Canada's Environmental Voice
I’d be impressed with anyone who soaks up the entire cocktail of ideas, emotions and possibilities served at TEDxWaterloo without feeling like they just put back a few too many. While the hangover of learning and introspection is still fresh, here are some favourite snippets of insight from each of […]
This article was originally published at the Network for Business Sustainability’s Thought Leaders blog. Cut back. Reduce harm. Do without. Use less stuff. Be less bad. Stripped down to these blunt phrases, the prevalent narrative surrounding sustainability — one based on ideas about constraints, limits and damage mitigation — is […]
An international debate over the relative pros and cons of bioenergy has intensified between environmental organizations, governments and climate change leaders in recent years. This lively discussion has been dragging out by the delayed release of the European Union’s sustainability requirements for solid biofuels (originally expected in early 2012).
Hundreds of thousands of people in Canada access food bank services every month yet an estimated $27 billion dollars worth of food is wasted in Canada every year. This disturbing social reality is coupled with the negative environmental impact of food waste. When food is wasted, the fresh water that […]
On the surface, athletics and sustainability might seem to be irreconcilable. The mention of professional sports conjures up images of driving in a traffic jam to a concrete dome powered by fossil fuels to sit under incandescent lighting and quaff Aqua Springs water or mass-produced beer from red, plastic cups. […]
THIS ISSUE of Alternatives Journal came with a steep learning curve. After 41 years of profiling science and sustainability with a strong Canadian perspective, this winter we decided to kick our editorial mandate into higher gear. We chose to set bolder goals, expand our storytelling and play a broader (but still grounded) role […]
BALANCE IS HELPFUL for bicyclists, knives and the Flying Zambezi Brothers’ high-wire act. For many other purposes it is overrated. For sustainability, it’s a mistake. The idea often sounds good, in a low-expectations way. Balance is preferable to falling down, spilling the beer, or becoming mentally unhinged. Balance of power […]
TOM RAND is a cycling venture capitalist and philosophizing engineer. When not hunting clean-tech investments for his VCi Green Funds, Rand advises the public-private MaRS innovation centre in Toronto. He is also a novice hotelier. I met the first-time author on an icy December morning at his new über-green Toronto […]
"NEOPHOBIA" is the fear of novelty. While this condition is pervasive in the hallowed halls of Parliament Hill, nowhere is it found amongst the contributors to this issue of Alternatives. From crisis comes new ideas, and our current economic and environmental conditions have shot the creativity metre among our authors […]
MORE THAN A SET of scientifically based conditions for a sustainable society, the Natural Step Framework has been the foundation for hundreds of innovative sustainability programs around the world.
