Tips on how to organize a sustainable event

I’ve been to the World Fair trade Week conference in Milan to attend the #Fefs talk, a delightful event where I listened to the words of my green blogger friend Francesca Romana Rinaldi (Biofashion), the founder and CEO of @People Tree Safia Minney and director Andrew Morgan of stunning docufilm about fashion industry @The true cost.

Tip #1 • Treat your staff well

If you are organizing an event that brings some good to society, young volunteers will run to help you. However, you should not forget to treat them right. If they have fun and enjoy working at the sustainable event, they will have a good memory of sustainability and the people gravitating around the so-called ‘conscious’ world. You give us all a favour by making possible for young people to associate positive experiences to sustainability, as they will remember it over time – and probably a sustainable mindset will influence their mindset as young parents and adults.

Tip #2 • Substitute neck straps with everlasting beautiful necklaces

It is difficult to produce a zero impact event. AGICES – the producers of the Fair & Ethical Fashion Show had the wonderful idea of substituting ugly, anonymous and environmentally non-friendly neck straps with beautiful necklaces from the Bead for Life collection. There is no waste and the volunteers will keep the necklace as a conscious gift to themselves.

I myself have bought Bead for Life jewellery a few years ago and I’m happy to see this project is still alive. They make eco bijoux by turning used colored paper into beads and they realize colorful, elegant and unique bio accessories. Moreover, by purchasing a Bead for Life eco accessory you will assist a social project to eradicate poverty in some areas in Africa (Uganda, Kenya, and others).

Read more here 

Tip #3 • Low impact booth and temporary furniture

Pallet, cardboard, recycled wood, up-cycled furniture, reused, rented or borrowed stuff … It is all good to put together a good-looking, elegant, comfortable and clean environment.

Link to video recap of Fair and Ethical Fashion Show in Milan 2015 [in Italian]

Until next time,

GA

Best environmental advertising campaign of 2013

Sometimes environmental campaigns are gloomy and insistent. I believe these posters are clear, beautiful, explanatory and amusing enough to win the Green Addict award of best environmental campaign of the year!

Creative director: Andrew Hofmeyr

Customer: SANCCOB, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds

 

Sustainable diets: cereal cropping

Originally published on Slowear Journal on Nov 21st

Thanks to Francesca Stignani for translation

Leggi in italiano

More cereals, less meat, and a lot of fruits and vegetables. The sustainable diet, which is good for our health as well as for the environment, has a lot in common with the vegetarian diet, starting from the huge consumption of cereals.

Yet how sustainable is it to grow cereals? As with any other kind of extensive farming, thanks to phytochemistry and integrated farming there have been quite a few improvements in the pesticide containment rate. However, we need to do more, which is exactly what is happening today.

Italy has  been the first country to ever patent a method called “Riso secondo natura” (nature-wise rice), developed by Molinia farmers. The method includes a series of “natural” techniques allowing the firm to spare around 50% of the water needed for irrigation and up to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. Along with the use of three innovative machineries, the only real innovation brought along by this method lies in following the rhythms of nature and its cycles.

As for wheat – the most common cereal in our diet – the search for sustainability starts already from the seed. A famous Italian pasta manufacturer has been examining the farmland and the atmospheric conditions near its plants and mills, selecting the most suitable wheat plants in order to obtain a good yeld with very limited artificial interventions. Moreover, since the fields are very close to the factories, these experimental crops are super-sustainable.

Another example of natural farming comes from Poggio del farro, a formerly abandoned farm surrounded by the Tuscan hills which has recently been renovated and currently produces organic emmer. The crops are so excellent that they get sold before they have even grown!

•  Hope you enjoyed the article!  •
[New Sustainable Agriculture Model]