Emmanuel Prinet was selected by the Canadian Environmental Network (RCEN) to be International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) Champion for British Columbia. This position was an important part of RCEN’s ongoing collaboration with Environment Canada’s Ecosystems and Biodiversity Priorities Division. Throughout 2010, Emmanuel and the other selected IYB Champions prepared short reports on what work environmental groups in their region were doing on biodiversity, and promoted the IYB and biodiversity activities. To read the Champions’ reports, click here: http://rcen.ca/public-participation/engo-international-year-of-biodiversity-champions
News for the ‘News’ Category
One Earth selected to lead Int’l Year of Biodiversity in BC
Monday, December 13th, 2010Launch of Canadian Earth Summit Coalition!
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010300 people attended the launch of the Canadian Earth Summit Coalition in Vancouver. It’s a self-organized, independent and informal civil society network of non-governmental, academic and research organizations from across Canada that is working towards Canadian leadership at Rio+20. The launch party on 24 November featured inspiring talks, an eco fashion show, live painting, and videos. Details on the event here: http://earthsummit.ca/event.html. The Coalition’s call to action for Rio+20 is named “WE CANada“:
WE CAN.
WE CAN make a difference.
WE CAN join forces for the positive.
WE CAN change the world.
WE CAN.
WE CANada.
Let’s show the world what we can do.
WE CANada is a platform for education and action whose hub is the http://earthsummit.ca website.
WE CANada also has a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/WE-CANada/120119944719249
A Twitter account: http://twitter.com/#!/wecanada and a Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/WECANADA2012 where you can watch the short WE CANada video. For more information or to become a partner, contact Aleksandra Nasteska, the Lead Coordinator of the WE CANada campaign and a One Earth Associate.
Vanessa is a North American rep to UNEP meeting in Nairobi
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010One Earth Executive Director Vanessa Timmer is selected as one of two North American civil society representatives to attend the U
nited Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Governing Council in Nairobi. The selection took place at the UNEP Regional Office for North America civil society consultation in Washington DC. Jeffrey Barber, Executive Director of Integrative Strategies Forum, is the other representative and they will travel to Nairobi in February, after consulting with a wide range of civil society actors, to deliver the key messages from the consultation. Vanessa co-facilitated the meeting with Darian Rodriguez Heyman and facilitated the breakout dialogue on sustainable consumption and production and the green economy. The key messages and co-facilitators report from the Washington meeting are available online. While in Washington DC, Vanessa also met with the North American Roundtable on Sustainable Production and Consumption to prepare inputs for the upcoming United Nations meetings, and with Wendy Philleo, Executive Director for the Center for a New American Dream for joint project planning.
One Earth welcomes its new Advisors
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010One Earth’s Advisory Council was established in 2010 to support the One Earth team in scoping out and implementing its program of work. Full biographies of our Advisors can be found here.
- David Boyd: Environmental lawyer, professor, writer, and activist; research team for the Sustainable Prosperity Initiative; co-author, Sustainability within a Generation
- Dianne Dillon-Ridgley: Environmentalist and human rights activist; international speaker on Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility, Population, Gender and Justice issues
- Mark Holland: Principal, HB Lanarc planning and design firm, where he focuses on integrating sustainability principles into the mainstream development industry including for large-scale master-planned communities; extensive public sector experience (City of Vancouver’s first Manager of Sustainability).
- Michael Kuhndt: Head of UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production
- Erica Priggen: Executive Producer, FreeRange Studios; producer of The Story of Stuff and 350.org
- Bruce Schearer: Partner and Chairman, Apollo Philanthropy Partners; civic leader, former non-profit executive and expert in international development and philanthropy
- Juliet Schor: Professor, Boston College; author of books including Born to Buy and The Overspent American
- Peter Victor: Professor, York University; 40 years on environmental issues as an academic, public servant and consultant; economist and author of Managing without growth: smaller by design, not disaster
Emmanuel gives workshop for Canadian environmental network
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010On Sunday 19 September, Emmanuel Prinet of One Earth is giving a workshop about Sustainable Consumption and Production with Stefanie Bowles of the Policy Research Initiative. It’s part of the 2010 Canadian
Environmental Network conference taking place in Montreal this week. They ask participants what it would take to create a sustainable economy and society when it seems like we are often fighting brush fires. How do we get to transformative change that addresses the root causes of unsustainability? This workshop explores sustainable consumption and production as an organizing concept and holistic lens whose essence is to catalyze large-scale systemic change, both in Canada and globally. If you’re in Montreal, you can attend and discover how this approach can support your work, and share your ideas about what the effective leverage points are that will create the sustainable consumption and production patterns the world needs. More on the CEN website.
Gaining Ground, 4-7 Oct (Vancouver)
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
Cities are the place where we can magnify the impact of our sustainability choices. One Earth is an official partner of the October 4-7 Gaining Ground Conference on the theme EcoLogical: The Power of Green Cities to Shape the Future. The conference is targeted to practitioners and advocates across a range of fields working to advance and accelerate urban sustainability—in Vancouver and North America. Gaining Ground 2010 intends to promote Vancouver’s green economy, vision, culture, and achievements, and in all ways to assist Vancouver to become North America’s first ‘eco-logical’ city—making it a front-runner in green practice and economy much as it has been in urban design and city-making for two decades. We encourage you to join us there!
Side Event on Footprints at the UN
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
One Earth Director Bill Rees set the stage for an international panel on Eco-Footprints and Solid Waste at the United Nations, during a side event hosted by One Earth with UN-Habitat, Worldwatch Institute and UNEP. At least 65 delegates came to hear from the speakers during the UN’s 18th Commission on Sustainable Development. Erik Assadourian, Director of Worldwatch Institute’s 2010 report, launched it here: State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures from Consumerism to Sustainability. UN Habitat’s Nairobi-based programme manager Graham Alabaster showed how waste has a different context in developing countries, which was brought to bear by speakers Mwalim Ali Mwalim and Cesar Castaneda, from the governments of Zanzibar and Nicaragua respectively. In developing countries, consumer goods – including those being produced from or for foreign markets – are causing problems in their landfills, for instance because of toxics. Juliet Schor – co-Founder of the Center for a New American Dream – wrapped up the panel by talking about “conspicuous waste” where as products become cheaper and cheaper, there are rising levels of waste, as seen in the garment industry. The side event was called: Eco-Footprints and Solid Waste: Making Tracks to Achieve Sustainable Patterns of Production and Consumption. The pamphlet is here.
Eco-Footprints & Solid Waste:
Making tracks to achieve sustainable patterns of production and consumption
Making tracks to achieve sustainable patterns of production and consumption
One Earth is active at the United Nations in New York!
Friday, May 7th, 2010Emmanuel Prinet, Vanessa Timmer and Bill Rees are taking part in the UN Commission on Sustainable Development meeting (2-14 May 2010), which includes a focus on sustainable consumption and production (SCP). Emmanuel is the official nongovernmental organization (NGO) representative on the Canadian delegation. He and Vanessa are engaged in shaping the NGO position on SCP, and Vanessa is presenting in the inter-governmental plenary on behalf of the NGOs in the Interlinkages dialogue. Bill Rees is part of a high-level expert workshop on the green economy and sustainability with the UN Division on Sustainable Development. Bill is also speaking at the United Nations as part of a Side Event which One Earth is co-hosting on “Eco-footprints and Solid Waste: Making tracks to achieve sustainable patterns of production and consumption” with the Worldwatch Institute, UN-Habitat and UNEP.
One Earth at De-Growth Conference
Friday, April 30th, 2010One Earth Director Vanessa Timmer is speaking at the De-Growth Conference in Vancouver on the 1st of May. The De-growth conference builds on similar conferences that have been held in Paris and Barcelona, and examine what a viable economic, social and ecological system will look like. ”The evidence is overwhelming that unlimited industrial growth is no longer possible. Our challenge now is to find ways to shrink the overall size of the economy without creating unemployment and poverty.” Vanessa’s presentation focuses on applying our knowledge of social change to inform the de-growth movement, and on sharing One Earth’s projects and United Nations activities.
One Earth and media discuss the Good Life
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010One Earth is leading the theme, RETHINKING THE GOOD LIFE, at this year’s Media That Matters conference (Hollyhock on Cortes Island, BC, May 19-23). MtM is one of North America’s most unique and intimate media gatherings for traditional and new media — four days of open dialogue, trend-spotting and transformative ideas. For One Earth’s theme: What if we reinvented how we consumed and produced things in a way that enriches all aspects of our livesour ecologies, economies, and social life? What would this future reality look like? What would it take to make this happen? These are critical questions we must answer. How can we engage media to co-create and communicate this new story? You can register at 1-800-933-6339.
