European Week for Waste Reduction

Source ewwr.eu

This week is the fourth edition of the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR).  This initiative reminds us to reduce waste in our everyday lives.

The European Week for Waste Reduction aims to organise multiple actions and to inform the greatest number of European citizens about the simple actions that can be taken in the everyday to help contribute to waste reduction.

Picnic on the Streets for More Sustainable Living

Source KAURI

This week, we attended KAURI’s event celebrating its fifteenth anniversary.  KAURI is a Belgian CSR organisation.

All the presentations were brilliant but I was really inspired by one of the speakers, the Belgian Professor Philippe Van Parijs.  As he was fed up with cars taking over public spaces, he wrote an article asking people to come to boulevard Anspach in the centre of Brussels every Sunday for a picnic in the road. 

TEDx Brussels: Bits, Atoms, Neurons, Genes - Bang Bang

Bang Bang, TEDx came to town.  This year's amazing TEDx Brussels was all about science, entrepreneurship, health and education.  This was a recipe for success as the event had a full house of over 2,200 of curious minds, a stage full of astonishing speakers and a dedicated TEDx Team.  TEDx Brussels 2012 was as high-level as any TED event, with the advantage of having a pinch of Made in Belgium stories. 

Bikes in Our Everyday Lives

Villo

I never was a car person.  Buying a car was an idea somewhere on the edge of my mind, something I might do one day.  But after many years I now ask myself, “Do I really need one?”

Three months ago I discovered ‘Villo’, the city biking scheme in Brussels.  I knew how to ride a bike but I was always nervous to use one in my everyday life.

A Journalist’s View on Sustainability Communications

What does an environment journalist expect from communications and PR people, whether in-house or agency?  How can we make a journalist’s life easier?  What do they need that they aren’t getting?  What frustrates them about dealing with PR people?

Tackling these questions, ENDS Editor Francois Le Goff was guest speaker at this month’s Sustainability Communications Lunch on 29 October 2012 in Brussels.  Francois has been with ENDS for seven years and Editor for the last two.  He joined us to talk about sustainability communications from the environment journalist’s point of view. 

Oceans, greening and carpets...

Source: www.futura-sciences.com

Iʼve been getting out and about to events over the last couple of weeks and itʼs always refreshing to hear new ideas and case studies of companies working to really embed sustainability into their business and their culture.

At the same time, itʼs still disappointing to hear in public events like this weekʼs Green Up Film Festival in Brussels that industry is to blame for all our troubles and will only move if confronted by regulation. That may be the case for some - perhaps even many - companies, yet at all these conferences, Iʼm impressed by the progressive companies who are presenting their approaches to sustainability.

The communications challenge for the more switched-on companies now is how to educate their consumers, suppliers and greater community. The level of cynicism seen from some participants at this Belgian conference is detrimental to those companies investing and working hard to embrace a more sustainable business model.

Greenwashing always backfires in the end

Credit: newclearvision.com

This blog often comments on developments in sustainability communications and there have been a number of interesting developments recently.

In principle, we all agree that Sustainability Reporting combines information about an organisation’s economic, environmental and social performance.  It gets more tricky when we try to agree on the definition of terms and come to a consensus on reporting standards.  GRI standards are treated as the norm in industry but until now, no governmental or EU standards are in place.