collisionconf

Collision: How we can Better Protect Endangered Species

- Adam Clare

Collision at home

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Achim Steiner spoke today at Collision at Home about The Lion’s Share organization. The organization looks to protect endangered species by channeling some funding that large companies put into advertising into spending on protecting our environment. It’s basically putting in a voluntary tax earmarked for a specific cause. This is great to see and a model that other causes and organizations can follow. It’s so successful that the UN is joining forces with some of the biggest brands in the world to make sure humankind pays its debts.

The Lion’s Share Fund is a pioneering initiative that supports wildlife while elevating brands to resonate with audiences in a more meaningful way – thereby positively impacting the brand’s growth, trust, and profitability.

Advertisers win
They become more profitable and are perceived positively.

Humans win
We feel good by supporting a business for doing the right thing.

Animals win
Their lives and habitats are preserved, enabling them to thrive.

Check out The Lion’s Share.

lion share fund
I’m attending Collision at Home this week.

Collision: Replacing Plastics with Seaweed

- Adam Clare

Loliware presentation

At the last Collision Conference Loliware pitched their eco-conscious business and won. Today Sea Briganti provided an update on the company and the success they’ve had replacing plastic usage with seaweed. They have created an entire line of products which are carbon negative! The company continues to grow and we need more companies like this so our recover from COVID-19 includes a green economy built on making the planet better.

As the CEO of an interdisciplinary team of expert scientists, food technologists, and seaweed biologists,
Sea F. Briganti developed LOLIWARE Intelligent Seaweed Technologies (LIST) – a category of materials made from seaweed (a regenerative and carbon sequestering input) that outperform paper products & bioplastics.
…
We think about sustainability and impact throughout every aspect of LOLIWARE and our products.Why does our vision of a future free of plastic disposables matter?
Reducing our use of single-use plastics matters for both human health and planetary health. A dependence on plastic perpetuates a broken economic model built on the extraction of fossil fuels, which in turn accelerates the detrimental effects of climate change. Plastic disposables are particularly harmful contributors to climate change, and ultimately human health, as they require the ongoing extracting of petroleum to come to market, and then become one of the worst culprits of land and water pollution at the end of use.

Check it out.
I’m attending Collision at Home this week.

Collision: Shaquille O’Neal Wants Your Life to be Steady

- Adam Clare

Today at Collision conference Shaquille O’Neal made an appearance to promote Steady, a company that wants to help working Americans get a steady financial life. The company was founded by Adam Roseman a few years ago with the goal of making life more predictable for the average American. As nearly everyone knows, inequality has been increasing since the last recession and now companies like Steady are looking to stop that growth. Their platform helps people find work while also learning how to budget and other financial bits of wisdom.

Growing up in a single-parent home, Roseman saw first hand the daily financial struggles many Americans face. The vision for Steady came to Roseman after seeing the plight of his recently retired father. Like many Americans, his father found he didn’t have enough retirement savings and needed to work part-time to make ends meet. Roseman stepped in, suggesting his father look for flexible work opportunities that fit his needs, availability and interests. And through Steady, Roseman and his team hope to help millions more.

Read more.

I’m attending Collision at Home this week.

Noteworthy Companies from Collision Conference

- Adam Clare
Collision Conference
21 May 2019; Chelsea F. Briganti, left, CEO, LOLIWARE, Dianna Cohen, centre,rnCEO, Plastic Pollution Coalition, and Catherine Abreu, Executive Director, Climate Action Network Canada, on planet : tech Stage during day one of Collision 2019 at Enercare Center in Toronto, Canada. Photo by Sam Barnes/Collision via Sportsfile

There were a lot of companies at Collision Conference and many will be lost in the coverage. I want to celebrate the companies that are trying to make the world better while also making a profit.

Ava Byte – grow food in your tiny apartment

Avara – AR app to educate people on endangered species

Bee Meaningful – a social network for making the world better

Carbon Upcycling – chemically adsorbs CO2 emissions into inorganic solids

Distributed Compute Labs – use underused existing computer power instead of building new super computers

Echo Ridge – crowd driving activism platform to influence politics

Ethical Brandz – Get consumers towards making ethical, sustainable purchases, while holding businesses accountable.

Fable– a company focussed on user testing for people with disabilities

Green City Solutions – moss based biotech air filters

Intuitive AI – using AI for zero waste in offices

Kind Village – A community for local businesses, professionals and organizations that donate and give back

Nutana Power – renewable energy storage

PayGreen – Automatically include a carbon offset into your purchases (France only for now)

Plant Plus – plant based plastic replacement

Quantaloop– Quantaloop is a land regeneration & eco-marketing company

Steadiwear – tremor gloves for people suffering from Parkinson’s

Swrm –  platform to live a sustainable lifestyle & interact with the sustainable community

Unpublished Media Network – vote on weekly political actions

Wayaj – explore and book sustainable and socially responsible destinations around the world

With any luck these companies will be mentioned on Things Are Good for years to come.

Christiana Figueres: The Climate Risk Reward Ratio has Changed

- Adam Clare

The architect of the Paris Agreement, Christiana Figueres, is optimistic about the future of the planet and she sees the technology sector key in moving our economy to a carbon neutral system. She sees the exponential growth in the technology sector and argues that we need that sector’s help to manage “exponential growth in sustainable solutions”. Indeed, she claimed that “the tech sector is the portal to solving climate change” at a press conference at Collision Conference.

I doubt any parent alive today wants to be blamed for the environmental problems their children will face. – Figueres

Technology

We can’t have technology growing for growth’s sake. -Figueres

As she sees it, we are in a race between two exponential curves: sustainable tech growth and climate change. Her hope is that the tech sector can help move the economy away from fossil fuels. We need to decarbonize the economy as fast as possible.

Companies are starting to note that our climate crisis greatly endangers their future business plans.

Transportation

We are killing 7 million people per year because of air pollution that is entirely avoidable if we move to electric mobility. -Figueres

The economy is slowly moving away from fossil fuels, but this needs to happen faster. The risks are too great to continue our slow progress. She even notes that all the major automakers are moving to all electric – even Harley Davidson.

Cities need to regulate the types of cars and busses allowed in their borders so citizens are dangerously exposed to pollution. We have the knowledge, we just need the policies.

Housing

More corporations understanding that its in their own interest to decarbonize. -Figueres

We need purposeful growth and millennials get that, and that’s true when it comes to housing. Figueres envisions a short term goal of retrofitting existing buildings. She wonders why aren’t people retrofitting their buildings since insulation of homes is important to reducing energy combustion.

Figueres calls for policy makers to demand that new buildings power themselves and contribute to a healthier city. Again, we have the technology, we have the knowledge, we just need the policies.

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