Schedule for SustainabilityCamp 2008 confirmed!
Do you believe in sustainable marketing, business, and technology? Are you involved in sustainable (or green) activities or strategies in your business? Want to share your insights and expertise with a group of interested and active people in an informal and open setting? Then leading a session at SustainabilityCamp is for you!
Session details:
Session topic: Marketing Green Online: Actionable Strategies for Marketing the Environment
Speaker: Helen M. Overland
Overview:
You've built your website, you blog, and maybe you accept donations online - but do you really feel like your message is getting out? Helen M. Overland, Director of Search Engine Marketing at non~linear creations, and founder of GreenGTA.ca, will give an overview of real-life, actionable marketing strategies specifically for effectively marketing environmental initiatives through the Internet.
Some topics that will be covered include:
- Getting the word out
- Online advertising on a shoestring budget
- Useful sites & technology to be aware of for marketing
- Leveraging those Search Engines
Session topic: Models to Advance Systemic Change
Speaker: Sean Howard and Lina Srivastava
Overview:
We are working on a visual framework to map systemic change - a global framework that can be (1) adapted to and inform local solutions-building and execution of social change initiatives, and (2) replicable across social change issues and world regions. This session would be a workshop where we would share the model and our work to date while actively exploring how and where it can be applied to sustainable development initiatives. Our aim is to provide value to all attendees while getting further insight and feedback on the model in progress.
Sean Howard and Lina Srivastava are recognized leaders in their respective fields with over 10 years of marketing and communications experience respectively. Sean brings a focus on digital engagement and Lina works on strategies for social change initatives. A few days prior to SusCamp, Sean and Lina will be working with leaders from design thinking, marketing and on-the-ground social change initiatives to craft the next pass at an evolving conceptual model for systemic change. This session will take place at Parsons in New York City.
Session topic: Hacking the Fair Trade business model. An introduction to the FTJ Co. Family Supply Chain
Speaker: Ryan Taylor of the Fair Trade Jewellery Co.
Overview: In todays market place it is important to see past the 'Green' label and understand the environmental impact of products and services equally affect the social well being of producers, and purchasers locally and globally. The 'family supply chain' is about creating a truely responsible business model, one in which all levels of production share in the impact of a product socially, environmentally, and financially. This session is designed to share real experiences using the model, explore how it can help other organisations and explain how we measure change.
Ryan Taylor is a designer goldsmith from Toronto Canada his talk is based on his [start-up] company's experience using the 'family supply chain' business model. His FTJ Co. works directly with the communities of the Choco rain forest in Colombia, & the Oro Verde Corperation. From those interactions he is also able to share insight and experiences with the Fair Trade Labelling Org.
Session topic: Clarifying the Clutter: How collaboration is key to raising your service, product, cause above the effects of public greenwash
Speaker: Jason Eano & Steve Herzog
Overview: The 'green' market is scattered and in many pieces. Thanks to popular culture it is easy for messages to be lost in the clutter of 'green'. Sustainability as a practice faces many obstacles including established business habits, human behaviour anchored in non-sustainable activity, and competitive like-minded industry that make it difficult on the consumer to easily consume sustainable living products, services, and habits.
This session will open a discussion about using methods of collaboration to improve sustainable behaviour for the following three consumer types: the residential home owner, the high-rise developer, and the inner organizational evangelist who is looking to implement feasible sustainability in the workplace.
The session will use working case studies to showcase how collaboration implements sustainable behaviour for…
1) the consumer looking to navigate and understand sustainable culture for their home.
2) the industry that recognizes the benefits of implementing sustainable business practice to reduce footprint and positively effect profit margins
3) the individual who needs support and resources to create positive change in the workplace.
We want the showcase of these models to lead to a wider discussion amongst the group about using collaboration to clean up all 'green' messaging. What other sectors are facing the burden of 'green' clutter? How can collaboration positively effect consumer culture? What are the pros/cons for multiple brands to work together to promote themselves as a whole? How else can we stop the 'greenwash'?
Steve Herzog is President of Greener Solutions Certified, a Toronto based sustainable living network focused on providing emerging sustainable technologies to a variety of industry.
Jason Eano is a Community Engagement Strategist for A Typical Collective, also out of Toronto.
Session topic: Social Networking Tools for Community Building
Speakers: Eden Spodek and Connie Crosby Community Divas
Overview:
How do you get started using social networking tools to engage your community? "Community Divas" Eden Spodek and Connie Crosby explain different levels of engagement online, which Facebook tools to use, other tools available, and building your own social network.
Session topic: From BAH to ba: Valence theory and the future of organization
Speaker: Mark Federman
Overview:
If you think about it, many of the dysfunctions of our world have emerged directly or indirectly from organizations, be they governments, corporations, or ironically, even some groups working for social change. I suggest that it is the single-mindedness coming from our traditional Bureaucratic, Administratively controlled, Hierarchical (BAH), industrial-age conception of the purposeful, or mission-driven organization that creates such an environment from which these dysfunctions can emerge. My research proposes a Valence Theory of Organization, cast in the context of creating basho – a Japanese philosophical concept that I apply as an emergent space of engagement and relationship collectively occupied by all whom the organization touches. Organization conceived according to this new philosophical and theoretical foundation, provides its members a wider range of questions that can reasonably be asked of practical situations, and hence, more nuanced alternatives. Perhaps more important, it provides a substantial, range of humanistic options for decision making that are often not readily available in traditional management thinking.
Mark Federman is a researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at University of Toronto, and a member of the Collaborative Program in Workplace Learning and Social Change.
The notes for the talk are posted here.
Session topic: How to Use the Internet to Break The Commodity Trap in Meat
Speaker: Carrie Oliver, Oliver Ranch
There are some 800,000 farms, ranches or finishing yards that raise beef in
North America but only a handful of retailers and processors who control access
to the end consumer. Seeking simplicity for themselves, retailers have trained
us to use an oversimplified grading system to differentiate quality, flavor, or
tenderness.
Truth is, beef (or pork or lamb…) is just like wine: taste and texture
varies by breed, growing region, diet, and the relative talents of the rancher,
processor, and butcher. Oh, and sustainability and humane treatment make for
better tasting meat.
Let's discuss how we can use the wine and coffee industries as models to create
a new language for meats and the power of the Internet and social networking to
disrupt the imbalance of power in this industry.
What can we do today to start building a supply chain that will close the gap
between farm and fork to better support a network of responsible growers,
truckers, slaughterhouses, butchers, and distributors and at the same time
deliver cleaner, healthier, even personalized food to meat lovers across the
world.
Session topic: United Way Toronto – Connecting with GenNext using Social Media
Speaker: Russ Morgan
Overview:
A look into United Way Toronto’s newest GenNext initiative with Espresso | Brand Infiltration™. Only a day after its launch, Espresso’s Account Supervisor will give you a complete run down of the tools utilized to maximize community engagement within the aforementioned ‘GenNext’ demographic.
Learn more about United Way of Toronto and Espresso.
Session topic: The Ethical Coffee Chain - Taking 'Fair Trade' out of the Ghetto?
Speakers: Adam King, Yoani Kuiper
Overview:
In the Netherlands, 27% of coffee comes from certified ethical sources. In Canada, it's still only around 1%, with only a small minority of Canadians even aware that there are large environmental and social wrongs being done in the coffee industry. Why?
In this session, Adam and Yoani will be introducing a new strategy they've been working on that's aimed at transforming the market for ethical coffee in Canada through an a relational "Adopt A Farm" program, multi-level community organizing, and an integrated, ultra-transparent supply chain.
Session Topic: Action for Prevention: How to Mobilize a Community Grass Roots Style
The Women’s Healthy Environments Network is a grassroots organization with values rooted in collaboration, coalition and partnership.
The strength of this organization comes from its vigilant service to the community. WHEN is on the front lines of health issues such as cancer prevention, reproductive health and children’s neurological and respiratory conditions.
Access to community dialogue furthers the important work WHEN does with researchers and educators who develop and disseminate scientific and medical information which inform our policy makers to adopt sustainable and responsible practices.
WHEN leverages a series of traditional and contemporary business models to achieve its mission.
This session is intended to stimulate a discussion about:
- Health impacts of environmental toxicity
- Local Natural Resources
- Households
- Alternative Solutions
- How WHEN connects to Our Communities?
- The 4 P’s of Environmental Health Promotion
[http://www.womenshealthyenvironments.ca]
Session title: Sustaining Green Spaces and Outdoor Recreational Areas
Presenter: Heidi Sander
Overview:
Need to get outdoors? The focus at this conference is green but let's
face it, we're getting a lot of environmental doom and gloom stories.
While we focus on a reduced ecological footprint, we need to get our
feet outdoors, to interact with what we’re trying to save. Connecting
with the city’s wealth of natural spaces is important – we become
more protective of what we value.
Heidi Sander, editor of OutdoorsCity.com will
focus on urban green spaces and outdoor recreational areas in Toronto
and address the issue of enjoying recreational activities and yet
sustaining the places we love. How do we maintain a balance between
the overuse of our natural areas and the need for a moment of fresh
air and an outdoor escape from our busy lives? A large portion of
this session will be opened up to focused discussions on various
issues and questions generated by participants.
Session title: Building self-sustaining communities
Presenter: Corey Reid, Freshbooks
Overview:
