Välkommen till en helg full med inspiration och praktiska tips på hur du kan omvandla ditt hem, din arbetsplats och andra delar av din vardag till Zero Waste! Fokus kommer att ligga på att hur man kan använda sig av glädje och kreativitet för att skapa beteendeförändringar som bidrar till ett Zero Waste samhälle.
Med utgångspunkt i Zero Waste teorins tre R – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, får du en gedigen genomgång av varför Zero Waste? Hur Zero Waste? Men viktigast av allt får du användbara verktyg för att själv kunna skapa en plats som är Zero Waste!
Under två spännande dagar blandar vi inspiration, innovation, kreativitet och kunskapsinhämtning med konkreta verktyg. Bygg nätverk och bli del av en global rörelse!
Program
Lördag den 4 maj, kl 12.00 – 16.00
Inspirationsföreläsning och workshop om Zero Waste och cirkulär ekonomi med Pål Mårtensson från Kretsloppsparken, Göteborg.
Söndag den 5 maj, kl 12.00 – 16.00
Upcycling och workshop om hur man designar kreativa och attraktiva Zero Waste system med praktiska exempel från Lindsbergs Kursgård.
Zero Waste Youth
Zero Waste Youth Meeting Sweden är en del av den globala rörelsen Zero Waste Youth som har sitt säte i Florianopolis, Brasilien.
Gayathri participating in the closing panel of Stora Tillväxtdagen.
On April 16th in Stockholm at Stockholm City Conference Center, Gayathri participated in the closing panel discussion of the day at Stora Tillväxtdagen – a full day conference about sustainable business and sustainable growth, arranged by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (Tillväxtverket). The topic of the closing panel discussion was to look ahead – what do we do now? How can both businesses and the community benefit from investing in sustainability?
The target group for the day was municipalities, regions and businesses. The day started with a speech from the Swedish Minister of Trade, Ewa Björling and there after Meera Sanyal, Head of the Royal Bank of Scotland in India and Mikael Román, Head of Tillväxtanalys in Brazil. They both gave insightful international perspectives on sustainability.
Watch the panel discussion on the web To see the panel discussion or other speeches that took place during the day, click here.
The panel consisted of Gayathri representing The Good Tribe and the following four participants;
Andreas Cervenka,
Economics Reporter at the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. Last year, he published the book What is Money? Everything you wanted to know about the world economy but were afraid to ask (2012).
Estelle Joubert Westling,
Partner and strategist at the firm The Good Guys, a communications agency that works exclusively with sustainability.
Niclas Ihrén,
Niclas is a senior adviser in communication and sustainable development at Respect. He has extensive experience in dealing with globalization issues and has been CEO of Globe Forum.
Fredrik Högberg,
Environmental Strategist in Kungsbacka. Overall responsible for driving the work of the municipality’s 67 environmental objectives. With the help of circular economy, they want to reconcile conservation of resources with community development.
The BalticLab group gathered outside our office space at Turning Torso after a long day of hard and intensive work.
During April 14th Evelina and Gayathri facilitated a full day group dynamic session for the joint BalticLab programme launched in cooperation between the Council of the Baltic Sea States Secretariat in Stockholm and the Swedish Institute. The goal of the program is to strengthen collaborations and networks between young professionals within the Baltic region. After a ruff selection process, the Swedish Institute selected 20 sharp professionals who where given the opportunity to participate in the programme. The participants represent Sweden, Russia, Lithuania and Poland. The programme consists of three modules and we facilitated parts of the first module.
The purpose of the day was for the participants to really get to know each other in-depth regarding values, personality types, sharing their personal life visions and their visions for the Baltic region in order to form project groups at the end of the day. It was an intensive day, the participants had to work hard and keep focus and they did a brilliant job. They only had one day to get to know each other and to form groups based on values and visions.
During the coming months the group will meet again in Lithuania and in Russia for module 2 and 3. We are looking forward to following the progress.
Good luck BalticLab, it was a blast for us to contribute to this important programme.
Even though this year in many ways have been such a cool year for us, today is definantly a milestone. Sandra and Gayathri from The Good Tribe are lecturing at the KTH – The Royal Institution of Technology. It is known as the best engineering university in Sweden.
We spoke about Zero Waste, sustainable development and the role of engineers in transitioning to a sustainable society. The students where great, very curios and engaged to find ways on how they can start already today to integrate sustainability in their studies more.
Now we are discussing a longterm collaboration which means that we will lecture ones a year at the university.
A Cradle to Cradle (circular design process) shoe product made by Puma. After finishing using the product it becomes compost.
Unless you already noticed – we’re in the middle of a paradigm shift.
We, similar to many of our fellow (social or regular) entrepreneurs want to be innovative – we want to go where no one else has gone before. We realize that the challenges we stand before are huge, but instead of feeling paralyzed or overwhelmed we see that this is our chance to make a difference.
For a business there’s no challenge or valuable innovation in doing less bad. But doing good all the way opens up a whole new set of emerging possibilities that will lead to a progressive, innovative, and profitable business that integrates social and environmental values in the core.
The role of business is moving away from profit maximization that benefits a few people – shareholders – to assuming responsibility and collaborating with others for the greater good of the community, focusing on the stakeholders.
This paradigm change is good stuff. We’re moving from maximizing profit to seeking profits where it’s reasonable within the earth’s boundaries and also seeking to enhance other values such as environmental protection, equality, youth employment, and eradicating poverty. Just to name a few examplary goodies.
What does this change look like in practice? How can we actually stay within the earth’s boundaries? Here are examples of businesses that lead this change by implementing courageous new business models.
Moving from CSR to doing good as core business CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is often something companies do when there’s time and money left. However, what Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry’s (one of the largest ice cream businesses in the world), and other progressive companies are doing is to drop CSR and integrate social and environmental responsibility in their core business – for real. The social and environmental cause becomes inseparable from the business idea and business model. Businesses like Ben & Jerry’s are doing this by asking critical questions as they develop their business models and brands: What change do we want to contribute to? What vision do we have of the world, and how can our business work towards that? What challenges do our surrounding communities face? How can we adapt our business model to improve the lives of more people (co-workers, people living in the surrounding area etc.) and work towards a greener planet?
A zero waste society – towards a circular economy The economy today is built on the assumption that we live on a planet with infinite resources. We take, make and waste without considering what will happen with the products after we are finished using them, so-called linear production. One of the most groundbreaking solutions to this is circular economy; the society and the economy are based on closed loop systems. In order to transform towards a circular economy it is required that business, government, and civil society work together to close the loop. A significant question of circular economy is how to keep products in the lifecycle forever. Either through qualities that make the product recyclable into infinity, or that the product can turn into compost at the end of its life. One example of this kind of design process is Cradle to Cradle, developed by the chemist Michael Braungart and designer William McDonough. Companies like Puma, Bonkeli, Matilda Wendelboe and others are starting to produce shoes and clothes that are Cradle to Cradle certified – either all-in or limited to certain product lines.
For more information on circular economy, visit the Ellen McArthur Foundation.
Here is a short introduction to the circular economy concept:
Why do less bad, when you can do good all the way? Desso is a big carpet company in the Netherlands that decided to give their business model a total make-over. They went from being plain eco-friendly to doing good all the way (not just less bad!) in all parts of the business. Some examples: they develop Cradle to Cradle products using renewable energy and their carpets clean the air (!) through special design features. By making this leap, Desso went from keeping a steady income to skyrocketing profits.
So what is the role of your business in this paradigm shift? Will you stay ahead or wait for others that are more courageous than you to take the lead?
