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Yearly Archives: 2011

Splash Water Festival

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Don't miss the first ever SPLASH Floating Water Festival on the shores of Lake Simcoe in Jackson's Point! The 2011 Festival will be a cool day of fun and discovery, inspired by water.

Try some 21st century water sports. See a robot that measures water quality. Hear and play the invention that will turn Lake Simcoe into the world's largest musical instrument. Learn from experts about lake-friendly gardening. Enjoy local food and have a picnic. Make art with kids. Jam with six groups of wandering musicians. Do some cool water shopping - and more! It's amazement, entertainment and learning for the whole family.

Why have a water festival?

SPLASH is the first step towards developing an iconic Water Centre for Innovation, Research and Learning in Georgina that will make our Lake synonymous with creativity and water leadership. You can take part in helping float this wonderful idea that will inspire innovation and entrepreneurship, help Ontario be a Water leader and Canada take its place as a water rich yet water conscious nation.

Tickets:

$7.50/adult and $15/family (2 adults & 2 children, $3/additional child).

Click here to buy tickets online.

The Challenges of Green Marketing in The Age of Persuasion

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I am an unabashed Public Radio junkie. All of my Sony Ericsson Walkman phones back to 2006, have not only had integrated flashlights but also functioned as transistor radios, allowing me to be permanently hooked up to CBC Radio 1, or to BBC and NPR Podcasts.

This week's award-winning Age of Persuasion Episode is titled "It's Not Easy Being Green: Green Marketing" and is one of my three essential Podcast episodes of 2011*.

Rachel-Carson-Bridge-in-PittsburghTerry begins with Rachel Carson (that's her bridge in Pittsburgh) and then traces the history of environmentally conscious consumerism, linking it to how marketers and advertisers have shaped their campaigns for sustainable, green goods. In  2007, 300,000 green trademarks were registered with patent offices, which is more than the number of trademarks and patents sought at the height of the dot.com boom.

The three main take-home messages are:

1. "Beginning with the publication of Silent Spring in 1962... various environmental crises have provoked behavioural change and new behavioural changes created new demands from the public." Responding to these demands for new products (such as sun protection lotions following the discovery of the ozone hole) has required "very delicate, very careful marketing on behalf of advertisers".

In green marketing, the public wants to know the motives of companies immediately, and green marketing ignites scrutiny.

2. "One of the biggest problems for marketers is that sustainability is a moving target. And there haven't been any universally-accepted baselines or calculators." E.g. "Are paper products green and good or, do they flatten forests? Is glass eco-friendly or, does it take a lot more fuel to transport glass than it does plastic? Is cotton one of the most natural products in the world or, is cotton one of the world's biggest pesticide crops? It's a very complicated issue."

3. The fatal mistake when it comes to green marketing is that "virtue cannot be proclaimed in green marketing". Smart marketers stay humble in their green marketing, so that the customer and press spread the word about green and ethical companies. Accusations of "Greenwashing", the deceptive use of green marketing or PR (Jay Westerveld, 1986), are likely to be targeted at green marketing campaigns with over-the-top claims, and to have major consequences.

The most cited example of Greenwashing is the rebranding of British Petroleum (BP) as Beyond Petroleum. The campaign strategy was to rebrand BP as a progressive energy company, bp. The rebranding implied that wind and solar were being invested in heavily by BP, but the reality was that BP was investing more than ever in oil exploration. (And, was recently rebranded, and not by themselves, but the public, as Biggest Polluter).

This brilliant episode of The Age of Persuasion ended with the correct observation about the contradiction that lies at the heart of green marketing: that being sustainable means consuming less, while marketing is about encouraging people to consume more. Nevertheless, he goes on to conclude, that the main task of green marketing is to normalize those high quality, truly green products, that are sustainable across multiple social and environmental indicators.

And, from Bruce Philp's new book, The Consumer Republic: "Buy the change you wish to see in the world."

Congratulations, Terry!

Dawn Bazely

*My other two top Podcasts for 2011, so far...

July 26th  2011 Interview of David Altman by Jian Ghomeshi on Q, CBC, about the rise of narcissism in North America: http://www.cbc.ca/q/episodes/

July 2nd  2011 interview of Lori Gottlieb by Jian Ghomeshi on Q, CBC, about how overparenting is creating brittle youth who lack resiliency because their parents have not allowed them to learn how to recover from failure.

The Green Marketing Manifesto by John Grant, was Terry's essential background reading.

Welcome to IRIS’ new Director for 2011-12, Prof. Stepan Wood: Dawn’s last post as Director

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In the first six months of 2011, the time absolutely whizzed by. In fact, in the 5 years, since I took on the assignment of being Director of IRIS, time has accelerated ever more rapidly. I began my third 12-month sabbatical on July 1st 2011 - they happen every 7 years - but it was not until the end of July that I have finally cleared off the last of several administrative obligations. When I tell friends and family that I am on sabbatical, they generally look on with envy and quite a few sarcastic comments. This is not surprising, because not many careers have the built in idea of a sabbatical. BUT, just to give an idea of how hectic my life was in June, just before the sabbatical began: I squeezed in field work in Iceland and business meetings in Oxford University during  a 10-day family vacation to see aged relatives! Here's some shots of grass collecting in Iceland!

 

 

 

 

 

I am very excited about two things for this sabbatical:

1. Getting up and working a nice 10-15 hour day in which I work on my own top priority projects, rather than having to prioritize the administrative tasks required to support other people.

2. Getting to be a student again, and learning a lot of new stuff.

During my last sabbatical in 2004-05, I wrote an article for University Affairs about being a harassed, overworked working parent of young children and trying to have a successful sabbatical. On rereading it, I found that my advice to readers, was actually helpful to me six years on!

I started planning for my current sabbatical two years ago. I will be spending 6 months at Harvard Forest on a Charles Bullard Fellowship finishing a book that I started writing 10 years ago. After that, I will be going back to the Zoology Department in Oxford University, where I did my doctorate. I will be a Visiting Scholar in the group of Prof. Kathy Willis, at the Long-Term Ecology Lab., where I will write another book. But before this blog reader goes all misty-eyed, yes, that IS Oxford's picturesque Radcliffe Camera, with my daughters standing infront, a few weeks ago, but to right, is a shot of the very 70's concrete Zoology building. Squeezed in between my time at Harvard and Oxford, I will be attending conferences and workshops, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2012 AGM, where the symposium that I proposed and am organizing with former York U student, Dr. Andrew Tanentzap, "Making Progress on Wicked Problems Through Interdisciplinary Collaborations" was successful in the peer-reviewed adjudication competition!

 

 

 

 

 

This sabbatical will be quite different from my previous one, when I did three separate one month trips to Sweden, and hung out in the basement at the Massey College Library at the University of Toronto, for the rest of the time. Together, with the Librarian, P J MacDougall, I wrote a cool article for Trellis, the Toronto Botanical Garden newsletter, about the Victorian gardening writer, James Shirley Hibberd, "A Victorian Google".

During the next year, IRIS will be very ably led by Prof. Stepan Wood of Osgoode Hall Law School, whom I am delighted to welcome back from a very successful Sabbatical Year in Italy. I hope that he will find time to blog, but he will probably find himself in the same mega-time-crunch boat that I did. On the other hand, I hope to be blogging more in the next year about my travels, and posting in the regular blog part of IRIS. The work that I will be doing, relates to sustainability, and specifically, habitat conservation and restoration, as well as to oil and gas and energy security.

I wish Stepan and the IRIS community, the very best for a productive  year, and I hope to see some of you in Harvard and Oxford.

Dawn Bazely

 

Tree Tenders Volunteer Training in North Toronto

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This 15 hour training program is designed for individuals who want to gain tree-related knowledge and skills. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about trees, and how to properly care for them then this course for you!

Each session provides basic arboriculture training which includes a combination of indoor and outdoor instruction. The final day of the course includes a group tree planting, putting the knowledge learned to practice. Registration is required for our fall sessions, which can be found here: http://www.yourleaf.org/tree-tenders-volunteer-training

Date, location and cost:

Toronto Botanical Garden, 777 Lawrence Ave East, Toronto
$50/$70 with course material (+HST)

Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 6:00 p.m. - 8:15 p.m.
Thursday, September 29, 2011, 6:00 p.m. - 8:15 p.m.
Saturday, October 1, 2011, 10:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 6:00 p.m. - 8:15 p.m.

C17 July Meeting: The Movement’s Progress

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The Civil Society Committee for COP17 (the committee is known as C17) is a grassroots organization dedicated to making civil society’s climate concerns heard at the upcoming 17th annual Conference of the Parties (COP17) in Durban, South Africa in November and December of 2011. COP17 will pick up where COP16 (in Cancun) left off, which, according to some expert opinion, is at a point of insufficient progress.

On July 5, 2011, C17 met at Durban’s Botanic Gardens Education Centre. At the meeting, I observed an interesting mix of harmony and disharmony among the various organizations and individuals in attendance. This can be expected, given the range of organizations and individuals present. One of the biggest questions that must be asked is the question of how much progress was made at the meeting (not an easy question to answer in my opinion). I must also concede that this was my first C17 meeting and as such I am in no position to comment on the progress that was made prior to the meeting.

One of the primary purposes of the meeting was to determine a list of principles that C17 should stand for. After small groups discussed the principles, all votes were tallied and universally agreed upon principles were noted. Some attendees felt that the process for deciding which principles for C17 to follow was itself flawed and undemocratic. This stemmed from the fact that if only one single person in attendance didn’t agree with one principle, it would be instantly and permanently scrapped.

All in all, of the 25 principles set out, only 4 were agreed upon:
• Demand a binding agreement for emissions reductions
• Pledge and review system is unacceptable
• Environmentally sustainable, socially just and equitable development
• Safeguard biodivertiy and peoples’ rights

However, several principles were almost agreed upon. That is to say that several principles were agreed upon by all groups except one or two, who made minor alterations to the principle but still ultimately agreed on it (even as little an alteration as changing “drastically reduce fossil fuel emissions” to “reduce fossil fuel emissions”). This left some universally desired principles off the agreed-upon list, with altered principles perhaps to be voted on at a later date.

The presentation delivered from a government official left most attendees disappointed. The government presenter arrived late (thereby forcing a last-minute schedule change), gave a presentation that confused the majority of attendees, and then left without actually attempting to settle the confusion. The presentation was rife with acronyms unknown to almost the entire audience. Even though attendees mentioned to her that members of the audience were confused, she nevertheless failed to explain herself. She agreed to explain the acronyms “sooner or later” yet this never happened.

Another item on the agenda was to decide on a name for the side event venue thus far simply known as ‘the space.’ A relatively unimportant (albeit necessary) decision in my opinion, yet the disagreement that came about from this decision reflected the disagreements occurring throughout the day. The democratically voted-upon name was Amandla oMa, meant to mean “Power to Mother Earth” in Zulu. However, due to discrepancies surrounding the correct translation, the name for ‘the space’ has yet to be decided.

All in all, some progress was achieved to be sure. One notable example was the amount of attendees who signed themselves up to volunteer for C17 as well as events that were registered, mostly to be held during the COP17 conference in ‘the space.’ Of course, progress during meetings of such diverse points of view cannot be expected to come particularly easily or swiftly. Having said this, the movement still seems to be alive and somewhat well, and I am hopeful that any obstacles at this stage can be overcome in the crucial months leading up to COP17.

Local community Good Food Market Opens!

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The following is from the Wednesday July 13, 2011 edition of YFile

Healthy, affordable and culturally diverse food is on the menu at the Shoreham Food Market opening Thursday, July 14 and serving the York University and Black Creek communities.

The market will operate at the Shoreham Public School, 31 Shoreham Dr. in North York, every Thursday until Oct. 28, from 3 to 7pm.

In addition to food, there will be local vendors selling everything from jewelry to clothing, as well as activities for children and health nutrition education. There are plenty of opportunities for more vendors, so anyone who is interested in selling goods at the market should contact Kidist at yorkcec@yorku.ca.

The York University-TD Community Engagement Centre is one of the organizers of the market and this is one of its many outreach initiatives.

“Accessing fresh, healthy, low-cost food can be a challenge for residents in the Jane-Finch area. This market initiative is a collaboration that brings a new asset into the neighbourhood to help address that challenge,” says Sue Levesque, executive director of the York University-TD Community Engagement Centre. “It also provides a venue for people from York and from the local area to mingle – all kinds of interesting outcomes stem from the dozens of casual conversations that start up between people shopping at the market. Come join us.”

Whenever possible, the food is brought in from local sources through FoodShare from the farmers who grow it. Each week, the proceeds from the fresh food are used to buy food for sale the following week, while local vendors keep their own proceeds.

York University students, faculty and staff, local community residents, community agencies and City of Toronto Councillor Anthony Peruzza's office, who are involved with the Black Creek Food Justice Action Network, all have a hand in making the market a reality.

The Good Food Market was established to bring healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food within walking distance of the University and Black Creek communities.

To learn more, visit the FoodShare website.

Flushing out the realities of urine diversion toilets in South Africa’s eThekwini municipality

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Urine diversion toilet with dual chamber in eThekwini Municipality

If you worked for a municipality and were tasked with implementing a plan to provide some 40,000 households with sanitation on a limited budget and a strained water supply system, how would you carry out this challenging task?   After attending a workshop on the social implications of urine-diversion toilets, an innovative, environmentally sensitive type of sanitation, in South Africa’s eThekwini municipality, the complexities of such a task and the challenges of sanitation became glaringly evident.  The workshop was delivered by Umphilo waManzi, a water services advocacy organization based in Durban, South Africa, that is conducting an action research project on urine diversion (UD) toilets.   Since 2006, eThekwini municipality has been working to provide over a half million residents with UD toilets in peri-urban and rural areas of the municipality.  According to eThekwini’s Water & Sanitation programme, “the urine diversion toilet is a form of waterless ecological sanitation designed to separate urine and feces so that the fecal matter remains dry and rendered disease free for safe handling over time.”  The toilet has an opening in the front for passing urine, which is directed to a soak-away pit, and a large one at the back for the passing of feces.  See Case Study: Urine Diversion Technology.  The toilets used by eThekwini have two vaults—when the first vault is full, the pedestal can be moved across to the second vault.  This allows time for the first to be sealed and begin the composting process.

Schematic of a urine-diversion toilet

The push for UD toilets was driven by shortcomings of ventilated pit latrines (VIPs), which are found in most townships of South Africa.  The UD toilets provide a cost-effective form of on-site sanitation, which is needed in most peri-urban and rural parts of the municipality where water-borne sewerage is currently unavailable.  For the municipality, providing proper sanitation is imperative to avoid costly public health outbreaks, such as cholera.  However, the implementation of UD toilets has been met with mixed-reviews by the residents that use them, as well as municipal officials, academics, and civil society.  In some areas of the municipality, the toilets have been accepted and are being used with little issue.  On the other hand, Umphilo waManzi’s action research in the community indicates a long list of issues, including a lack of consultation with community members about operation and maintenance, construction problems, hygiene challenges, and other social issues, such as the use of these facilities by people with disabilities.

There is also a huge responsibility on the residents to maintain the toilets.  Residents are responsible for pouring sand over fecal matter after each use to prevent odour and flies.  They are also responsible for emptying the chambers once they are full and the matter has desiccated.  The “compost” must be buried underground and a tree planted on top to mark the burial spot.  With a high-degree of responsibility being placed on residents to maintain the UDs, the need to remove the taboo around the handling of fecal matter has also become a challenge.

Also, there have been serious issues in areas where on one side of the road residents have water-borne sewerage and flush toilets, and on the other side of the road, residents have UD toilets.  Despite the large amounts of capital required to increase water-borne sewerage to peri-urban and rural areas of the municipality, this division of service is creating an urban bias for municipal services, which is contentious.  Residents on the fringes are being asked to conserve water for the sake of residents in the urban core, who use flush toilets and have higher water use habits in general.  In some areas, the toilets are being outright rejected—being used as maintenance sheds for tools, rather than for their intended purpose.  In an attempt to garner support from the masses for these toilets, the municipality is planning to construct UD toilets in its new office building in the downtown area—perhaps a symbolic gesture, or maybe a step in the right direction.

Furthermore, increased rainfall and flooding from climate change impacts in the region will pose interesting challenges to how UD toilets are constructed and maintained.  Researchers from the University of KwaZulu Natal’s Pollution Research Group in Durban have been studying more scientifically the composition of fecal matter from UD toilets and the effects of nitrate leaking from the urine soak-away pits into local groundwater sources.  Together with Umphilo waManzi, they are beginning to share information regarding the health concerns and social implications of these toilets.  Hopefully, this information and knowledge from the community can be shared with the municipality to address some of the issues and improve sanitation service delivery.

Beth Lorimer is on a 3-month research intern with York University’s IDRC-DFID Climate Change Adaptation in Africa project, titled Strengthening the role of civil society in water sector governance towards climate change adaptation in African cities – Durban, Maputo, Nairobi. She is currently in Durban, South Africa interning at Umphilo waManzi, which means  ‘Water for Life’ in isiZulu.

 

The City of Toronto’s Core Service Review

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As my previous postings have referenced, I am working for the Toronto Environment Office for the summer. It is an extremely interesting time to be working for the municipal government. Last week, the Core Service Review, conducted by KPMG, recommended that the City undertake a number of changes and reductions in its environmental protection and improvement activities to help the city realize cost savings and close the deficit gap.

Political leanings and ideology aside, this is a great example of how our government works and the democratic process. On Thursday July 21, the public is invited to provide deputations (in person or written) expressing their opinion about these proposed reductions. 

As an MBA student focusing in both sustainability and organizational change, I am very interested in the outcomes of this process. How will the vision, mission, and activities of the Toronto Environment Office evolve? How will these changes be communicated not only to TEO staff, but within City Hall and to the general public? How will the key decision makers obtain buy in from key stakeholders?

Milne Hollow and the Don River: A Natural History Walking Tour

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Though a quiet ravine, Milne Hollow once played an important role in Toronto’s cultural and industrial history. Guest host Peter Heinz, Vice-Chair of the Don Watershed Regeneration Council, will examine relics of the last century including a former ski hill and an historic farm house. The City of Toronto’s efforts to combat the invasive species dog strangling vine and other re-naturalization efforts will also be examined.

Milne Hollow Community Mulching Day

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Come get your hands dirty while greening your local neighbourhood! Join LEAF and Parks, Forestry and Recreation, City of Toronto, in mulching trees and shrubs at Milne Hollow. Native trees and shrubs are essential to improving the quality of water in Milne Hollow Pond and in the Don River. They also help reduce the speed and quantity of water that flows during storm events. You’ll help to rehabilitate this former industrial site, one crucial to storm water management in the East Don Watershed.

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