only one, but two Priuses... :)


[GlobalGiving]

Electric cars are coming

I am at the Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference in Pasadena. Today's first session was a pleasant surprise: it looks like we will have real, workable electric cars on the road in the next two years.

Shai Agassi is taking the approach of selling electric cars in Israel and Denmark like cell phones - he believes that he will be able to give the cars away in return for a three or four year contract to service the cars (including electricity and batteries).

Jan-Olaf Willums is already producing the Think Car (pictured here) in Europe and will soon bring it to the US with backing from Kleiner Perkins and others.

Both cars will go about 100 miles between charges. Some say that is too little. But guess what? 95% of car trips are less than 100 miles.

[Kudos to Marc Gunther of Fortune for putting this conference together.]

And David Roberts is blogging this conference over at GristMill (scroll down after clicking link).



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