NYC artists Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray about their hydroponic project called Window Farm.
In New York City a group have moved on to sourcing food directly from their apartment windows. No joke.
The organisation is called Windowfarms, and is a new movement toward hydroponic, vertical farming in urban areas.
Why not start to grow your own okra, cherry tomatoes, and lettuce from recycled water bottles in your windowsills.
Read on windowfarms.org
Happy farming!
Annelie
Globe Award Jury consists of the most recognizable, experienced and noted representatives in the field of sustainability. This year joining such outstanding names like Prof. Mohan Munasinghe – the Nobel Peace Prize winner 2007 – will be Prof. M. S. Swaminathan – “the Father of Economic Ecology” and Dr. Carlos Arruda, Professor and Director of International Relations at Fundação Dom Cabral.
“He is a living legend” said Secretary General of the United Nations Javier Perez de Cuellar about Prof. M. S. Swaminathan who is also known as the “Father of the Green Revolution in India”, for his leadership and success in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat in India. He is the founder and Chairman of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation.
He was one of three from India included in TIME Magazine’s 1999 list of the “20 most influential Asian people of the 20th century” , the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. Professor Swaminathan is a member of numerous, leading, scientific academies, such as the Royal Society of London and the U S National Academy of Sciences. He has received 58 honorary doctorate degrees from universities around the world. He currently holds the UNESCO Chair in Ecotechnology at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai (Madras), India. Due to his extraordinary achievements and experience he will be joining the Sustainability Innovation Globe Award Jury.
Dr. Carlos Arruda is at present a chairman of the UNICON board (USA) and a member of the World Economic Forum (Switzerland) Council on Talent and Diversity of the Technical Advisory Council of Instituto Venturus (Brazil). He has obtained his PhD diploma in International Business from the Bradford Management Centre in United Kingdom. Apart from business activities and educational work, Dr. Arruda is an author of books and articles on the topics Internationalization of Brazilian enterprises, Competitiveness and Management of Innovation. Thanks to his experience in the sustainable development area and Latin American background he will provide multidimensional view on sustainable cities across the world as one of five members of the Sustainable City Globe Award Jury.
These unique experts will select laureates for the Sustainability Innovation Award 2010 and the Sustainable City Award 2010. They will help to reach an objective and fair verdict. Therefore their contribution to Globe Award’s development will be crucial.
The Globe Award’s main purpose is to explore and support researchers, innovators, cities and companies that are leading in sustainable development. The awards are handed in four categories: the Sustainability Research Award, the Sustainability Innovation Award, the Sustainable City Award and the Sustainability Reporting Award. The candidates can send in their application from December 1st to February 28th 2010, at www.globeaward.org/apply.
Globe Award will be presented for the fourth consecutive time at the solemn gala at Nordiska Museet in Stockholm April 29th, 2010.
Global warming is not newly known, nearly half a century before Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” this film was made.
The exerpt is from the well known educational documentary “Unchained Goddess” produced by Frank Capra for Bell Labs television program “The Bell Telephone Hour.”
/Annelie Andersson
The sun has been working hard since the beginning of the earth’s history, c. five billion years ago. It’s sending us enormous amounts of energy, each hour the same amount that the entire humanity is using for a whole year. It’s causing the wind to blow, the water to move, the trees to grow. And it’s also behind the formation of oil, coal and peat. How do we dare to call solar power, wind power, water power and bio fuels alternative energy?!
Time for a mental shift!
Humans have been using fossil fuel for some few hundred years, but we have been using solar power, wind power, water power, bio fuels for as long as we have existed. Therefore, from now on, we should regard fossil fuels as alternative energy, fuels that humans used for a short period of time compared to before and after (!) the fossil era. The true and sustainable energy sources are of course the sun itself and its derivates.
Each of the energy sources solar, wind, water and bio fuel could theoretically provide humans with enough energy with already existing technology. Not to mention technology that will be developed in the near future. So, what are we waiting for? Let’s run into the real energy era and use the huge potential for business as well as keeping our planet sustainable!
/Anders Modig
Program Director at Globe Forum
Think about that innovator you met, that amazing individual who was so passionate about his solution for a more sustainable planet… Don’t you think he deserves recognition?
Or the company you work for, are they putting efforts in sustainability reporting? Fantastic!
How about the city you live in, shouldn’t the project on recycling, or perhaps solar panels or bio gas buses be recognised?
Or that professor at the local university, his research could probably help many!
It all started when natural products industry veterans, Mark Retzloff and Paul Repetto, embarked on a search for organic milk and happened upon a cooperative of small organic dairy farmers in Wisconsin. The cooperative consisted of a handful of visionary dairymen and women who believed in organic values, exactly the ideals Retzloff and Repetto sought.
With the escalating demand for organic milk, one organic oasis would not suffice. In 2001, they established the Horizon Organic Producer Education (HOPE) program to help dairy farmers transition to organic farming. In addition to helping dairy farmers “go organic”, the program also aimed to co-create innovative practices with suppliers to ensure Horizon could guarantee its customer the quality they expected.
Leveraging the relationships with supplier and looking at smaller niches are all important ideas in an effort to be more innovative. This approach has made Horizon a $250 million brand with essentially no manufacturing at all, and it is through their suppliers that they are able to introduce new break-through products such as organic baby formula.
While you will open up possibilities in innovation whenever you look outside for ideas and inspiration, your chances of finding the right opportunity go up considerably if you have a good idea of your values and what you want.
As Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favours the prepared mind.”
Poland holds back the new climate targets in Europe. Not very good in relations to ambitious goals. But is the hero the one that sets the highest goals or the one that achieves them?
Poland deserve some commend due to the fact that the country has decreased their CO2-emissions by 30 percent since 1990, during the same period Spain has increased their CO2-emissions by 50 percent…
Kind regards,
Gustav Gorecki
A very big difference between large awards is who gets to nominate the candidates. For the leading sustainability award, the Globe Award, any one can nominate and apply.
The award is given out in four categories:
- Research
- Innovation
- City
- Corporate Reporting
You can apply directly online on http://globeaward.org/apply
DHL Innovation Award was held at the DHL Innovation Center in Bonn December 1st. An inspiring day with seminars and award cermony, focusing on logistics.
First of all I was really impressed over the innovation center. A whole building focusing only on innovation for the company. A lot of companies would benefit from such a dedicated investment in the future.
10000 visitors per year makes it not only an important contribution to the future products from the company, the marketing purpose might be even more valuable, showing the world that this company really is working hard to find the solutions for tomorrow.
DHL encourage their over 500000 employees to continously work with innovation, which make it natural that one of the Award-categories are dedicated to the most innovative employee-idea. The other categories covers customers, junior scientists and entrepreneurs.
DHL has really overcomed the “Red Queen-effect” written about earlier in this blogg. It´s seems like DHL has come to the insight that in order to find the best solutions they need to focus on their core business and strive for open innovation-encouraging and collaborating with their suppliers and customers in search for not only the best solutions for the company and it´s customers but also the environment.
Many thanks to Gülderen Tuna, Schabnam Djahanbakhsh and the rest of the team at the innovation center for organisating such a great event!
Kind regards,
Gustav Gorecki
