Italy, March 9th, 2021 – Foodnected, a new project designed to promote the transition to sustainable and fair food systems in the Mediterranean region, will be launched on March 10 at a virtual event as part of the international festival Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, project partners Slow Food, Global Footprint Network, Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE), and GOB Menorca announced today.

“After striving for years to stress the importance of education and raise consumers’ awareness of the value of their food and their connection with the people who produce it, we are excited to collaborate with sustainable fishing and farming organisations to progress to a world where all the actors can come together through common initiatives to improve each other’s lives through an essential aspect of what it means to be human: the food we choose to consume to not only feed our bodies, but also nurture our spirits and communities,” said Paula Barbeito, Foodnected Coordinator at Slow Food.

Funded by the MAVA Foundation over a two-year period, Foodnected is about “Connecting people and nature around local, fair and sustainable food systems.”

“Our foundation supports sustainability initiatives that protect nature and support people’s livelihoods. The way we consume and produce food impacts our environment. We believe that short-chain food systems grounded in local traditions hold a great potential to maintain and preserve  biodiversity — both cultivated and wild,” said Julien Semelin from MAVA Foundation.

Foodnected is driven by the vision of bringing producers and consumers together through a Community of Practice grounded in shared values. By shortening the distance between producers and consumers and developing an ethical code of environmental and social values for the way food is produced and consumed, the project will address shortcomings in the prevailing market system and reverse the unfair situation faced by small-scale producers.

“Gaining fair access to resources and markets is a fundamental struggle for small-scale low-impact fishers who make up the majority of the European fleet. We believe that working together with others is essential to achieving a positive and meaningful change in our food systems. To be viable, fishers must be rewarded for the value they add through their good practices. On the other hand, consumers need to be able to easily identify sustainable, healthy and fair products, and to know their story, so they can value and select them,” said LIFE Executive Secretary Brian O’Riordan.

Ultimately, Foodnected intends to facilitate the emergence of short-chain food systems that work for nature and people – both consumers and the small-scale producers who depend on them for their livelihood.

The project is scheduled to unfold in three phases. First, it will clarify an approach to fair and sustainable food systems through nurturing the development of a Community of Practice composed of actors along the value chain.

“All of us – as citizens, producers and consumers – can play a central role in the transition towards sustainable food systems. But making the right choices depends on the possibility to rely on scientifically-sound information. For this reason, relying on a science-based approach to identify pertinent practices is going to be a strong aspect of this project. By applying Ecological Footprint accounting, we will be able to quantitatively monitor the impact of such practices,” said Alessandro Galli, senior scientist and the Mediterranean-MENA Program Director at Global Footprint Network.

Second, pilot initiatives will be implemented to develop market solutions for fair and sustainable food production and consumption at local level, especially in the Balearic Islands (Spain).

“The work we’ve been developing through our local network of farmers is set to enjoy a wider impact thanks to this collaborative project. We’re excited to be actors and to witness firsthand how we can accelerate change at home and inspire other communities,” said GOB Menorca’s Programme Director Miquel Camps.

Finally, the project aims to share lessons at a regional level. Results from the first two phases will be disseminated through advocacy work at national and wider regional – Mediterranean (GFCM) and EU – levels, especially within the framework of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and in the context of the FAO International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (in 2022).

Foodnected launch event is to take place on Wednesday, March 10 at 2:00 pm CET. Anyone interested in learning more about the project is invited to attend. Information about event details and access can be found here.

Additional Resources

Press Release in Italian, French and Spanish

About Slow Food

Slow Food is a global network of local communities founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions and counteract the rise of fast-food culture. Since its founding, Slow Food has grown into a global movement involving millions of people in over 160 countries, working to ensure that everyone has access to good, clean and fair food. www.slowfood.com

Media contact: Alessia Pautasso (Italy) +39 342 864 1029 ~ a.pautasso@slowfood.it

About LIFE

The Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE) is an organisation of organisations of small-scale fishers around Europe. LIFE represents the interests of 31 organisations in 15 EU Member States associating around 10,000 small-scale fishers across all European sea basins from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Its mission is to commit small-scale fishers (SSF) to fishing in a low-impact manner, to transform low-impact SSF into an attractive and economically viable profession, which sustains fish stocks and protects the marine environment, and contributes to prosperous coastal communities. www.lifeplatform.eu

Media contact: Brian O’Riordan, Executive Secretary, deputy@lifeplatform.eu, +32 486368855

About Global Footprint Network

Global Footprint Network is an international sustainability organization that is helping the world live within the Earth’s means and respond to climate change. Since 2003 we’ve engaged with more than 60 countries, 40 cities, and 70 global partners to deliver scientific insights that have driven high-impact policy and investment decisions. Together, we’re creating a future where all of us can thrive within the limits of our one planet. www.footprintnetwork.org

Media contact: Laetitia Mailhes (France) +33 650 979 012 ~ laetitia.mailhes@footprintnetwork.org

About GOB Menorca

GOB Menorca is a non-profit organisation established in 1977. Its basic objective is to help achieve a truly sustainable economy by making human activities compatible with the preservation of the environment. GOB Menorca has several lines of work: land protection, marine conservation, recovery of wild fauna, promotion of sustainable gardening, environmental education, and the Agricultural Stewardship Programme (called Custòdia Agrària).

The Agricultural Stewardship Programme, which is based on the signing of an “Agreement on Sustainable Agrarian Practices”, aims to create, encourage and channel social alliances that, together with public initiatives, can achieve the maintenance and recovery of the local agricultural sector, while guaranteeing the preservation of the landscape and its associated biodiversity. GOB is considered an entity of Public Utility and has received numerous awards and recognitions from both public administrations and private companies. It counts with over 1.400 members and is considered a main influencing actor in the island.

Media contact: Jara Febrer (Spain) +34 971350762 – jfebrer@gobmenorca.com

About the MAVA Foundation

MAVA was born from the passion and vision of its founder, Luc Hoffmann, an extraordinary naturalist who believed fiercely in protecting the planet’s wild splendor.

The MAVA Foundation conserves biodiversity for the benefit of people and nature by financing, mobilizing and strengthening its partners and the conservation community. MAVA also accompanies them on their conservation journey, helping them develop the skills they need and strengthening their ability to deliver. mava-foundation.org/

Media Contact: Julien Semelin, julien.semelin@fondationmava.org

The post Slow Food, Global Footprint Network, Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE) and GOB Menorca launch joint project to accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

For all Mediterranean countries, we will illustrate the share of fish consumption as a portion of the overall Ecological Footprint. Additionally, we will compare the contribution of calories from fish in the country’s diet to their Ecological Footprint (we call this “fish Footprint intensity”). For three pilot sites in Croatia, Turkey, and Italy, we will identify the most commonly consumed fish species and create groups of alternative fish species that are lower on the food web and are currently caught by small-scale fisheries. Global Footprint Network’s goal is to compare the potential Footprint reduction achievable from encouraging consumers to diversify the fish they eat and reduced overall fish consumption.

Fish Footprint Calculations

Data collected from fisherman at the pilot sites for this project will improve how Global Footprint Network calculates the Ecological Footprint of fisheries. Rather than focusing on just the quantity of fish caught, we will incorporate a variety of factors that affect the Ecological Footprint, such as labor, boat size, gear type, and unintended species caught.

The findings of this project will be available through a new Fish Footprint Calculator that will be linked to Global Footprint Network’s current Ecological Footprint Calculator. In doing so, we hope to spread the message that the Fishing Ecological Footprint is one of both individual and community responsibility. The intent is to empower individuals to act together to impact the future of their region and livelihoods in a way that is scientifically measurable. Individuals will be able to assess how their behavior shapes community impact, and how communities then shape the regional and global Ecological Footprint. Along with our partners in the region, we will also use this data to support the broader MAVA strategy through the integration of our data into partner-led activities that help retailers, restaurants, tourists, and residents understand their contribution to overfishing and to influence their purchasing, distribution, and consumption behaviors.

This is a joint project with WWF and the MAVA Foundation.

The post New research to support sustainable fishing in the Mediterranean appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

[Read in English]

A cidade de Guimarães é o berço de Portugal. Localizada no Norte do país, Guimarães foi a primeira capital de Portugal no século XII e, mais recentemente, em 2011, o seu centro histórico foi declarado Património Mundial da UNESCO. Em 2012, Guimarães foi a Capital Europeia da Cultura. Agora, a cidade olha para o futuro e orgulha-se dos seus esforços para se tornar uma referência no que concerne à sustentabilidade urbana.

Guimarães é uma das seis cidades portuguesas que, desde o ano passado, participa no projeto da Pegada Ecológica dos Municípios Portugueses. O projeto tem três anos de duração e é liderado pela ZERO, uma associação ambientalista de referência em Portugal, em parceria com a Global Footprint Network e com a Universidade de Aveiro. As outras cidades participantes no projeto são Almada, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Lagoa e Vila Nova de Gaia.

Em março de 2018, Guimarães foi a primeira cidade do projeto a revelar a sua Pegada Ecológica, um resultado do estudo liderado por Sara Moreno Pires (PhD) e a sua equipa do Departamento de Ciências Sociais, Políticas e do Território da Universidade de Aveiro.

Resultados da Pegada Ecológica

Os investigadores concluíram que, em 2013, o ano mais recente para o qual existem dados, a pegada ecológica média de um residente de Guimarães era de 3,76 hectares globais (gha) per capita. O resultado é 3% inferior comparativamente à média de um cidadão português (3,87 gha per capita). Mesmo assim, o resultado de Guimarães é 2,5 vezes superior à biocapacidade de Portugal que corresponde a 1,52 gha. A diferença entre a pegada ecológica de Portugal e de Guimarães explica-se, em grande parte, porque Guimarães tem uma pegada de carbono inferior à média nacional, sobretudo devido a uma menor procura por habitação, água, eletricidade, gás e outros combustíveis. A componente das emissões de carbono representa 56% da Pegada Ecológica do município, seguida das áreas para produtos agrícolas (26%) e áreas de pesca (8%).

Ao comparar Guimarães com a região Norte (3,58 gha), Guimarães tem uma Pegada Ecológica superior, devendo-se sobretudo devido à maior procura de produtos alimentares e transportes. Os investigadores explicam que provavelmente a maior procura deve-se ao facto dos residentes em Guimarães serem, em média, mais ricos comparativamente aos outros municípios da sub-região do Ave.

O impacto da Pegada Ecológica

“A Pegada Ecológica é crítica porque providencia informações do lado consumo e, habitualmente, estas informações são mais difíceis de obter do que do lado da produção. Como tal, a metodologia fornece informações aos decisores que antes não estavam disponíveis”, afirma Sara Moreno Pires. “Usar a Pegada Ecológica é muito importante para mapear, perceber os desafios ambientais ao nível local, alterar hábitos e as políticas “, acrescenta.

O projeto tem sido desenvolvido de forma a que a Pegada Ecológica e a Biocapacidade possam guiar as políticas de desenvolvimento locais. “Achamos que as informações provenientes da Pegada Ecológica são muito importantes para ajudar a desenvolver e a fortalecer as políticas pois permitem identificar os sectores nos quais devem ser focados os esforços e investimentos, como por exemplo, a alimentação e a mobilidade”, explica Jorge Cristino, Adjunto da Vereação na Câmara Municipal de Guimarães.

De facto, a avaliação da Pegada Ecológica recomenda que o município priorize as estratégicas para os sectores da alimentação e transportes. Os autores encorajam a adoção de políticas que promovam o transporte sustentável, favorecendo os transportes públicos em detrimento do transporte individual. Também são recomendadas campanhas de sensibilização para promover alterações na dieta dos cidadãos de Guimarães com vista a reduzir o consumo de proteína animal, aumentando o consumo de cereais, vegetais e frutos; consumir peixe de nível trófico inferior; bem como o consumo de uma quantidade adequada de calorias.

Ambições nacionais

Em última instância, o objetivo mais lato do projeto da Pegada Ecológica dos Municípios Portugueses é a transformação das políticas nacionais. “Entendemos que é necessário avaliar a Pegada Ecológica e a Biocapacidade de diferentes cidades e regiões do país para desenvolver um sistema nacional de governança que promova equidade e justiça”, afirma Paulo Magalhães, Coordenador do projeto da Pegada Ecológica dos Municípios Portugueses da ZERO.

O terceiro ano do projeto da Pegada Ecológica dos Municípios Portugueses será dedicado ao estudo e à proposta de critérios de distribuição de fundos governamentais pelas regiões. “No final do projeto, pretendemos ter aumentado a sensibilidade ao nível do governo nacional para alterar a legislação relativa ao financiamento dos municípios, de forma a ter em conta também a Pegada Ecológica e a Biocapacidade dos municípios”, explica Filipe Teles (PhD), Pró-reitor para o Desenvolvimento Regional e Política de Cidades da Universidade de Aveiro.

A análise e as recomendações das políticas resultantes do projeto servirão para fomentar a coesão territorial e a equidade. Além do mais, servirão para desenvolver instrumentos de políticas públicas para preservar e melhorar o capital natural de cada município, bem como fortalecer a gestão sustentável da paisagem e dos recursos naturais.

Entretanto, durante o segundo ano do projeto, o foco será centrado em torno do debate público a nível local acerca de estilos de vida mais sustentáveis. Uma das ferramentas utilizadas será uma calculadora online específica de cada cidade para que cada residente possa calcular a sua pegada individual ao mesmo tempo que fica mais informado acerca dos impactos humanos no ambiente. Haverá ainda workshops e mesas-redondas com diversas partes interessadas de governos locais, organizações não governamentais de ambiente e com sociedade civil para discutir as implicações dos resultados da Pegada Ecológica, bem como para ponderar o rumo a seguir no futuro.

Inspiração do prémio Nobel

A viagem em torno da sustentabilidade da cidade de Guimarães teve início em 2014 quando o seu presidente da Câmara, Domingos Bragança, solicitou um diagnóstico ambiental da cidade à Universidade do Minho após ter ouvido um discurso proferido por Mohan Munasinghe, físico, académico e economista do Sri Lanka. O antigo vice-presidente do Painel Intergovernamental para as Alterações Climáticas das Nações Unidas (IPCC em inglês) e vencedor o prémio Nobel da Paz, recomendou, durante uma conferência sobre o ambiente que decorreu em Guimarães, que o município deveria reunir um grupo especialistas para desenvolver um plano para o desenvolvimento sustentável para a cidade. Assim, em 2015, mais de 200 indivíduos foram convidados a desenvolver uma estratégia eficaz para o desenvolvimento sustentável do município. Como resultado, foram desenvolvidos diversos planos: mobilização do público; implementação de programas educacionais focados em temas ambientais e de desenvolvimento sustentável; programas de recuperação do solo e de mobilidade sustentável.

No ano passado, Guimarães foi reconhecida como a cidade mais sustentável de Portugal, um feito notável tendo em conta que em 2015 ocupava o oitavo lugar.

O melhor ainda está para vir. Afinal de contas, a adesão ao projeto da Pegada Ecológica dos Municípios Portugueses é o primeiro passo em direção a uma visão global de sustentabilidade. As cidades de Almada, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Lagoa e Vila Nova de Gaia certamente que seguirão a mesma direção. A esperança é que o resto do país faça o mesmo.

Videos

The post Como o berço de Portugal adotou a Pegada Ecológica appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

[Read in Portuguese]

The city of Guimarães is the cradle of Portugal. Nestled in the north of the country, Guimarães became the first capital of Portugal in the 12th century and was selected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. It was also designated as the European Capital of Culture for 2012, among other distinctions. Just as importantly, the city also is looking to the future and prides itself on efforts to grow into a national role model for sustainable urban living.

Last year, Guimarães was among six cities that embarked on a three-year Footprinting project organized by ZERO, a leading environmental NGO in Portugal, in partnership with Global Footprint Network and the University of Aveiro. The project also includes the cities of Almada, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Lagoa, and Vila Nova de Gaia.

In March 2018, Guimarães was the first city in the project to unveil the findings of the Footprint assessment led by Sara Moreno Pires, Ph.D., and her team at the Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences at the University of Aveiro.

Footprint Findings

The researchers found that in 2013 (the latest year data was available at the time researchers got to work), per-person biocapacity (capacity of ecosystems to renew) in Guimarães was 2.5 times the national average biocapacity per person in Portugal. At the same time, the average Ecological Footprint of a resident in Guimarães was 3% lower than that of the average Portuguese citizen, at 3.76 global hectares (gha) per capita. The city’s lower average carbon Footprint per capita, compared to that of Portugal, largely accounts for the difference. This is due to a lower demand for housing, electricity, gas and other fuels compared to the national average. Carbon emissions represent 56% of the city’s Ecological Footprint, followed by cropland (26%) and fishing grounds (8%).

A regional comparison, on the other hand, shows a higher Ecological Footprint in Guimarães than in the rest of the north of the country, due mainly to a higher demand for food, transportation, and goods. Researchers pointed out that Guimarães residents are, on average, wealthier than the residents of other cities within the Ave sub-region.

The Ecological Footprint’s Impact

“The Ecological Footprint is critical because it provides us with information on the consumption side, which is typically a lot trickier to access than information on the production side. As such, it provides decision-makers with information that they haven’t had before,” says Moreno Pires. “Using the Ecological Footprint is very important with regard to mapping and understanding environmental challenges at the local level, with a view to changing behavior and policies,” she adds.

The project has been designed so that the Footprint and biocapacity assessment informs and guides local development policies. “We find that the Ecological Footprint data is very important to help us devise and strengthen policies because it tells us which sectors we need to focus our efforts and investments on – such as food and mobility,” explains Jorge Cristino, Deputy Mayor’s Aide, International Affairs, Public Relations, Environment for the city of Guimarães.

Indeed, the Footprint assessment recommends that the municipality prioritize green strategies in the food and transportation sectors. Its authors encourage policies promoting sustainable transportation, including favoring public transit over individual cars. They also recommend awareness campaigns aimed at encouraging changes in the dietary choices of Guimarães’ residents towards lower animal protein-intensive meals (increasing the share of cereals, vegetables and fruits), lower trophic-level fishes, and calories-adequate diets.

National Ambitions

Ultimately, transforming national policies is the goal of the Portugal cities project. “Our view is that we need to assess the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity of the different cities and regions around the country in order to develop a national system of governance that promotes equity and justice,” says Paulo Magalhães, City Footprinting Project Coordinator at ZERO.

Year 3 of the City Footprinting Project in Portugal will be devoted to studying and proposing a change in the criteria for the distribution of government subsidies to municipalities. “By the end of the project, we intend to raise awareness at the Portuguese national government and Parliament, in order to change national legislation regarding how municipalities are funded so that their Ecological Footprint and biocapacity are included in the analysis,” explains Filipe Teles, Ph.D., Prorector for Regional Development and Urban Policies at the University of Aveiro.

Analysis and policy recommendations stemming from the City Footprinting Project will strive for territorial cohesion and equity. They will also aim at developing public policy instruments to preserve and improve the natural capital of each municipality and strengthen the sustainable management of the landscape and of natural resources.

In the meantime, year 2 of the program will focus on activating the public debate at the local level about sustainable living and sustainable development. Tools will include online Footprint Calculators with city-specific data so that each resident can calculate her/his individual Footprint and become aware of the multiple human impacts on the environment. Workshops and roundtables will be organized with stakeholders from local governments, NGOs, and civil society to discuss the implications of the Footprint assessment findings and evaluate options for moving forward.

Nobel Prize Inspiration

The sustainability journey of Guimarães started in 2014 when its mayor, Domingos Bragança, requested an environmental diagnostic of the city from the University of Minho after he heard a speech by Sri Lankan physicist, academic, and economist Mohan Munasinghe. Invited to a conference on environmental issues hosted by the city, the former vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner had recommended that the city bring together a multi-stakeholder group to devise a plan for sustainable development.

Consequently, in 2015, more than 200 individuals were invited to help develop an effective strategy for the sustainable development of the municipality. Immediate impacts included mobilizing members of the public, deploying education programs on local environmental issues and sustainable living, and developing programs in soil restoration and green mobility.

Last year, Guimarães was recognized as the most sustainable city in Portugal – a remarkable improvement from its ranking at No. 8 in 2015.

The best is yet to come. After all, with the adoption of the Ecological Footprint analysis, Guimarães has taken the first step towards a globally consistent vision of sustainability. So will the cities of Almada, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Lagoa, and Vila Nova de Gaia. The hope is that the nation as a whole will follow suit.

Videos

The post How Portugal’s birthplace has embraced the Ecological Footprint appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

April 26 – University of California, Santa Cruz

May 2 – University of California, Davis

The post Join us at two California Universities for Turning Green’s College Road Tour appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

It is unfortunate for the world that only few companies have such a business model. Therefore, we are doubly excited to collaborate with corporate partners who have recognized what’s needed not just for sustainability, but for their own success. As sustainability becomes the driver of a company’s business success, it also expands the company’s own long-term viability. That’s why Schneider’s CEO rigorously monitors how many times more Footprint Schneider helps its clients save compared to what it takes to run Schneider Electric.

We recently talked with Xavier Houot, Senior Vice President Safety, Environment, and Real Estate, at Schneider’s offices in Paris about the company’s strategic outlook.

How did you first become acquainted with the Ecological Footprint metric?

I’ve been an environmentalist for as long as I can remember, already as a child growing up in a mountainous area of France. It’s only natural that I would discover the work of Mathis Wackernagel (co-founder of Global Footprint Network) the moment he published his work and started receiving prizes in the 1990s. In a world economy where GDP growth was the golden metric, Mathis was one of the first people I know of who would not only question consumption patterns (on the heels of Meadows, Dobson, Strong, Brundtland, back to Gandhi, Thoreau, Aristotle, etc.) but also quantify, simplify, and help each of us understand how massive the use of natural resources is, beyond the issue of carbon emissions.

This was all the more interesting to me that, when leading sustainability consulting practices between 2004 and 2014, my team and I would already use tools with clients such as “sustainability stress tests,” looking at both the environmental and social impacts of their business models and practices, and helping them define “planet-compatible” growth paths. We were clear that consumers—whether corporations or individuals—ought to be encouraged to take on the responsibility of the choices they make.

I started using the phrase “move Earth Overshoot Day” at the beginning of 2017 when speaking in front of customers. And I was thrilled when I found out that #movethedate was precisely the motto of the Earth Overshoot Day campaign last year!

How do you view your role at Schneider Electric?

I joined Schneider Electric in 2014, after spending most of my career as a sustainability and strategy consultant, including as a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers for almost 10 years, then EY – including four years living in India and working at EY India.

My passion is to move beyond talking about corporate responsibility with customers and focus on concrete win-win-win opportunities where the planet wins, together with our business performance and that of our customers. In this context, my role is to focus, on the one hand, on our own resource productivity with a view to decoupling our own supply-chain impacts from planet-resources intake, and on the other hand on the performance of our technologies on our customers’ end. After all, our customers also want resource productivity, circularity, health and safety, and more transparency—especially about the sustainability of our products, both in terms of how they are produced and of the impact they can expect from them on their own operations.

How is Schneider Electric contributing to #movethedate?

Schneider Electric generates €25 billion in revenue per year (2016). I am proud to witness that this commercial success comes from selling technologies that allow companies across sectors of the economy to “#movethedate.” And we’ve been doing it for a while. We are able now to demonstrate and quantify that “more Schneider Electric is a better climate.” And we will be reporting externally on related CO2 emissions numbers quarterly, starting April 2018. Through our EcoStruxure solutions for buildings, plants, power, grid, machine, data centers, and through our renewable energy enabling solutions, energy management software, and other value propositions, we will help our customers avoid more than 100 million tons (Mt) of CO2 emissions in the next three years, which is far more than the amount we’ll emit in same period to procure, make, and transport related offerings.

Our own operations include 200 factories and 100 distribution centers worldwide. We do measure and track our Ecological Footprint, and do intend to lead by example by contributing to #movethedate through improving the sustainability of our own operations. In our quarterly conference calls with investors, for instance, our performance analysis touches upon our progress and performances on topics such as eco-design, energy efficiency, transportation-related CO2, zero-waste-to-landfill sites, and now the amount of CO2 emissions and natural resources consumption that were avoided thanks to our circular supply chain, and the progress of our Green Premium ecolabel sales.

Sustainability is our raison d’être.

When did Schneider Electric embark on that path?

It was around 2005 when our CEO, Jean-Pascal Tricoire, explicitly and boldly connected our business strategy and value propositions with our sustainability strategy. He spelled out how they depend upon each other, stating that the success of the latter would fuel the former. From that point on, the company was able to hone a very clear message that’s all about business and sustainability strategies being aligned. This also accelerated technology innovation in order to support this approach.

I believe one of our competitive advantages in the market today is that our technologies are part of the solution to #movethedate. Our products are very closely aligned with our stated mission. For instance, at time of COP21 and ahead of the Paris Agreement, we had allocated $300 million R&D budget and floated a climate bond for low-carbon innovations, touching data centers, buildings, and smart grids. This climate bond received worldwide recognition for its innovative nature, precisely because of its R&D focus. Such efforts are ongoing obviously.

How do you share the sustainability message with customers?

We’re not about preaching to customers. What we do is provide them with, first, great technologies, second, digitized information about these technologies’ performances, environmental footprint, and end-of-life instructions. Studies show that our customers report seeing value-add from our EcoStruxure solutions in terms of improved operations transparency, resource efficiency, resilience, safety, performance, and with virtuous ripple effects across their activity.

Do you see sustainability becoming a growing concern in the corporate world?

We’re definitely seeing a growing awareness in the corporate world, and in civil society too. More and more companies are now joining the sustainability conversation, making commitments, innovating, even reinventing themselves at times, which is great! A major challenge sometimes remains translating “corporate responsibility” commitments into business offerings or value propositions.

However, with the equivalent of 1.7 planets being consumed each year and a current trajectory heading towards +4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, it is imperative that the economy as a whole and each one of us move a lot faster and a lot more drastically if we want to witness significant positive change going forward.

My personal take is that all the above has to start with each one of us through the way we eat, move around, buy, heat/cool our homes. This is where change is required first, then the rest will follow. Let’s each of us #movethedate!

The post Q&A with Xavier Houot: Schneider Electric’s business model aims to #movethedate appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

Nov. 6 – 27 is the UN COP23 Climate Conference, hosted by Fiji in Bonn, Germany.

Dec. 12 is the two-year anniversary of the approval of the Paris Climate Agreement at the UN COP21 Climate Conference.

To celebrate these milestones, 31 Blue Planet Prize Laureates joined forces to remind the world that the agreement is achievable and desirable. They declared:

Planetary Prosperity Means Zero Carbon

The resource hunger of the human enterprise has become too large for our planet. The Paris Climate Agreement recognizes this. It aims to limit global warming to less than 2°C above the preindustrial level. This means ceasing fossil-fuel use before 2050, increasing ecosystem and biodiversity conservation, and improving human well-being.

We, Blue Planet Laureates, wholeheartedly and emphatically support this transformation. It is technologically possible, economically beneficial, and our best chance for a prosperous future.

Our planet is finite. But human possibilities are not. The transformation will succeed if we apply people’s greatest strengths: foresight, innovation, and care for each other.

In addition to Global Footprint Network CEO Mathis Wackernagel, the 31 Blue Planet Prize Laureates who launched this statement include:

For media inquiries, please contact Ronna Kelly at ronna.kelly@footprintnetwork.org.

Please share this statement. Other images available for download:

The post Blue Planet Prize Laureates Statement: Planetary Prosperity Means Zero Carbon appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

After decades of civil war, peace agreements between the Colombian government and the FARC (recently renamed Common Alternative Revolutionary Force) have opened up new possibilities, and Nariño is eager to build a new future based on their strengths, including its ecological advantages. Under the leadership of Gov. Camilo Romero Galeano (who is also Colombia’s Green Alliance Party co-president), Nariño is positioned to be at the forefront of a new green economy in Colombia.

The subsecretary of Environmental Management and Green Growth of Nariño, Ricardo Mora, reached out to Global Footprint Network for technical support about using the Ecological Footprint and other sustainability metrics to advance strategic initiatives in the Nariño province. Global Footprint Network staff are working in close partnership with Nariño representatives to help them capitalize on the momentum of these historic events.

On Earth Overshoot Day, the Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development in Nariño, Ramiro Estacio, joined us along with organizations around the world to call for the reduction of indiscriminate use of natural resources. Mora also underscored our joint efforts, saying, “[the MOU with Global Footprint Network] isn’t simply to carry out scientific studies on Nariño’s Ecological Footprint and biocapacity, but also to direct our province with concrete actions on how to build a green economy that takes ecological limits into account and move back the date of Earth Overshoot Day, so that our actions with natural resources in the region are sustainable.” Our Nariño colleagues also hung a banner of the Earth in honor of Overshoot Day (pictured right).

Just a month earlier, Mora and Dr. Ivan Felipe Benavides, scientific adviser for the Environment and Sustainable Development Office at Nariño, spent two weeks in our Oakland offices participating in lectures, exercises, and discussion, starting with underlying major concepts of sustainability and their critical role as part of larger frameworks for monitoring and achieving societal well-being.

Natural scientists by training, Mora and Benavides quickly drilled down to the scientific theory and technical details of sub-national Ecological Footprint assessments, including National Footprint Accounts, input-output analysis, and bottom up-top down approaches to Footprint accounting. By the end, our colleagues had developed a game plan to apply a sustainability monitoring framework for the transformation of Nariño to a green economy.

“The math and the essentials of the Ecological Footprint are very simple to understand, and the calculations very straightforward. It’s all about understanding that the capacity of our planet to produce ecological assets (biocapacity) does not have an infinite growth as our current economic system seems to assume, but its rather a cycle with spatial and temporal limits,” said Benavides. “However our greater challenge is to take this information available to our people and translate it into strategic actions to live well, within these limits. We want people in Nariño to live great lives with the big ecological power that we have.”

During their stay, Mora and Benavides also taught us much about their work laying a foundation for a thriving green economy, and of Nariño’s incredible natural wealth. Located in southwestern Colombia, their province has extraordinary natural beauty and is a biological hot spot–home to more than 5,000 species of plants and animals. Over the next year of partnership, we will deepen our collaboration, including Global Footprint Network staff supporting Nariño staff on the ground, where we will also be able to witness the beauty of the province first hand, as well as the inspiring transformation of a war-torn region into a leading green economy.

The post El Poder Ecológico: Our Colombian partnership to advance sustainability appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

“We are living on credit and inevitably, at some point, we risk going from having rare resources to having resource shortages,” Hulot said in his Overshoot Day video. “The objective is to go from a cowboy economy, which has no limits, to a cosmonaut economy, where, as on a space station there is almost no waste, everything is reused, and where we are economical in the truest sense of the word.”

Earth Overshoot Day is the date in the year when humanity has used more from nature than our planet can renew in the entire year. This year, we focused on solutions, promoted under the hashtag #MoveTheDate. We were especially excited to partner with the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition to co-create an infographic to highlight food as one major lever to #movethedate.

And of course, we could never achieve such global awareness of Earth Overshoot Day without our amazing partners—both official and unofficial—including WWF offices around the world. We also would like to give a special shout-out to our wonderfully creative friends at Inkota and Germanwatch, whose spoof on Amazon shopping (pictured at top) landed on primetime TV news in Berlin.

In the United States, where we were on the front page of USA Today, we are grateful to our friends at the California Academy of Sciences, Google, and Pixar for the opportunity to spread our message in person. We also would like to thank the Sierra Club Mother Lode Chapter, representing 16,000 members, for formally and unanimously recognizing Earth Overshoot Day.

And finally, although Earth Overshoot Day may be over, you can still carry on the message by creating a short film about it and entering the 7th edition of the Green-Go Short Film Contest. Contest organizers were fabulous Overshoot Day supporters, posting photos of their pledges on their Facebook page. Now they are inviting filmmakers to create a short film about problems and solutions related to Earth Overshoot Day for their contest. Overshoot Day is one of three categories; the deadline to enter is October 1.

The post Earth Overshoot Day: Transforming from the Wild West to the Space Age appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

Our 90-second video was created as part of the April launch of our new Ecological Footprint Explorer open data platform. The video was created by Alexandre Magnin of Sustainability Illustrated, a longtime Footprint Network collaborator.

Watch the video and share it with your friends!

The post Global Footprint Network Wins Science Magazine Data Stories Contest appeared first on Global Footprint Network.