Conscious travelling

If you are about to plan your next holidays in Central and South America, it’s a must to have a look at Whole Travel, who’s mission is:

To provide the best travel opportunities to unique and authentic destinations that preserve the environment, support local cultures and promote sustainable lifestyles.

This sounds promising – take a look at their sustainable tour search engine.

Via CITIZENShift.

L’Herbier: soins corporels bio et équitables

Plongeons-nous un peu plus dans les petits soins – connaissez-vous l’Herbier?

« Les Soins Corporels l’Herbier offrent des produits de grande qualité, faits à la main au coeur du village de Mont-Saint-Grégoire en Montérégie. Cette entreprise québécoise opte pour des méthodes artisanales en utilisant des matières premières naturelles, biologiques, équitables et biodégradables dans le respect de la nature, de l’environnement et du corps humain.

Les Soins Corporels l’Herbier collaborent avec les producteurs locaux et les travailleurs de petites coopératives qui fournissent des actifs végétaux exempts de produits chimiques nuisibles (pesticides, herbicides, colorants artificiels, etc.). L’ensemble de ces démarches poursuit un but précis : favoriser le bien-être de tous et chacun tout en maintenant un rapport harmonieux avec la nature, dans une logique de développement durable. »

Je vous propose de débuter vos achats avec la Crème pour le corps à l’érable – miam, un délice qui peut très bien servir de crème à main. Leur liste de produits est disponible en ligne.

Nous pourrons plus tard cet été vous donner plus de détails lors de notre visite sur place

Guide to Greener Electronics

Since August 2006, Greenpeace is releasing a “Guide to Greener Electronics” where they are looking at various hardware manufacturers and their policies on toxic chemicals and recycling.

Our ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ aims to clean up the electronics sector and get manufacturers to take responsibility for the full life cycle of their products, including the electronic waste that their products generate. The guide does not rank companies on labour standards, energy use or any other issues, but recognises that these are important in the production and use of electronics products.

If you look at the chart of companies shown above, you will notice that Apple – for example – is not that “green” when it comes to recycling components and usage of toxic chemicals with their products (only ranking 6 out of 10). Of course, the latest report (which is from December 2007) does not include the new MacBook Air. And the detailed report says that Apple is trying hard to produce more eco-friendly hardware. Just have a look at the detailed report (pdf file).

On the other hand I did not expect that Sony Ericsson, Sony, Dell, Lenovo (former IBM) and Samsung are the current leaders in that chart. I think that could be their strategy to catch up with Apple’s position as an innovation leader. Although I would love to see Apple to combine both, environmental friendly hardware as well as cutting-edge innovation and design! I am looking forward to the next report released by Greenpeace, including the new Apple products.

Take a detail look at the current report (from December 2007 and links to all detailed reports as pdf files) here.

Previous versions of the guide are available online as well: August 2006, December 2006, April 2007, June 2007 and September 2007.

La banane équitable

Pour en finir avec les sacs de plastiques

Pecha Kucha Montreal

Et voilà Guylaine dans mon inbox qui me demande “pis pis, c’était comment Pecha Kucha?”… Dommage qu’elle n’ait pu y être, elle aurait adoré.

C’était mon baptême, car en toute honnêteté, j’ai bien de la misère à me déplacer dans des événements mondains c’est temps ci (le confort de ma maison, et les périodes de créativité où je dois incuber sont très nombreuses dans ma vie…) et la SAT avec son environnement sombre ne fait pas partie de mes endroits préférés, mais bon, un bon coup de pieds au derrière et moi et mon beau étions sortis de la maison.

Le concept Pecha Kucha grosso modo: une soirée “démo et présentation” où 15 créateurs de tous les domaines viennent présenter leurs projets – urbanisme, développement durable, design, science, etc. – et ils n’ont droit qu’à 20 diapos (slides en bon français) de 20 secondes. Cela fonctionne à merveille, empêchant que les présentations deviennent trop lourdes. Mentionnons aussi que chaque présentateur est debout au micro, pas caché derrière une table en train de nous endormir tous.

Ce fonctionnement me fait unpeu penser à une dégustation, un genre de all you can eat, un buffet où l’on peut prendre une bouchée de tout ce qui nous intéresse, et jeter le reste à la poubelle sans trop se sentir mal – et cela va sûrement de pair avec notre société de consommation en 5ième vitesse. Mais rassurez-vous, l’image d’un buffet de sandwich mou ne représente aucunement l’événement d’hier soir, car le contenu de cette soirée Pecha Kucha Montreal était à la hauteur et de qualité, loin d’être superficielle, avec des présentateurs engagés, quelques fois éclectiques, et passionnés.

Une occasion en or de voir ceux qu’on entend pas assez souvent, nos Movers & Shakers locaux.

Un compte rendu détaillant les présentations se trouve ici.

Easy Gardening

Green Clothing

I’ve been digging into baby-wear, this to find the nicest outfits for little Emilie and her brother Leo. Surprisingly, i have found a great diversity of online shop selling only the best of organic clothing, Organic and sustainable materials in socially-conscious practices as they call it, this for kids, and while i was at it, maybe some goodies for the grown ups we are.

Before starting to browse the links and get into shopping frenzy, here is a list of what could be an harmonious way to consume ethically *and conciously*, so maybe keep these in mind next time you’ll shop :

Rule #1 – try to keep our consumption to a minimum
Rule #2 – shop for organic products
Rule #3 – shop for product created in a socially conscious way (no exploitation of individuals, of the environment and animals)
Rule #4 – shop for local goods, to reduce the amount of energy needed for the product to be sold
Rule #5 – shop for high quality products, so to reduce the amount you have to buy and trash each year
Rule #6 – make sure the product can have a second life, thus that it can be easily recycled.

Ok, so here we go. Here’s a selection of Organic Clothing shop to start from. Let me know if there is something you think is missing, this way i can make my listing of green shops grow.

Shops i bought from:

• Kate Quinn Organics: by far the most interesting for kids clothes! I’m really looking forward for their Women’s clothing collection!
• Faeries Dance: Great, personal customer service over email, and the clothes i received where wonderfull (organic underwear, bra and pajama from Blue Canoe and Bgreen Apparel, read about them bellow). The website is nothing so appealing, but they have a great selection of plain organic underwear at really good prices.
• Dear lil Devas (Canada based): great customer service, and lovely bamboo yoga pants
• Bluecanoe: Mine where received from Faeries dance. Not so my style, but still a wide selection of women clothes.
• Bgreen apparel: Bought from Faeries Dance, a little sad they dont directly sell online – their women pajama is great!
• Essere Organics (Canada based): i bought the greatest organic flannel bed-sheets ever. Lovely customer service here also.

Shops i did not bought from:

• Speesees: really nice kids wear designs (but slow website)
• nat & helens: clothes, toys and bedding stuff
• Cultivate Kids: some of the sweetest quotes on kids wear, ‘Cultivate my curiosity‘, ‘Cultivate my creativity’ and so on – maybe a little too new age for you, but i love it!
• Ohgeezorganic: a reduce but really sweet selection of kids-wear
• Bohmo: a good selection of baby clothes, home decoration, clothes for women and men
• Maggie’s functional Organics: a reduced but fairly good selection of organic clothing for men, women and kids – and a relatively easy website to navigate on, cheap prices
• Jonano Organic clothing: women and kids clothes
• Kasper Organics: a great selection of bath sheet, matt, wash clothes, socks, tights, handkerchiefs, napkins and so on
• Peta’s Shopping guide to compassionate shopping: a great place to start for green and non animal clothing

Canada and Quebec stores (most do not sell online right now):

• Etiquette.ca : the responisible consumer network, has a lot of ressources
• OOM : men and women’s wear in Montreal, they have a little online shop
• Rien à cacher : carries hip urban fashion items that are made in worker-friendly and eco-friendly conditions
• Grace Cello has a fairly good selection of women clothes

This was a quick selection – if you did not found your style in these links, please ask google for ‘Organic clothing‘ and follow the links, there is now a really interesting amount of clothing style available in organic clothing.

Why buying Organic cotton? Here are some infos on the topics, dig on your own for an extensive research. Source: Natandhelens.com

What is organic cotton?
Organic cotton is grown using methods and materials that have a low impact on the environment. Organic production systems replenish and maintain soil fertility, reduce the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and fertilizers, and build biologically diverse agriculture. Third-party certification organizations verify that organic producers use only methods and materials allowed in organic production. (OTA)

Why should I choose organic products?
It’s better for the environment:

• Cotton uses approximately 25% of the world’s insecticides and more than 10% of the pesticides (including herbicides, insecticides, and defoliants.). (Allan Woodburn)
• It takes roughly one-third of a pound of chemicals (pesticides and fertilizers) to grow enough cotton for just one T-shirt. (Sustainable Cotton Project)
• In 1995, pesticide-contaminated runoff from cotton fields in Alabama killed 240,000 fish. (Organic Consumers Assoc)
• It is estimated that pesticides unintentionally kill 67 million birds each year. (Organic consumers Assoc)

It’s better for your health:
The Environmental Protection Agency considers seven of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton in 2000 in the United States as “possible,” “likely,” “probable,” or “known” human carcinogens (acephate, dichloropropene, diuron, fluometuron, pendimethalin, tribufos, and trifluralin). (EPA) According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 20,000 deaths occur in developing countries each year from pesticide poisoning, many of these are attributed to cotton production.

Once cotton has been harvested it needs to go through a series of processes including washing, bleaching, dyeing and printing to turn it into a T-shirt, towel or duvet cover. At least 8,000 chemicals are used in these processes – many of which are classified by the WHO as ‘moderately hazardous’ to ‘acutely hazardous’. (Soil Association)

Verdir à son rythme

What are you driving with? Oh, I run on air!

This was for me a stunning news… the french company Motor Development International (MDI) is about to start the mass production of a car which is only driven by compressed air! They claim the car can drive for 100 km with a single air tank, and producing zero emissions!

I have to admit, we often hear about ground-breaking innovations and most of the time the product is far from being ready to sell, but in this case it seems that MDI is taking it seriously. One of the investing companies is the Indian car manufacturer Tata. Production should start in September 2008 in France, and a US company is about to license the concept to produce similar cars in the US in 2010. Possible uses for the air car are taxis as well as hybrid cars.

But what makes me really think is that it is obviously possible to create a car which runs with air! I mean if this is possible, then I guess that there must be many other alternative solutions available for problems which we are facing nowadays (not only environmental problems). I think the only show stopper for these alternatives must then be companies and lobbying organizations which have the power to decide over markets… I cannot explain it in a different way for myself.

So, did you get my point? Throw 100 million dollars of research money at them and they will build a car which drives on air forever… without filling any tank or whatever.

Links for more infos:
News article (in german)
Air Car Factories

Litière bio 2ième partie, et Weleda

On en avait déjà parlé sur Vu d’ici, et le chat de Janick a fait le test. Ce mercredi l’émission La vie en vert fera un topo sur la litière bio!

Pendant qu’on est dans les achats écolos, voici ma sélection écosanté du mois: déo Weleda à la sauge pour lui, Wild Rose déo pour moi, dentifrice végétal Weleda et savon à linge écofriendly de chez Lemieux. J’ai aussi déniché le livre ‘Tout sur le Compost‘.

Je suis une consommatrice aguérie des produits Weleda depuis ma tranche de vie Allemande, moment où j’ai découvert l’anthroposophie et son fondateur Rudolf Steiner dont je vous ai déjà parlé.

Voici un court résumé sur l’origine de la marque, ainsi que l’inspirante signification derrière le nom Weledas, ou déesses aux mystérieux pouvoirs de guérison…

Weleda Company was founded in Europe in 1921 in collaboration with Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), Austrian born scientist, educator and philosopher. Steiner conceived the philosophy known as anthroposophy which, in very broad terms, sees the human being as a totality of body, soul and spirit standing between nature and the cosmos.

A group of European physicians became interested in Steiner’s teachings, which also touched on the causes of illness. After a series of study courses and lectures beginning in 1920, an anthroposophical clinic was founded along with medical laboratory in Arlesheim, Switzerland. Medicines were made based on guidelines supplied by the doctors. This laboratory quickly expanded. Franchises were soon opened in Germany, England, France, Holland and other countries and given the name Weleda. In America, Weleda was incorporated in 1931. Since 1994, Weleda, Inc. is a subsidiary of Weleda AG, Arlesheim, Switzerland.

“Weledas” or “Velledas” were Celtic wise women who guided their followers to an understanding of nature. Traces of them are found in Ireland, Germany and France.

The last individual to bear the name “Weleda” was mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus. According to Tacitus, Weleda was a healer priestess who, at the beginning of the Christian era, lived near a famous shrine by the river Lippe. She was a seer and prophetess respected by the Germanic tribes. She was taken prisoner by the Romans and died in Rome about 80 AD.

Zero-waste cutting edge city experiment

The United Arab Emirates began to build on the Masdar City project, which will be a zero-carbon, zero-waste city using cutting-edge solar power technology in the middle of the deserts of Abu Dhabi.

Finished by 2015 this city will be inhabited by 50,000 people and a showcase of how cities will look like in the future.

Critics say that the 22 billion dollars used by this project should rather be invested in the “greening” of existing cities. Nevertheless this project will be an important information and experience hub – not only for the building companies – but for everyone interested in sustainability and environmental issues.

Via Telepolis
More info

Toucher le coeur

Cette image vaux bien plus que 1000 mots… Déniché sur Le teritoire des sens.