Recovering an Island Tradition

I recently returned from a bit of touring on the islands of Trinidad & Tobago in the West Indies. Although not specifically there for Visionary Values research, I can never stop myself from looking around wherever I am for signs of sustainability.

Now, I knew that T&T had a long tradition of growing cacao or cocoa, but I was unaware that this has essentially been on the decline for many years now. Trinidad holds most of the 1.3 million population of the twin island nation, but Tobago seems the be the island holding on to its historical traditions a bit more strongly. This may be due to the heavy reliance on tourism and the need to preserve the natural beauty for visitors.

Tobago is home to the western hemisphere's oldest protected rainforest which occupies 14,000 acres in the center of the island. This designation came on April 13, 1776! A very smart decision! In many of the islands coastal communities the residents still rely very heavily upon fishing and do so using methods such as poles and nets.

I had the opportunity to visit a place called the Tobago Cocoa Estate which was begun by a well traveled native Tobagian by the name of Duane Dove. A sommelier by training, his well developed taste buds are put to work on this fine estate. His goal is to recover the tradition of producing the highest quality cocoa and to do so using sustainable farming methods. Now, I still need to investigate further, but the claim is that he is producing his cocoa in a "chemical free" process. I need more details and will present my findings on our website in 2011.

Moving along though, Mr. Dove has produced Tobago's first single origin chocolate bar from his cocoa and it has received some very solid reviews! This means that the chocolate bar he has had produced (small manufacturer in France) contains only cocoa from his estate, whereas many bars have mixed sources. As I understand it, once his estate begins to get more solid footing, he has plans to actually produce the chocolate himself rather than ship it overseas. This is a process that is already underway at another island grower called Grenada Chocolate Company on the nearby island nation of Grenada.

Needless to say, growing cocoa on these islands, and in particular at the Tobago Cocoa Estate, is very difficult work! The inclines are great and the difference between the two seasons, dry & wet, present very challenging logistics. Visionary Values will present the challenges of these cocoa growers in 2011 when we unveil our overview of the chocolate industry. What you don't know will surprise you!

Great Tool For Sustainable Sourcing!

Came across this recent post on Triple Pundit. Tools such at the one developed by Sourcemap.org can be tremendously useful in opening dialogue on unsustainable processes as well as moving dialogue forward when sustainability is in need of some pushes forward. Many certifications of sustainability are not all they claim to be and yet, they are the best we have available. We believe that a full process exchange of needs and desires can benefit everyone! They should be strengthened until they improve or until they prove themselves inadequate. Consumers must make the push to move this forward.

Conscious Coffees - 2011 Micro Roaster of the Year!

Congratulations go out to our friends at Conscious Coffees here in Boulder, Colorado! Earning Roast Magazine's Micro Roaster of the Year is a great honor, doing it by adhering to stellar standards of sustainabiity is quite another. Check out the magazine's article in the most recent issue

Moving Forward!

We haven't been idle between posts, just BUSY! Our side project of developing websites for sustainable businesses has begun to take root. We love to consult with these folks and see up close just what they are up to regarding making the best efforts to operate lightly on the planet. Now that we have a space for deep breathing, we are hard at work putting the Visionary Values website together. We are genuinely excited about what we have to offer. We will also have the companion Facebook page together with our twitter account to complement the website.

Stay tuned!!

It Ain't Easy Being Green in Boulder, Colorado

Moving Forward!

Our efforts to document sustainable businesses and endeavors is in motion now! We are currently in edit mode and should have some excellent interview segments to share with you. Over the past few weeks we have conducted interviews with three businesses: Licious Organics in Boulder, Colorado and Karma Balm and Interiors Green in Bethlehem, New Hampshire. We are very excited to get this project underway!!

Additionally, there has been extensive video documentation of a build site here in Boulder featuring Artesano Plasterers Ryan Chivers & Phil Metzler. This project also features a living roof installed by Andy Creath of Green Roofs of Colorado. We look forward to conducting interviews with these folks as well down the road.

Visionary Values believes that by sharing inspiring stories of individuals and companies working more in harmony with our environment and supporting sustainability, we can encourage others to do the same. After all, we share this beautiful world and all of our challenges must also be shared!

A Link to Sustainable Palm Oil Video

Here is a Bloomberg story on palm oil production and a Liverpool, UK company's efforts to do so sustainably.

What do you think? We believe that consumers should take them up on their promise to source verify their palm oil and present their claims of sustainability in a transparent fashion. Just following up to confirm! If a large enough number of people made this request in an inquisitive and respectful manner, then consumers would have a fully justified reason to support this company's efforts if they are being honest and forthright.

The Palm Oil Conundrum

Palm oil is ubiquitous. It it almost literally everywhere one looks on the grocery shelves. It is also now becoming a key ingredient in the biofuels marketed globally. Indonesia is the world leader in production of palm oil and Colombia, a rising player, is the leader in Latin America. Even Brazil recently announced plans to develop areas of the Amazon for the production of this highly lucrative commodity. They plan to do so whilst minimizing the risk to the environment. Is that possible?

Suffice it to say, the manner in which palm oil is produced is generally massively destructive. Large tracts of virgin forest are clearcut and burned to make way for the monocropped palm plantations. Biodiversity is eliminated and soils are destroyed. In doing so, communities are often alienated, human rights are violated and localized societal unrest ensues. Corporations take complete control and locals are hired on to work the plantations for poor wages.

What is being done? Certainly not enough and not with sufficient haste.

What can consumers do? Check out the following for more up-to-date information on efforts to increase sustainability in palm oil production and to locate ways to identify sustainably produced palm oil:

http://www.greenpalm.org/
http://www.rspo.org/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/forests/3534204/Palm-oil-round-table-a-farce.html
http://understory.ran.org/2008/05/06/let-the-sleuthing-begin-theproblemwithpalmoilorg-goes-live/

Additionally, take a look at the following blog from a small producer with an eye towards small-scale production:

http://mysarawak2.blogspot.com/2010/07/integrated-oil-palm-farming-in-bintulu.html

What Does 'Sustainable Food' Mean, Anyway? - Food - The Atlantic

What Does 'Sustainable Food' Mean, Anyway? - Food - The Atlantic

More Bad News For The Environment!

A ban on the sale of genetically modified alfalfa seeds produced by my "favorite" company, Monsanto, has been overturned by the US Supreme Court! Those wonderful "smart" folks who declared that corporations are just like people, have struck again!! These lovely frankenseeds will now be sold BEFORE safety tests have been completed!! Does this make sense?? Not to us!!! Meat eaters watch out as alfalfa is mostly used as cattle feed.

Make some noise and stop our courts from allowing corporations to run roughshod over our rights as consumers to have control over what we eat as well as over what we eat eats!!

Conscious Capitalism Videos

Hey Folks!!

Check out CNNMoney.com for a few videos that focus on conscious capitalism. This one is an interview with 7th Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender.

A time for green brands

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

A time for green brands

View more presentations from whatidiscover.

2010 green brands global media final

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

2010 green brands global media final

View more presentations from Green Brands Survey.

We Are Responsible...

This is what happens when we release responsibility for our impacts on this beautiful planet:

Until we are willing and enabled to make the correct decisions, then the likelihood of tragedies such as the BP oil spill will always loom. We all must work together to ensure that transparency is a legal responsibility of our governments and corporations. In addition, consumers must provide the oversight of these entities. Consumers around the world, especially those of us in resource hungry countries and democracies like the United States, must take charge of information and DEMAND full transparency of activities and decisions which impact us and our health and the health of the planet (the same thing in our eyes). There clearly are those who must shoulder the financial and moral burden of the impact of this global disaster so that it can be cleaned-up and so that we all can learn to avoid anything remotely close to this again. Let's stop passing the buck and assuming or hoping for someone else to do what we are clearly capable of doing ourselves!

Green Butts!

The Onion Strikes Again!!

We are the problem & the solution!!

It Ain't Garbage!

Even though we may be enlightened businesses or enlightened consumers, there are other areas of opportunity to increase one's sustainability. Since we all eat (except for that Indian mystic who claims he doesn't eat or drink), we all produce food waste. What happens to all this organic matter once we have removed the easily accessed nutrients from it? Most folks send it into the garbage bin or into the garbage disposal. Out of sight out of mind or rather, out of sight OUT OF OUR MINDS!!! Seriously, how can a nation of around 305 million do this??

What disappears is an incredible amount of latent energy that is literally black gold! The power of these food scraps once they are converted into compost is immeasurable! What can we do? For folks with yards and with time they can maintain a compost pile and produce valuable nutrients for their yards. For most folks, they either don't have the time, inclination or space. What to do??

A new service called Compost Cab in Washington D.C. is nearing its launch! These folks will get participants to sign-up for a regular curbside pick-up of organic material which will then be composted! An additional cool thing is that this endeavor encouraging municipal composting as well as linking with other community-based organizations like Engaged Community Offshoots (ECO) to make it work. Agricity is the innovator behind this initiative.

Perhaps this is something that YOUR neighborhood could use?!?

This is why we have such a @#$%ed-up energy policy in the USA!!

When folks spew garbage like this it is no wonder we have such a steep climb towards changing our nation's dependence on non-renewable energy sources! Listen, if one looks only at the bottom line and sees nothing else connected to it, a perspective such as this one looks brilliant!

To state that solar only works when it is sunny is just mis-information and simply untrue! The energy production is certainly reduced, but to use this as an argument against solar power is rubbish! Just think of how many people and animals die every year directly and indirectly due to our insatiable thirst for oil and coal! When was the last time someone perished using solar energy?

So, calling an industry "unprofitable" when so little has historically been spent on alternative energy and big oil has spent lots to derail legislation in its favor, is a bit over the top, wouldn't you say?!? Throw in all the tax funded incentives and subsidies they have gotten and the gap is even larger! In fact, as of the middle of last year, investment in green power sources in the US had actually dropped 8% due to our shaky economy.

When hugely successful companies like Exxon spend only around 1% of its profits on alternative energy sources and BP 2.9% (the most of the big five oil companies), where is the money going to come from?? Where is the commitment to sustainability?? NOWHERE!!!

Well, that's not entirely true...WE NEED TO BE THE AGENTS OF CHANGE!!! We will do it through our demands that these tactics change. Certainly in light of the outrage over the recent coal mine deaths and the very recent (and very devastating!!) BP oil spill, we have a GREAT OPPORTUNITY, but perhaps we are not noisy enough!!

Visionary companies need visionary consumers. Folks who demand only the most ethical behavior and smartest decisions. Maybe our standards are too low? Any comments???

Starbucks Shareholders Oppose Expanding Recycling Efforts

In keeping the java spirit of discussion alive why not look at our most capable (yet seemingly least willing to aggressively pursue sustainability measure) purveyor of specialty coffees: Starbucks!

At a recent shareholders meeting, a measure put forth by a minority of shareholders, to increase the company's recycling, was voted down 89% against  to 11% in favor. It seems that they are happy with their efforts to date and do not deem any additional progress necessary. The measure was supported by As You Sow, an organization that has also put forth similar efforts at recycling reform to Pepsico & Coca-Cola.

Clearly, continued activist efforts are needed to move these folks in the right direction.  Quite honestly, as is the case with furthering Fair Trade & Organic purchases by Starbucks, the customers are the only ones who can make a lasting impression!! Why should consumers always look to corporations and governments to tell them what they want or what is best for them?!?

If consumers were more involved in their welfare and not just passive participants in capitalism gone amok, we would not be faced with such catastrophes as the BP Gulf oil disaster!! Let's wake up and make our purchases matter!!

Our latest project is now coming to some degree of completion!! This explanation into the story behind the organic and fair trade coffee industry is a remarkable journey! Over the next few months, we will be adding more content and depth to the data and discussion. Let us know what you think!!

An Ocean of Ideas

Following up on our last post on sustainable fisheries we thought it interesting that the New York Times has a blog interview today with Casson Trenor who works with Greenpeace on these particular issues.

Take a look and give us your take on the recommendations offered.

We feel that although Mr. Trenor says that consumer education isn't ultimately going to be the solution to our fisheries depletion the end result of greater customer awareness and knowledge will, in fact, lead to greater customer oversight of retail buying policies. Obviously, if customers know which questions to ask at their seafood counters, then certain responses will either satisfy them or cause them to take their dollars elsewhere. That dynamic would also follow through into demands of our policy makers to support sustainable fisheries standards and hold them to regulating the industry.

Consumers must always place themselves in positions of power when it comes to how our food is produced, otherwise we remain susceptible to shortcuts and greenwashing that seek to confuse and divert our collective attention.

Trader Joe's To Sell Only Sustainably Harvested Seafood

The grocery store chain Trader Joe's has announced it will only sell seafood harvested sustainably by the end of 2012. This comes in response to criticism and a campaign by Greenpeace and also to address numerous customer requests over the years. 

The company said it will begin working with third-party groups to define sustainability, ensuring that canned, frozen and fresh fish sold in stores across the country will come from sustainable sources. They will also create more specific labels for fish, including catch methods and Latin names.

Most of us are already quite aware of the dangers of overfishing around the globe and we can applaud such efforts to change unsustainable and ignorant business practices. We can only hope that the entities that are put in place to monitor and oversee this policy ensure that the entirely of the commitment by Trader Joe's is adhered to.

WAIT A MINUTE!!! Shouldn't we be able to do more than just hope!! We as consumers are the recipients of and participants in all sustainable and unsustainable business practices. So, it is also up to us to play our roles as overseers of these commitments. Clearly, if we believe in something and yet are confronted with red flags indicating conflicting information or claims, we must make it known that we are aware of the "greenwash" and that we intend to hold all up to those standards at all times.

Snyder's Follows Frito-Lay's Lead, Offers Sustainable Packaging

Just a few weeks after Frito-Lay  rolled out the 100% compostable SunChips bag, Snyder's of Hanover has announced sustainability packaging of its own. Like Frito-Lay, the pretzel maker has decided to use plant-based materials in some of its packaging. The polylactic acid resin (PLA)-based bags, produced by Clear Lam Packaging, replace petroleum-based plastic bags in Snyder's line of organic pretzels.

There are a number of advantages to the PLA bags, according to Greener Package. The 90% plant-based bags require half the energy for production and spew 52% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than comparable petroleum packaging.  No word on if the PLA bags are saving Snyder's any cash, however.

Kudos to Snyder's  for following in Frito-Lay's footsteps, but consumers should ask: Why are the PLA bags limited to the company's organic line of pretzels? Snyders reps were away for the holidays and not immediately available to answer. Here's hoping Snyder's ultimately expands the initiative to all of its products.