Fairphone: the most important tech product of my generation.

I work for a tech company and although we work very hard to minimise the impact we have on the world, we have to work within a deeply dysfunctional industry.  The insatiable demand for new devices - and phones are the worst - has created an obscenely complex and heartless supply chain and ever-more complex products with ever-shortening lifespans.  

Environmental and social concerns were left for dead by the industry years ago and we have all be complicit in ignoring the terrible impact our ambivalence and greed is having on our planet.  It doesn't matter if you're Apple, Android, Blackberry or Windows, they are all guilty  of sucking up ultra-precious resources at a terrifying rate (from some barbarous places) and none are seriously trying limit their avaricious rampage.  And why should they?  No one is seriously asking  them to.  So it's very obviously time for a change.

It will take a monumental amount of effort, courage and investment to break this cycle, but I am super-excited by the Dutch Fairphone project.  It's one of those things that everyone who claims to be environmentally minded should support - and buy - immediately. It's expensive when you can get a free handset with a contract, and the first ones probably won't be as good as an iPhone5, but it will have a pure soul, rich with righteous purpose.  And so will you.

Please help it to get off the ground.

Fairphone: Buy a phone, start a movement from Fairphone on Vimeo.

The website is full of great stuff, and the following is lifted directly from there.

'The entire global supply chain is too complex and overwhelming to be addressed as whole. Which is why we’re starting with a single product. One, single, open, high-performance smartphone made as fairly possible with a transparent supply chain. One step at a time.

Our smartphone is a practical starting point for telling the story of how our economy functions. Producing a phone lets us tackle the big questions and challenges we face from a human perspective. It’s an everyday object that nearly everyone owns, uses or can identify with. It’s both a tangible device and a great symbol of our connected, social world.

But the phone is not a solution in and of itself – it’s simply a vehicle for change. We’re revealing its story, understanding how it’s made and producing an alternative. By buying this phone, you’re reconfirming that collective action counts and becoming part of a community that has the power to fuel change.

Us & You

At the end of the day, the real story isn’t about the economy, the phone or the community. It’s all about you.

You are the privileged, informed individual that has the ability to be part of the solution. You might not think that one action matters, but together our actions can truly make a difference. With a few small steps, you just might change our story’s ending.

Fairphone is more than a phone. It’s a beginning.

Fairphone started in 2010 as an awareness project about conflict minerals in electronics and the wars that the sourcing of these minerals is fuelling in the DR Congo. Fairphone is an intiative by Bas van Abel (then Creative Director at Waag society – an institute that develops creative technology for social innovation) and ran for 3 years before Bas van Abel realised that if he really wanted to uncover the story behind the sourcing, production, distribution and recycling, he needed to make the phone. Bas van Abel’s drive comes from his desire to open up things and reconnect people to the things they own. His motto, taken from the maker’s movement is ‘if you can’t open it, you don’t own it”.

http://www.fairphone.com/

Chris Hadfield's Overview Effect

Commander Chris Hadfield is leaving the International Space Station (ISS) today, and I am going to miss him very much.  He has been using Twitter to post pictures he's taken from the station, looking down on our beautiful but fragile world, with awesome effect.  From 200 miles up he watched 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every 24 hours, and by his own admission, rushed to the windows with his camera at every given opportunity.

Plankton Blooms seen from the ISS

Most astronauts describe how seeing the earth as a whole, from space, with fresh eyes, changes your perspective. The Overview Effect as it is known was once the privilege of a very select few who had been into orbit, but Chris Hadfield has given that perspective to all of us.  And then some.  I haven't been so captivated by a space mission since the days of Skylab in the 70's.

“Who’d have thought that five months away from the planet would make you feel closer to it?” he mused, in a goodbye video filmed with the blue planet glowing in the windows of the ISS’s observation deck. “Not because I miss it, but because seeing the planet this way and being able to share it has allowed me to get a direct reflection back, immediately, from so many people, that it makes me feel that this experience is not individual but shared.”

all pictures by Cmdr Chris Hadfield from the ISS

In Tom Chivers' excellent piece for the Telegraph he ponders the scientific use of the ISS. 

'Perhaps the primary mission of the space station shouldn’t be one of scientific discovery, but of inspiration. For decades, mankind’s push for space was military-led, secretive. The idea of the commander of a mission sending back videos of himself wringing out a wet cloth to show how water behaves in zero gravity, or explaining why you need to be careful making a sandwich in space (crumbs, you see), would have been unthinkable.

'More than a stern-faced officer-scientist or boy’s-own-adventure hero, what space exploration needs now is an advocate: someone who can remind us why we wanted to go to the universe on our doorstep in the first place.'  Hadfield, with his mischievous sense of humour, (if a film is made of his life, he wants to be played by “someone with a good moustache”), approachable demeanour and palpable awe at what he sees, has been the perfect spokesman for the cosmos.'

'It is perhaps ironic, though, that he has created such excitement not with pictures of Saturn’s rings or distant nebulae – which robot space explorers such as the Cassini-Huygens probe and the Hubble telescope have sent us – but with a new perspective on our own pale blue dot. Pictures of a river in Bolivia lit up by the sunrise and glowing like a firework, or of Vesuvius, looking straight down the volcano’s caldera, have come as a reminder that our planet can compete with the wider universe for remarkable sights.'

Thank you Chris Hadfield.  What a pleasure and a privilege it's been to share your amazing ride.

The Overview Effect film

The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.

‘Overview’ is a short film that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect. The film also features insights from commentators and thinkers on the wider implications and importance of this understanding for society, and our relationship to the environment.

OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.

Why do we need to protect our waves?

"NATURAL SURF BREAKS SHOULD BE TREATED AS WORLD HERITAGE SITES, AND SHOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED NO MATTER WHAT THE REASON… WE REALLY CAN'T ALLOW ANY EXISTING SURF BREAKS TO BE TAKEN DOWN, FOR WHATEVER REASON."

Yvon Chouinard, Founder & CEO of Patagonia, Inc.




This is a lovely little film made for Surfers Against Sewage by Robin Bushell and his crew which explains the problem and the campaign.  It might not be immediately obvious why it's so important, but the following, lifted directly from SAS's Protect Our Waves site, makes compelling argument no matter whether you're a surfer, sailor, canoeist or just love the beach.

protectourwaves.org.uk/

British surfing waves are under threat from a growing number of activities around our coastline that can hamper or have long term devastating impacts on some of our most prized surfing beaches. This includes coastal developments, pollution, and restricted access.

• Waves are under threat from 3 sources: new structures and developments, pollution including sewage and litter, and restricted access.
• Multiple surf breaks around the UK are currently under extreme threat with many more subject to lesser, but escalating, degrees of threat.
• No specific laws exist in the UK to protect surf spots.
• According to the water industry itself, the number of Combined Sewer Overflow (CSOs) around the UK is around 31,000. Many of these are completely unregulated.
• In the 10 weeks since the 2012 bathing season started this year SAS have issued over 30,000 text messages warning water users about the 416 individual raw sewage discharges across just 62 beaches as part of the Sewage Alert Service.
• The UK's world-class south coast surf spot Broad Bench is off limits for up to 228 days a year.
• The amount of marine litter found on UK beaches has increased almost two-fold in the last fifteen years.
• A plastic bottle may persist in the marine environment for more than 450 years if left on a beach.
• Waves are important to coastal communities in 4 ways: economically, environmentally, culturally and socially.
• In the UK, there are 4 types of surf spots: beach, reef, point break and river mouth.
• There are over 500,000 regular surfers in the UK.
• In a 2007 Defra survey, the economic value of the surf retail sector only was estimated at £200million annually.
• At a cost of over £3million, the artificial surfing reef development at Boscombe, Dorset has been estimated to generate £3million of direct income with an additional £10million of image value. This is the valuation of a spot that currently only creates poor quality, irregular waves, highlighting the value and exceptional conditions which create the UK's best surfing waves.
• The overall turnover from the surfing industry in Cornwall (£64 million annually) was about 20% more than the sailing industry (£52 million annually), and twice as much as the golf industry (£32million annually). Results also showed that the average visiting surfer spends about 8.5% more in Cornwall than the average visitor.

Waves are a very important and necessary part of the workings of our planet, transferring the sun's energy around the globe. Surfing beaches and waves also have a deep personal value to surfers and surfing communities around the UK. However, in the UK there is currently no specific legal protection for surfing waves or any assurance that stakeholders, including surfers and surfing communities in Wales, Northern Ireland or England, will be consulted fairly on activities threatening their existence.

Other sports and activities such as walking and sailing are formally recognised, represented and consulted during many new development processes. Other areas of outstanding beauty and countryside sites are also protected. But politicians, developers and the wider public in general have very little knowledge of the value, uniqueness and finite nature of surfing waves and landscapes, swell corridors prevailing weather conditions and other conditions creating good quality waves.

We are also seeing growing evidence that the Government is showing a bias towards coastal intervention, together with a stance increasingly in favour of developers. Politicians typically give only cursory consideration to the impacts on local coastal communities, despite the fact that the waves can be central to their existence.

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) is campaigning to increase public awareness and develop a greater understanding amongst policy makers that waves are a vital part of the fabric of many UK coastal communities, and it is essential that wave-centric communities can amplify their concerns so that irreversible damage is not done to our waves and surfing beaches.

http://www.protectourwaves.org.uk/why-protect-waves.php

2012 was a bad year for Britain’s bathing beaches

It's no surprise but the MCS reports that one of the wettest summers on record led to increased sewage in the sea.  

MCS urges swimmers to beware as it recommends fewer beaches for excellent water quality

One of the UK’s wettest summers on record has led to a worrying drop in the number of beaches around the country being recommended for their excellent bathing water quality in the annual MCS ‘Good Beach Guide’, published online today (27th March 2013  

MCS has recommended only 403 of the 754 UK bathing beaches tested in 2012 as having excellent water quality. That’s just over half, and 113 fewer beaches than were recommended last year.

Even more concerning is that 42 beaches (5.6%) failed to meet even a minimum European standard, or equivalent, for bathing water quality – 17 more than in last year’s Guide.

Relentless rain and flooding in many parts of the country led to an increase in the amount of bacteria and viruses ending up in our bathing waters. This type of pollution can originate from a variety of sources such as agricultural and urban run-off, storm waters, misconnected plumbing, septic tanks and dog faeces.

Sewage and animal waste is full of viruses and bacteria and most water users won’t be aware that this type of pollution can increase the chance of them going home with an ear, nose or throat infection, or even gastroenteritis.

MCS Coastal Pollution Officer, Rachel Wyatt, says the latest results show that the charity’s call for improved monitoring of combined sewer overflows and action to reduce pollution from farms and populated areas is urgently needed: “We have recommended fewer beaches in every English region and in Wales and Scotland. In England, the north west and south west were hit particularly hard, with the fewest number of recommended beaches for at least a decade. Action must be taken now. With stricter bathing water standards from 2015 and summers that appear to be getting wetter, the iconic image of people bathing off golden beaches could be at serious risk.

“There is no simple solution to sewage and animal waste reaching our seas. However if the water industry, communities and local authorities recognise that there is a problem and begin to work together to find answers then that would be a significant start,” says Rachel Wyatt.

In the last twelve months MCS says it has seen a number of promising local partnerships working together to identify problems and starting to try and fix them.

“In the North West, consistently the worst part of the UK for bathing water quality, MCS is helping to drive up standards by being the only independent NGO on the seven-strong Turning Tides Board. After MCS lobbied Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water the first ever Welsh Coastal Waters Conference will be held later this year. And in Northern Ireland we have been a significant contributor to the Good Beach Summit which has identified the actions needed to reduce bathing water pollution,” says Rachel Wyatt.

However, MCS says that in too many places there is still an out of sight, out of mind mentality because you just can’t see this kind of water pollution even when you’re swimming in it.

MCS suggests there are key things that water companies, local authorities and the public can do with MCS’ help:

What water companies can do:

·         Understand their contribution – Knowing where all of their sewers and overflows are and what impact they are having on the environment is the first step to finding solutions.

·         Monitor Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) – Monitor all of their CSOs and provide, on a voluntary basis, data to local authorities about when and for how long the CSOs are spilling into rivers and the sea.

What councils and regulators can do:

·         Inform the public – Displaying adequate advice at beaches about bathing water pollution can allow the public to make informed choices about when and where to bathe.

·         Be proactive – Simple measures, like providing enough dog bins in popular areas (not just on the beach) or raising awareness amongst local businesses to look after their drains, can reduce bathing water pollution.

What YOU can do:

·       Vote with your feet – Go to www.goodbeachguide.co.uk  to find MCS Recommended beaches and swim only from those.

·       Report pollution – If you spot a pollution incident you should contact the local council and the UK environmental agencies’ Pollution Hotline; 0800 807060.

·       Look after your drains and check your plumbing – Don’t put fats, oils or greases down the sink or flush rubbish down the toilet (such as cotton bud sticks, wet wipes etc) - this can block the sewers and cause sewer overflow pipes to discharge untreated sewage into our rivers and seas. Go to www.connectright.org.uk to make sure your home plumbing is correctly connected and isn’t polluting the environment.

Dirtmeetsthewater's preferred course of action is to support and get involved with http://www.sas.org.uk/

The article first appeared on the MCS site here.

Motorville by Patrick Jean

This will be all over everywhere soon - and with good reason.  A simple message delivered in superbly.  

Motorville by Patrick Jean

Motorville by Patrick Jean from Iconoclast on Vimeo.

We believe in living simply and adventurously

This rather wonderful organisational manifesto is from Sidcot School - a small Quaker school on the edge of the Mendips - and is one of the most succinct and powerful I've seen. The Society of Friends have long been beacons of ethical business standards and with the odd tweak, it could be (and should be) adopted by any business that aims to give a damn.

Our Values

Truth and Integrity:  we cherish the truth which enables our young people to develop integrity in what they do and what they think, helping them to build meaningful, lasting relationships.

Equality and Community:  we believe all people are of equal worth and aim to build a truly international community that values all individuals and answers the good in everyone.

Peace:  we encourage our young people to adopt peaceful methods of dealing with conflict in all its forms, taking both individual and collective responsibility in resolving differences.

Simplicity:  we believe in living simply and adventurously, placing charity and concern for others at the centre of what we do.

Sustainability:  we believe it is our responsibility to protect the Earth and to teach our young people to treasure and preserve it across the generations.

http://www.sidcot.org.uk/our-vision/

Post a pebble, post a tomato and watch them grow.

Nearly eighteen months ago, a small cardboard box landed on my desk.  In it was a carefully chosen granite coloured beach pebble, the size of a plum, and a note from a local PR company that simply said  “we’re only a stone’s throw away. Give us a call”.   Sadly I didn't need a PR company at the time, but I loved it and I did drop them an email to say ‘nice moves’.

Late last year another, larger, box arrived in the post; this time it contained a white phone. A real land-line phone - the kind no one has any more   The note said “now you have no reason not to give us a call”. Natch.  It was cute. Almost too cute.  When a bag of sweeties arrived just after Christmas I knew who had sent it without having to look.  I remembered their name well and today I was really happy to hire them.  Hell, if they had worked that hard to get my attention....

I think my fondness for sending things in the post comes from a friend at school, who used to test the post office’s tolerance and tenacity by sending his brother a succession of ever-stranger objects without packaging; un-boxed and in the raw.  This was the late eighties when the Royal Mail was super sharp, but amongst other things he stamped and addressed an apple with an arrow through it - delivered intact in two days; a Marmite sandwich - varnished for rigidity, but delivered overnight; and four Matchbox cars - posted together but delivered individually on four consecutive days (bravo Postie, that showed élan .  They drew the line at the full-sized surfboard no matter how many stamps it had.

When I started working for a PR company in the early nineties I was delighted, obviously, to discover that innovative attention-grabbing postal campaigns were de rigueur.  One of my favourites was to invite notoriously hard to reach magazine beauty editors (Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire etc.  to the Department of Health’s first ever Sun-sense skin cancer  awareness campaign launch.  We found a company that would pack small items into air-filled transparent bags and in small, see-though pillows, sent them one whole, blemish-free tomato and in another a sun-dried tomato with the invite.  Nearly all of them turned up.

I love the crazy power and limitless reach of digital communication but now more than ever, it’s very hard to jump out of my inbox and really get my attention. I get up to 80 unsolicited emails a day but may be only one or two bits of post a week.   This isn't a piece in praise of direct marketing, junk mail and postal spam - Royal Mail carpet bombing is a crime against the doormats of humanity.   This is a piece about sending the right thing, to the right person at the right time.  This is about thinking inside the box.  Thinking hard about the real human at the other end you’re trying to hook and sending something tactile, thought provoking and memorable.

Bravo @NapierPR.

This first appeared on my Posterous blog, but it moved here because Posterous is closing.

KILLING WAVES - The surfers fighting sewage on the shores of Cornwall

Great article and film (and competition) about Surfers Against Sewage on Dazed Digital

• Text Daisy Williams
 
• Film Carlos Carneiro

Back in July, we (Dazed Digital) launched a competition along with TOMS One For One, to commission a film by one UK director with a vision for change. The idea was simple: create a short documentary about an inspiring group who make a difference in your community.  Filmmaker Carlos Carneiro fit the brief, winning £5,000 to direct and produce his short film Killing Waves, following the story ofSurfers Against Sewage (SAS), an environmental organisation seeking to preserve our beaches and campaign against water pollution. 

“If it wasn’t for them (SAS) fighting that battle,” Carlos says, “god knows what the state of the beaches would be – so you should check them out. I think we all just need to pay a bit more attention.”

Carlos, who’s 31 and founded London Sessions Productions at Abbey Road Studios, spent a week filming, along with cameraman Bruno Ramos. Set against the coasts of Cornwall, Killing Waves adopts a fresh cinematic approach to the work of SAS. The charity who purport to live for the surf have dedicated their time to protecting the seas – not just to make the voice of the water user heard, but to protect the planet on a wider level.  Carlos tells us about the process and filming with SAS executive director Hugo Tagholm and campaign director Andy Cummins:

“There were a few challenges. I’m drawn to people’s stories, so I got curious of a more personal story of Andy and Hugo, I didn’t know whether to focus to the voice of SAS or them, but I was able to find that balance. Trying to tell the story in the best possible way and document it in the most natural way without a script, meant the story didn’t really come together until post-production.”

SAS is the brainchild of a group of local surfers and beach lovers, founded in 1990. Established at grass roots level, the organisation became a national movement, with representatives across the UK addressing issues including climate change, sewage pollution and toxic chemicals. Now, they work to educate, conserve and campaign on the matter of water pollution. Hugo says:

“The film really encapsulated SAS’s campaigns and why we’re motivated to protect Britain’s beaches. Filming was good fun - it was great to have Carlos and Bruno with us getting involved in the surf and showing Cornwall’s best beaches, as well as the unfortunate impact that’s been made on our coastlines.”

Join SAS here

We are doomed & damned: Half of all food 'thrown away'

Up to 30% of vegetables in the UK were not harvested because of their physical appearance.

As much as half of the world's food, amounting to two billion tonnes worth, ends up being thrown away, a UK-based report has claimed.

Read those two sentences again.

If this is even half true the human race is doomed and damned and we don't deserve to survive.  I haven't been as shaken by a news report in years.  According to the BBC, a report released by the The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (a body not known for hyperbole) claims that 30% and 50% of the four billion tonnes of food produced around the world each year went to waste. 

It suggested that half the food bought in Europe and the US was thrown away.

Half.

This is directly taken from the BBC report:

Dr Fox, head of energy and environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: "The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering. This is food that could be used to feed the world's growing population - as well as those in hunger today.

"It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food.

"The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure through to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect foodstuffs and encouraging consumers to overbuy through buy-one-get-one-free offers."

And he told the BBC's Today programme: "If you're in the developing world, then the losses are in the early part of the food supply chain, so between the field and the marketplace.

"In the mature, developed economies the waste is really down to poor marketing practices and consumer behaviour."

Population growth

The report - Global Food; Waste Not, Want Not - also found that huge amounts of water, totalling 550 billion cubic metres, were being used to grow crops that were never eaten.

The institution said the demand for water for food production could reach 10 to 13 trillion cubic metres a year by 2050.

The United Nations predicts there will be an extra three billion mouths to feed by 2075 as the global population swells to 9.5 billion.

Dr Fox added: "As water, land and energy resources come under increasing pressure from competing human demands, engineers have a crucial role to play in preventing food loss and waste by developing more efficient ways of growing, transporting and storing foods.

"But in order for this to happen governments, development agencies and organisation like the UN must work together to help change people's mindsets on waste and discourage wasteful practices by farmers, food producers, supermarkets and consumers."