The global food crisis runs deeper than a simple supply issue. Especially in the United States, it is a major health concern.
Following is an excerpt from an AllergyKids.com article. We encourage you to read it in full. Though we’re not entirely in agreement about corn ethanol having as much to do with commodity prices as many charge, the health concerns surrounding genetically modified crops and our government’s utter lack of regulatory oversight is truly alarming.
As the world reels from food price inflation, the focus is turning to the biotech industry and its promise to genetically modify our food supply in order to increase crop yields, feed the world’s poor and stave off riots at the supermarket. What is interesting is that this responsibility, and most of the profits and liabilities associated with it, falls squarely on the shoulders of one corporation, an agrichemical corporation called Monsanto (NYSE: MON). [Read more →]
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Today at 3pm ET / 12pm PT, see Jack Johnson play the Kokua Festival in Hawaii
MSNBC will broadcast the Kokua Festival concert today. Jack Johnson and friends played the show on April 24th in celebration of Earth Day 2008 and to benefit the Kokua Hawaii Foundation.
According to the website, “The Kokua Booth Village was a buzz with people learning and sharing the latest ideas in how to be green. We are especially excited about the interest and participation our attendees and fans took in all our greening measures, especially with the Earthday Resolutions and Kokua Festival Passports.”
The list of green measures is long and provides a what’s what of how to produce sustainable concert events. There’s plenty to learn for our personal sustainability practices, as well. We list them below with appropriate links.
As we reported, Jack Johnson’s new All At Once community offers social networking for those interested in contributing to a number of charities. Jack matches donations up to $2,500. The site continues to add features, such as a video sharing section where Jack donates $1 per view to the associated charity. Our only suggestion is to make the embed code available so the videos can be posted and shared on any social network for better exposure. The Kokua Festival also has a MySpace page.
SunChips launches new social media campaign with solar message and Facebook widget
If you’ve visited green- and healthy-living sites, you may have seen SunChips ads…assuming you don’t tune out online advertising altogether. The company’s marketing has consistently targeted this demographic. Today, SunChips announces a new social media campaign through Facebook that promotes the use of solar energy at one of its facilities, together with the purchase of renewable energy certificates (RECs) for the remainder.
Have you ever had an idea that seemed like such a good idea, such a bright idea, that you couldn’t believe you hadn’t thought of it before? For us, that idea was using solar power. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? We make SunChips® snacks, after all. So we’ve started using solar energy instead of fossil fuel to help make SunChips® in our plant in Modesto, California. Solar collectors track the sun from dawn to dusk, gathering all the energy they can. We transfer that energy into heat, which helps us produce 145,000 bags of SunChips® snacks every day. So you get a snack that’s not only better for you, but better for the planet as well.
You can download the company’s solar background document to learn more about the technology and infrastructure.
The C-suite is responding to the newfound influence of proactive producer-consumers
IBM surveyed more than 1,000 CEOs from around the world and found that the nexus of social media and green living ranks high on their list of priorities. The power of social networks and blogs is influencing everything from products and business models to CSR efforts. The overarching theme is rapid change driven by people and technology.
Hungry for change. Wildly imaginative. Disruptive by nature. Totally wired to the people who matter most. To some people, this might sound like your average teenager. In fact, these are the qualities companies will need to thrive in the near future, according to our newest CEO study.
AdAge compiles consumer data and categorizes accordingly but fails to acknowledge a key component of the social media age.
Max Gladwell was launched because we felt that the powerful nexus of social media and green living represented incredible potential for change on a local as well as global scale. As AdAge reports, we’re right on target. “Some 88% of marketers who use social media plan to spend more on it this year, and 31% of those said they will spend “significantly more,” according to Prospero Technologies research.”
AdAge identifies nine social-media “consumer personalities”. However, what AdAge fails to mention is that these are not merely consumers…that all of us are no longer just consumers. The very definition of social media implies that we are vital (and influential) participants in the marketplace of products, services, policy, and brand equity. This is one of the fundamental shifts in how marketers of all stripes will have to view and approach the media landscape. The era of marketing at people is quickly coming to a close. The days when companies owned their brands are in the past. The term “consumer” is quickly losing its relevance.
That said, the three most important participant categories for change are as follows:
SMART GREEN: Clearly they prefer to buy products in recycled packages and eschew products that pollute. They are average users of social networking, blogging and podcasting but slightly above average in message boards. They are older (50-plus) and are most likely to go online for health or financial information. And in the spirit of their eco-friendly attitude toward trees, they’re 23% more likely to send electronic greeting cards.
McCain, Clinton, or Obama? Choose your presidential candidate wisely.
“Sure, if you think about it, lifting the gas tax will increase demand and ultimately lead to higher gas prices. But doesn’t it feel like this is going to help somebody? [OPEC]”
How about raising gas taxes? How about a carbon tax? Or is that too “elitist”?
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Ethanol is an easy scapegoat, especially when troubled times call for one, but it’s not the villain most make it out to be.
When a news source like Business Week articulates your position so accurately, there’s not much more to add. Corn ethanol is a bridge. The government subsidies and mandates are necessary to build it, so that when next-generation cellulosic ethanol comes online, we’ll have markets, policies, and infrastructure in place to do some serious damage to our dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Corn ethanol’s role in the food crisis is negligible, and there are upsides to higher commodity prices, especially for farmers in developing nations, but we need a low-carbon fuel standard in order to spur innovation and level the playing field for alternative fuels.
Biel was inspired to start the venture after spending time with a fan who had muscular dystrophy and has since passed away. “Once you begin your journey into MTDN,” Biel writes on the welcome page, “I hope you are touched, as I have been, by the stories you find here. If you are, please join our community and together we will make a difference!” The MTDN mission is “to democratize giving by increasing the visibility of thousands of nonprofit organizations and empowering potential donors to search, select and fund these organizations’ specific ‘Wishes’ and then to see the results of their giving.”
Three presentations came across our media transom this week: A Greenwashing Guide (not a how-to), A Primer on Social Media, and Morgan Stanley’s Latest “Internet Trends”
These are written primarily for an enterprise audience i.e. for those wanting to stay informed on social media and green living from a business perspective. And since most of us work, at least one of these should be relevant to anyone reading Max Gladwell. Each of the presentations (PDF) can be downloaded by clicking the images.
Greenwash is with us, and unless we take action, it is likely to be with us to stay. Greenwash is an environmental claim which is unsubstantiated (a fib) or irrelevant (a distraction). Found in advertising, PR or on packaging, and made about people, organisations and products. Greenwash is an old concept, wrapped in a very modern incarnation.
