Entries Tagged 'Corporate Social Responsibility' ↓

If you’ve read Orwell’s 1984 you know the importance of words - if you don’t have a word for something you can’t think or communicate about it.

Well, thanks to the work of an OCAD think tank, we’ve got a word for those who willfully damage the environment - depletist.

I can’t wait until spell check recognizes it.

In the meantime, here’s the link: http://tankofthinkers.wordpress.com/about/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line

Great entry on wikipedia about the concept of the Triple Bottom Line (or people, planet, profit)

Sunday, July 20

Gladstone Hotel

to register: http://www.spreadtheword.org or http://superpower.ning.com/

Registration is almost full, so if you’re coming, please register soon

http://creativity-online.com/work/view?seed=010f3aea

It’s easy to be cynical in and about the world of advertising. We are at least partially responsible for the rise in consumer culture.

But when powers are used for good, it should be recognized

Here’s a few shots of the process:

http://felipov.this.ro/2007/01/25/green-advertising/

It’s amazing that a sport that has such an ‘interesting’ (redneck?) reputation is going to take the lead of major North American sports.

Regardless of your opinion of NASCAR, or motorsport as a whole, this has to be applauded.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/OtherSports/2008/02/20/4862346-ap.html

If your employer had a voluntary scheme whereby a certain amount of your paycheck, in the form of a payroll deduction, went into some type of sustainability program, whether carbon offsets or keeva loans or what have you, would you pay it?

If the company matched it or the government didn’t tax it, would you be more encouraged?

Why isn’t this available? Why aren’t companies concerned with sustainability working at making this type of thing as easy as possible?

Supposedly over a billion people watch the Super Bowl, making it the largest one day sporting event in the world.

At the end of the game, Eli Manning, as MVP, won a new Cadillac Escalade Hybrid. Yes, that is disgusting. Rather than work to make this behemoth of a vehicle smaller, lighter, more efficient (or God forbid take some social responsibility and wipe the truck off the Earth completely), they make it a hybrid so more people will buy the damned thing.

But, I digress.

What do you think the carbon footprint of the Superbowl is?

You’ve got 60 players per team, plus a legion of coaches. Then there’s the 70,000+ fans in the stadium, those that come down just for the parties, the celebrities and private jets and media and…

It’s too big to calculate.

Or is it?

Although they would like you to believe otherwise, the American Football isn’t the only sport in the world. And the Super Bowl is not the biggest sporting event.

The Olympics, the World Cup, the European Soccer Championships and Formula 1 are all bigger.

All of these other events and their participants understand that it’s time to make a change.

Witness Formula 1. The travelling circus will visit 16 different countries this year for races, never mind all the testing before the season, during the season and after the season. Each team employs hundreds of people and millions of dollars of technology, including at least one wind tunnel operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Their carbon footprint must also be too big to calculate.

But it’s not.

At least one team, Renault F1, decided to employ some of their brainpower and make the calculation. And then they offset their operations. This team is easily the size of one of the two teams participating in the Super Bowl.

Honda F1 Racing went one step further and ran their car without any sponsors last year, instead having a picture of the Earth on their car as a way of drawing attention to Global Warming. Replica show cars were loaned to sponsors who were willing to show their commitment to environmental change.

Over a billion people watch Formula 1 over the course of a season.

So now back to the Super Bowl.

If the numbers are correct and the NFL has an audience of over 1 billion people, why can’t they make a similar statement? Aren’t there enough smart people to make the calculation? Are they not making enough money to purchase the credits?

Considering that the pre-game programming lasts six hours, imagine how much return they could get for their efforts. All they have to do is mention their offset once every half an hour over the course of the pre-game and the game itself. That’s ten hours of free coverage broadcasted to one-sixth of the world’s population.

So why can’t this happen?

Every second Sunday I join up with a bunch of like-minded people to discuss sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility and the role the design community can play in making the world a better place.

I’m not an environmentalist, but I am a realist.

Imagine the change we could enact if we all started doing little things.  Turning out the lights when you leave a room doesn’t seem like a big thing, but imagine if all the people in Canada did this.

Remember when recycling was a ‘hippy’ thing? Remember when gas was 29 cents a litre?

Become an agent of change.

http://www.earthhour.org/