London (CNN)What’s low-tech, sustainable and possibly the most effective thing we can do to fight climate change? Planting trees. A trillion of them.
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London (CNN)What’s low-tech, sustainable and possibly the most effective thing we can do to fight climate change? Planting trees. A trillion of them.
The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment is a charity which exists to improve the quality of people’s lives by teaching and practicing timeless and ecological ways of planning, designing and building.
The Prince’s Foundation supports people to create community. Whether through championing a sustainable approach to how we live our lives and build our homes, teaching traditional arts and skills and restoring historic sites, or by looking after places to visit for everyone to enjoy, The Prince’s Foundation is leading the way forward.
The Prince’s Foundation supports people to create community. Whether through championing a sustainable approach to how we live our lives and build our homes, teaching traditional arts and skills and restoring historic sites, or by looking after places to visit for everyone to enjoy, The Prince’s Foundation is leading the way forward.
The Prince’s Foundation was created by the merging of The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community, The Prince’s Regeneration Trust, The Great Steward of Scotland’s Dumfries House Trust and The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in 2018. This combined force enables the charity to achieve His Royal Highness’s goal of creating harmonious communities, through three core tiers.
Realising HRH The Prince of Wales’s vision of creating harmonious communities. Respecting the Past, Building the Future.
Mission: Sustainability
There is overwhelming scientific consensus that our world is experiencing dangerous global climate change, and equally overwhelming evidence that environmental pollutants are harming our health. It is urgent that we take immediate steps to minimize carbon emissions, reduce other pollutants, and remove unsustainable materials and harmful chemical inputs from all furnishings product platforms. SFC supports members of the industry in taking those steps.
The Sustainable Furnishings Council is a coalition of manufacturers, retailers and designers dedicated to raising awareness and expanding the adoption of environmentally sustainable practices across the home furnishings industry.
Our mission is to help companies reduce their environmental footprints as they grow, and to help consumers find healthy furnishings. To accomplish these lofty goals, we provide the best education, promotion, and networking opportunities available. We raise consumer interest in environmentally safe furnishings and promote the development of many more sustainable options.
SFC urges the use of Life Cycle Assessment as the best method for analyzing the environmental and health impact of products and a verifiable chain of custody as the only acceptable method for tracking wood flow. SFC members support the triple bottom line of PEOPLE – PLANET – PROFITS and lead the industry in best practices throughout their supply chains. Members are committed to continuous work toward a healthy future, inside and out.
Our goals are to:
History:
The Sustainable Furnishings Council was created and organized in the showroom of our founder, Gerry Cooklin, at High Point in October, 2006.
For years, Gerry had pursued sustainability as a personal passion. He had an awakening moment while camping in the Sierra Nevadas when he encountered a magnificent Juniper tree at an elevation of over 11,000 feet. He was humbled and, in an instant, recognized his duty to protect the rainforest, a prime source of wood for his furniture company, South Cone. He worked to “green up” his own manufacturing operations and to make a significant difference in his native Peru. Further, he started to organize small meetings at the High Point Furniture Market, which eventually blossomed into the founding meeting of SFC with some 70 members present. The SFC has since grown to over 400 members, the largest organization of its kind in residential furnishings.
Our structure has been key to our success. By reaching out to all constituencies in the industry, and including environmental heavyweights like Rainforest Alliance, World Wildlife Fund, a founder of the US Green Building Council as well as retailers, manufacturers, designers, and suppliers, we maintain a crucial balance in perspective. We welcome one and all to join us in doing our part for a healthy future!
Good Business That’s Good for Business
Importantly, we note that sustainability has become a mandate among the buying public. As consumers become more educated, they seek out acceptable choices that meet their needs for style, value, and eco-responsibility. Our organization is known for its rigorous compliance with established sustainability standards to ensure that all members are demonstrably committed to ongoing improvement.
In 2008, we launched a public advertising and in-store tagging program for consumers to identify retailers and products that exceed our threshold sustainability standards. Our Standards Committee reviews all legitimate, independent certification programs to establish eligibility requirements. All who joined in 2007, our debut year, are designated Founding Members and we appreciate what their commitment has made possible.
The time is now — the solution starts with you!
Read all about this inspiring foundation here…
Photo Source: Autumn Peltier, a teenage activist from Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island, Ont., addresses the United Nations General Assembly on March 22, 2018. She’ll return to the UN headquarters in New York on Saturday to advocate for water protection in Canada’s Indigenous communities. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-United Nations-Manuel Elias
She’s not old enough to get her learner’s permit, but Autumn Peltier has been a driving force in the fight to protect water in Canada’s Indigenous communities for years.The teenage activist from Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario has been engaged in the issue since she first came across a boil-water advisory in a nearby Anishinaabe community when she was eight years old.
But Peltier said she’s had this connection since she was in the womb, where according to cultural teachings, one learns to love water as they love their mother. It traces back even further to her female ancestors, from whom she inherited her traditional role as a water carrier.
As she turns 15 on Friday, the same day students across Canada are expected to march in a massive strike intended to disrupt climate-change inaction, Peltier finds herself at the forefront of an environmental movement being led by youth like her and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.
This weekend, Peltier — the chief water commissioner for Anishinabek Nation, which advocates for 40 member First Nations in Ontario — will return to the United Nations to share her vision for a world in which everyone has access to clean water.
“I’m willing to do my best to represent Canada and the Indigenous people and have a strong voice for our future,” she said by phone from New York.
“I basically want to tell them about the importance of water from a cultural, spiritual level, and then try to tell them that it’s time for action.”
Peltier is set to address hundreds of international guests on Saturday at the Global Landscapes Forum, a platform on land use backed by UN Environment.
It’s her second time speaking at the UN headquarters in Manhattan, having urged the General Assembly to “warrior up” and take a stand for our planet last year.
Peltier, who is nominated for the 2019 International Children’s Peace Prize by the David Suzuki Foundation, has spread her message at hundreds of events around the world, her mother, Stephanie Peltier, said.
In 2015, Peltier attended the Children’s Climate Conference in Sweden, and a year later, confronted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about his “broken promises” at a meeting of the Assembly of First Nations.
“She has taken Canada’s water crisis on Indigenous lands to the global stage,” Robert Nasi, executive director of the Global Landscapes Forum, said in a statement.
Peltier will help kick off the forum’s conference on ecosystem restoration with a speech drawing on her spiritual knowledge about Indigenous Peoples’ connection to land, water and Mother Earth.
The event comes on the heels of the UN’s Climate Action Summit, where earlier this week 16-year-old Thunberg delivered an impassioned plea and scolded world leaders for their inaction on climate change. Thunberg is expected to attend Friday’s climate protests in Montreal.
Peltier had hoped to meet up with Thunberg in New York, but said making plans proved to be difficult. She’s still excited to connect with other international youth activists, particularly those from Indigenous communities.
Peltier feels her generation is leading the charge on climate change, because while they may not have created the problem, they’re poised to suffer the most severe consequences.
“Will we even have a future to look forward to, for our future children, grandchildren?” she said. “This is our future we’re trying to protect and take care of, because it’s being basically destroyed.”
With youth-led climate strikes sprouting up across the globe, Peltier’s mother said there are signs that adults are finally catching up.
“Where I come from, the youth are our teachers. We learn from them, and so you have to listen to them,” Stephanie Peltier said. “Today, I think it’s just an eye-opener, and the youth are being empowered and they’re being allowed to share.”
She said her daughter’s Instagram audience has seen a tenfold increase this week from 5,500 followers to more than 55,000 as of Thursday afternoon.
She assumes that Thunberg’s moment in the global spotlight may be a factor in this exponential growth. She noted that young Indigenous activists have long been advocating for environmental issues, but are only now receiving recognition.
“We know first hand … that our people have been impacted for many years,” she said. “Now everybody’s saying, hey, what about the Indigenous people? They’ve been doing this work too.”
This report was published by The Canadian Press on Sept. 26, 2019.© 2019 Copyright Times Colonist
A family who escaped the “rat race” of the city to live completely off grid have revealed that their only bill left is council tax. Seven years ago, Essex vets Charis and Matthew Watkinson decided to drop everything and start afresh.
For the pair it was a big, and daunting idea – not least due to their lack of farming experience. But, now parents to Elsa, five, and 18-month-old Billy, the family of four have found a way to adapt to everything from their man-powered washing machine to their horse-poo powered cooking gas by using solely the land they live off.
Speaking from Beeview Farm in Pembrokeshire, Charis, 34, said: “We were in Essex when the London riots were going on and they got within a mile of us on the last night. “Then there was the Occupy London which was all about relying on consumerism and that affected us we did rely on shops. “We just figured we wanted to be able to look after ourselves and be a bit more self sufficient.” For the couple the idea continued to grow, prompted by some research into today’s climate crisis.
The Essex vet added: “Neither of us are from Wales but we knew about Newport as we had been camping here and loved the area. “I think by the time we handed in our notices I knew I needed to do it. As we were just locuming after we moved we didn’t have a job lined up so living without a stable plan was a big thing. But we were ready to get going. “Otherwise we would have bought [a house] – we almost had it that way with a mortgage and a job but we didn’t want to carry on with the rat race.
We almost did it without thinking about it.”
Images: Robert Melen
Images: Matthew and Charis Watkinson
photosource: https://www.sekem.com/en/media/pictures/
When Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish returned to Egypt in 1977 to start the SEKEM Initiative he had a strong vision deep in his heart:
“In the midst of sand and desert I see myself standing before a well drawing water. Carefully I plant trees, herbs and flowers and wet their roots with the precious drops. The cool well water attracts human beings and animals to refresh and quicken themselves. Trees give shade, the land turns green, fragrant flowers bloom, insects, birds and butterflies show their devotion to God, the creator, as if they were citing the first Sura of the Qu’ran. The human, perceiving the hidden praise of God, care for and see all that is created as a reflection of paradise on earth. For me this idea of an oasis in the middle of a hostile environment is like an image of the resurrection at dawn, after a long journey through the nightly desert. I saw it in front of me like a model before the actual work in the desert started. And yet in reality I desired even more: I wanted the whole world to develop.”
SEKEM Initiative was founded with the vision of sustainable development and giving back to the community. It aims to develop the individual, society and environment through a holistic approach which integrates ecology, economy, societal and cultural life. Today, the vision that brought Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish to dig the first well in the vast desert land still resounds in all of SEKEMs activities. Like a compass, our vision, mission and values guide us in the everyday work in all SEKEM institutions.
Read more about SEKEMs vision & mission
In 1977, Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish started the SEKEM Initiative on an untouched part of the Egyptian desert (70 hectares) 60 km northeast of Cairo. Using Biodynamic agricultural methods, desert land was revitalized and a striving agricultural business developed. Over the years, SEKEM became the umbrella of a multifaceted agro-industrial group of companies and NGOs, including different educational institutions and a Medical Center. Today, SEKEM is regarded as a leading social business worldwide.
Read more about SEKEMs history
After experiencing two completely different worlds, European and Egyptian culture, the vision of SEKEM appeared in Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish’s mind. When he then bought desert land to realize his dream and build up a sustainable community, he was called crazy. Together with the support of some other dreamers and believers however, he realized a small miracle in the desert. Helmy Abouleish, Dr. Abouleish’s son and most dedicated supporters, now serves as Chief Executive Officer.
Read more about SEKEMs founders
In 2003, the Schwab Foundation awarded Dr. Abouleish as one of the world’s outstanding Social Entrepreneurs. That same year, SEKEM and Dr. Abouleish received the prestigious “Right Livelihood Award”, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. The awarding committee stated that “SEKEM demonstrates how a modern business model combines profitability and success in world markets with a humane and spiritual approach to people while maintaining respect for the environment.”
The photo on the right showes Hans-Martin Schempp presenting the One World Family Award in 2013 in Germany.
Since the very beginning, SEKEM has understood that its great vision could only be realized through the support of a network of strong partners. Therefore, since 1977 SEKEM has continuously striven to foster a strong network of dedicated partners to work with in a fair and transparent way. Building partnerships based on mutual trust is important not only in private but also in economic life. SEKEM would not have been possible without long standing cooperation that has been developed over the years.
Read more about SEKEMs partners & network
The Companies within SEKEM are part of the SEKEM Holding, which was established in 2000. Each Company within SEKEM Holding has its own Management Board. Selected Managers of the Companies and the Holding Management take part in the Management Meeting, which is held on weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. The Holding Company is led by a Board of Directors, which is in charge of major strategic and financial decisions in regards to the SEKEM Holding.
Explore SEKEMs organizational structure
SEKEM was founded with the idea of sustainable development and the aim to build a prosperous future for the surrounding communities and Egypt. Through a holistic approach that includes the four dimensions of economy, ecology, cultural and societal life, SEKEM strives to truly implement sustainability. This holistic concept guides SEKEM and all its institutions like a compass in the everyday work. Supported by the SEKEM Sustainability Flower, the Initiative yearly monitors its performance in the SEKEM Sustainability Report.
Read more about sustainability