Watch Sustainability Illustrated

Alex Magnin is an illustrator who likes making the world a better place and over the last six months he’s been illustrating sustainability. The video above is about explaining sustainability with science and is a good example of what the sort of videos he illustrates. The videos are 4-7 minuets in length and make for a good quick and informative break.

I have been working as a sustainability advisor for almost 10 years (with the international non-profit The Natural Step) and have seen first-hand the power of innovative sustainability practices to transform lives, businesses, and communities for the better.
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As an artist and an illustrator, I have also witnessed the power of illustrations and multimedia to help people understand and learn more effectively. So I decided to combine my skills and share, through animated illustration, what I have learned about sustainability over years of helping businesses and communities become more successful, sustainable, and resilient.

Read more here.
Watch all the videos here.

Environmental Sustainability and Good Governance go Hand in Hand

The Worldwatch Institute has just released their 40th anniversary edition of the State of the World, and this time it’s titled Governing for Sustainability. In it, this year the institute looks at how governments are reacting to people demanding environmental action in defiance of powerful and monied corporate interests pushing environmental concerns to the side.

In this edition, contributing authors examine the potential for improving governance by analyzing a variety of trends, such as local and regional climate initiatives, energy democracy, and corporate responsibility. They argue that sustainability depends on action in both the economic and political spheres. Financial industries need to serve as public stewards again. Unions can help ensure that the transition to sustainability is socially just. Most importantly, citizens must take responsibility and empower themselves.

“Ultimately, it seems to us, all governance begins with individuals in communities. Humans are no more isolated actors in politics than they are the independent molecules of mainstream economic theory,” says State of the World 2014 co-director Tom Prugh.

“Pressure to improve governance, at every level, can come only from awakened individuals, acting together, dedicated to making their communities sustainable places,” adds State of the World 2014 co-director Michael Renner. “From there, it may be possible to build communities in a way that affords every person on Earth a safe and fulfilling place to live, and offers future generations the same prospect.”

Read the report here.

Focus on Sustainability Film Festival

York University in Toronto will be hosting their third annual film festival all about sustainability. This year they are running films about oil. If you’re in Toronto next weekend or nearby you should check out what’s playing and take the bus to the festival.

Planet in Focus with York University Present: Focus on Sustainability Film Festival – the annual event with this years theme on oil! This entertaining and educating experience features domestic and foreign documentaries, a panel discussion with filmmakers and academics, an interactive film display, prizes, sustainably sourced food and beverages, and an e-waste disposal program. Please join us on Friday, January 31st, 2014 in the Nat Taylor Cinema (North Ross 102 at York University) from Noon to 9:00pm.

Facebook event page.

Triple Bottom Line Companies on the Rise, Propose New Corporation Classification

A triple bottom line corporation is one that watches closely not only profitability but also it’s sustainability. Triple bottom line companies are on the rise not only in performance but also in popularity as more people realize the fragility of the planet and the lack of attention we give it.

Triple bottom line companies give equally weighting to environmental goals and economic goals which can make the company more profitable, but some companies may take a competitive hit. For those companies, a group in the USA is fighting for a new type of corporation known as a “benefit corporation”.

Proponents of this new corporate form say it essentially bakes a triple bottom line into a company’s DNA that frees companies from the fear of shareholder lawsuits if their decisions fail to maximize shareholder value because of some competing interest of other stakeholders, such as workers. Under current corporate case law in the United States, for example, corporate directors are generally assumed to be liable in such suits. Incorporation as a benefit corporation is intended to establish the directors’ fiduciary responsibility to consider the interests of all stakeholders. Formalizing a company’s social and environmental purposes under a legal framework also makes it more likely that its good intentions will survive the departure of its founders or any major spurts of growth and that its directors will have the legal backbone to fend off buyout offers from conventional corporations that do not have the same commitments.

Most benefit corporations to date are either small or medium-sized businesses. But they include a few larger companies that are privately held, such as the outdoor apparel and accessory firm Patagonia Inc., which reportedly had annual sales of about $540 million for the year ending April 2012, and King Arthur Flour, an employee-owned, 223-year-old company with reported sales of about $84 million in 2010.

Read more at Worldwatch.

Sustainable Plastics Made From Algae

Green plastics? Yes please! Bioplastics manufacturer Cereplast has developed a way to produce plastics with algae. By using dehydrated algae who’s natural oils have been extracted for fuel, Cereplast has managed to develop plastic products with properties very similar to traditional polymers.

While developing the plastic, Cereplast is also determining how this plastic mix could be recycled effectively.

Using algae wouldn’t affect food crops the way other bioplastics made from corn and starches could if they were massively scaled up. The process complements algae fuel production instead of competing with it.

[Cereplast founder and CEO Frederic Scheer] said that artificially-grown high-yield algae crops can be harvested after two months.

This would mean that even in small batches, the cost per pound of algae plastic is expected to beat out traditional plastics, too.

Read the whole article here.

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