Grease to Greece 2009: ecological Odyssey

by Eleonora Anello

Departure from the UK and arrive in Greece, but with cars fuelled with exhausted oils only, through an informal network of "filling stations" of fired wastes, from fast food to Chinese restaurants or kebab shops.
This is "Grease to Greece 2009”, second edition of a mad "rush"for cars where the matter is not going fast but to produce low emissions by using low doses of fossil fuel. To determine the winner, it will not be assessed in the ranking the order of arrival in Athens but the ecological footprint produced by the participants.

The creator of the competition is the engineer Andy Pag 35, years old, of London, who in 2007 has gone from Croydon (United Kingdom) to Timbuktu (Mali) crossing the Sahara desert with a truck fueled by chocolate (or, rather, derived from the waste of his production, over 2,000 liters of fuel extracted from four tons of waste factory, starting cocoa butter oil).

This year too, as it has already happened in the edition launch in 2008, the rally aims to attract curious who will approach to new ways of moving, alternatives ways to make the car move in a more ecological and also saving money. A nice and practical way to carry a clear message: "Give grease a chance", namely that prove that cars can go on not only by using oil and that unlike ethanol and other biofuels controversy, the recycled cooking grease is less impact on the planet.
The objective of this campaign out of the schemes is to give impetus to a retail network of kitchen waste that would otherwise end up in landfills or at sea. Grease to Greece wants to engage in a lasting traders that contribute to the project with the donation of their residues, raising a new awareness about the possible alternative uses of their waste production.

The eco-friendly travel is also a convenient way to communicate. A campaign that unites the desire to travel, sustainable tourism and competitive sport in which the pillars of traditional marketing are reversed: the ideas meet the medium and not contrary.
It is used primarily the buzz effect. It triggers a chatter that spreads by itself. A “campaign” that doesn’t want to be monologue but who wants to animate dialogue with those who met their target. The effect is also viral. Once that the user is "engaged", that is involved in first person, it has become a supporter and are active to spread the initiative in an informal and, therefore, more credible because it hasn’t a direct interest but to live in a world that is more attentive to the environment.

In 2008 edition of "Grease to Greece Rally", crews have traveled 2500 miles (4023 kilometers) to Athens, where the British ambassador has gived a prize to winners with the Golden Lard Award.
Who will be the winner of 2009?
Registration are still open: to join it takes a team , a diesel car, a few weeks of holidays ... and so much fat cooking.

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I “swiss” a good journey

by Alessio Sciurpa

Interesting advertising for Swiss International Air . LXForty was made at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles in collaboration with the Publicis advertising agency, Ping Pong Films , the Kansas City-based MK12 animation house and music producer Brian Reitzell, it is a project of Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Neverland, Quantum of Solace and other). The title refers to the number of the Swiss flight from Zurich to Los Angeles, and centres on a number of personal life questions that Forster (in his first-ever appearance in front of the camera) tends to carry with him as he goes on his travels. LXForty expand the theme of the journey at the entire human life and reconnected it to its “environment”. Other words are not necessary. Check it out.

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All around the totem

by Eleonora Anello

Interesting interpretation by Sceverti of the campaign to promote the separate waste collection that the Department for Environmental Policy of the Municipality of San Benedetto del Tronto (Italy) is running since February 2008.
For “Io amo San Benedetto, io riciclo” ("I love St. Benedict, I recycle"), the name of the project, the Association Sceverti has chosen to use as a media contact of the "totem informants", made by hand, only with material recovery, by the artist Federica Di Donato.These design objects indicate the place, date and time of injection, positioning itself along the routes concerned.

This experimental project of urban green marketing is intended to reward the responsibility of the individual, that stress should go to him at the point of collection, and encouraging their participation, while enhancing the sense of community. According to the Assessor Paolo Canducci "The green totem perform a dual function: economic because they have no cost, as the result of mind and made with materials from the separation of PicenAmbiente [the local disposal company, ndr] Social and show why the waste have different public utility. In this case, are indicators of where the Gabbianelli support, mobile units for the collection of wet and dry non-recyclable”.

Objects visually pleasing and appealing fit the surrounding environment, stand out in the territory as reference points to a virtuous path and give greater credibility to a gesture which helps the environment. Fetish of the virtuous citizen, the individual who respects and protects their city so much to become guardian himself.

The people seem to accept.

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Rave Tree for T-Mobile

by Alessio Sciurpa

What happens when a mobile telephony leader company as T-Mobile decides to devote itsself to environmental communication?
Borns products, such as the four Flash Mob that you can find on the site MobilizeWithT-Mobile, which stands out clearly the intention of: "Let's make a difference. Together ".
Three principles key which focuses on the green strategy of T-Mobile:

1. Reduce waste (paper), create a green account;
2. Reuse, buying the Moto W233 mobile Renew (which had already been discussed in our previous post), the first mobile composed by recycled materials.
3. Recycle, for each old phone recycled the "T-Mobile Handset Recycling Program" plant a new tree.

To open the series, the first Flash Mob "A green deed, it deserves another", which is rather the leit motiv of the series. Till the last one: during a normal summer day at the park, everything suddenly comes alive and is transformed into a veritable “Tree Rave”.

The videos are not of particular significance if it were not exploiting the popularity generated by the two previous amazing Flash Mobs for T-Mobile: the Liverpool Street Station of Londra and the Sing-along of Trafalguar Square.

Surely an excellent demonstration of how in a purely commercial’s communication strategy, we can successfully integrate a campaign more focused on the social and green issues.

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Adopt a garden at distance

by Eleonora Anello

On spring has begun the sowing of the land. The first deliveries are expected in June. And some people have thought for those who live in urban areas and have neither time nor space, or simply did not want to engage in the production of farmers. “Le verdure del mio orto”("My garden's vegetables ") arises from these conditions: deliveries a week at home, exclusive agricultural areas to be selected for size and cultivation and to cultivate as delegated.


But how can we adopt a virtual garden? We ask it to Giovanni Ferraris, 36 years, PR manager.
"It is all in 4 easy steps: define the size depending on the composition of the household or group, for example we have offices and businesses, the last one that has adopted a garden is a catering company. Then you must select the vegetables by choosing from a range of 39 vegetables and selection of flower beds with herbs, berries or flowers, and, finally, select the accessories among those proposed as the photo-album with the collection of images, or the scarecrow to give an identity to their land. In the future we would like to offer other local produce such as cheese and meat to complete the offer”.

Vegetables are all organic, even if to save on the final costs, the company has not yet certified, deliveries are done with a truck to reduce methane emissions and pollutants, among other attention directed to the exclusive use of natural fertilizers, drip irrigation to save water, control weeds by mulching with biodegradable fabrics.

This project of cultivating agricultural consumption exploits the potential of digital communication, which thus becomes the tool to manage self and return to old traditions closed to those who live in urban areas. A virtuoso blend of innovation and tradition, marriage that is being consolidated in many other situations.

Compliance with the seasonal vegetables and the knowledge that the consumption of foods in season helps to boost the immune system represent some of the key principles underlying the Fife Diet.
Fife is a region of Scotland situated to the north of Edinburgh, where for several years the local consumption has been promoted to reduce air pollution among the causes of climate change. A pioneering project that encourages people to use only products that come from surrounding areas. The supply chain becomes shorter and thus are unable to eat better and save money.
To contact the producer and consumer it will be a mobile software that will find the nearest suppliers and create a network of outlets for local produce in urban centres.
The project works so that in one year by the 14 members who founded the network has gone to 600. Interesting how this project has also impacted on the social morphology of the area, in fact many families were finally established in Fife to follow this new way of life.

But this kind of experience is multiplied. In the U.S., the term "locavore" refers to people who eat only locally sourced food, while in Canada and Australia are active in the "100-mile diet", people who try to eat the food that comes from a radius of not more than 100 miles from their home.

All new dieters ensure that the new diet is not only good for the environment and the wallet, but also to the line. Certainly it is a way to lose weight for summer thanks to the massive cutting of sugar in processed foods. More...

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If Obama Girl tells you to “Save your energy”

by Alessio Sciurpa

America's Greenest Campus is the first US contest between colleges to save energy and reduce the carbon footprint of their campus communities. The contest is a partnership between Climate Culture and SmartPower with support from the US Department of Energy. The America’s Greenest Campus contest is being kicked off with a video from BarelyPolitical.com featuring Obama Girl that encourages young people to follow Obama’s lead, join the green movement, and “Save Their Energy” by joining the AGC contest. The video can be seen online here.

The contest runs until October 5, 2009 and winners will be announced in two areas – the school with the most participants and the school with the most carbon reductions per participant – on October 12, 2009. Each winning school will receive $5,000 in cash prizes to be used towards sustainability initiatives on campus.

An interesting campaign that aims to influence young adults to change their behaviours and their relationship with the environment, trough a contest that increase their participation.

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Your voice for social change

by Eleonora Anello

Social Yell is a social network for discussing the ethical behavior of companies and nonprofit organizations. This is a site that gathers all pertinent information on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It is easy to get started with SocialYell. Just register and begin discussing and rating businesses, organizations or even politicians that have a positive or negative impact on our world. Vote (Yell) for discussions that you think people really need to read.

Corporate Social Responsibility is a recently concept whereby a company that takes a type of conduct, monitoring and responding to economic expectations, environmental and social rights of its stakeholders, also follows a competitive advantage and, in the long run, higher sales and maximizes profits.
Today more than ever a product is not only appreciated by the consumer for the quality or functional exterior, its value is formed mostly by non-material characteristics, such as image, the conditions of supply, its production cycle (LCA ), the service and customization, its history and the history of the brand that sells.

Users of Social Yell consumers are aware, shortly surface, which do not rely on abstract representations, on the contrary they want to know not only the behavior more or less ethical undertaking of a company, requiring a commitment, credible and daily effort, the result of a precise policy management and a business system organized for this purpose.

Following Social Yell there is Zoes too: it is an experiment in social network dedicated to green issues, which aggregates and puts people in touch with the common passion for sustainability and environmental protection.
Such containers have a double significance: on one hand help to expose any practice of "Green Washing", and second is a mine of information for companies that want to target their products in a more sustainable perspective.
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Social guerrilla, viral warning and super hero

by Alessio Sciurpa

Climate terrorists and common super hero, we have selected, two of the videos produced by Oxfam GB to YouTube & Cannes Young Lions Contest 2009. Both represent good examples, among many, of how to convey the theme of climate change through conventional and unconventional actions.

Oxfam International is a confederation of 13 like-minded organizations working together and with partners and allies around the world to bring about lasting change, in an attempt to combat poverty, injustice and protect the environment. More...

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“COLTIVARE LA CITTÀ”: urban agricolture

By Alessio Sciurpa

The development of urban agriculture, the spread of roof gardens and vertical gardens among others, are some of the symptoms that underlie the need inherent in the inhabitants of large urban areas to retrieve a contact with nature, agriculture and the food genuineness that is linked to them. As already noted Lester Brown in his Plan B 3.0, so Andrea Calori in his “Coltivare la città, giro del mondo in dieci progetti di filiera corta” (Growing the city, around the world in ten projects of short chain) by heading to this trend, gathering for the first time in a single volume experiences of urban agriculture from various parts of the world, some recent, other outstanding for years. What do a Bronx immigrant, a woman from a suburb of Osaka, a farmer from Senegal, a baker of Monaco and a Venezuelan driver?
Each of these people is the protagonist of stories related to food. Each belongs to groups and communities, more or less formalized, we are organized to sell or buy food which is consumed near the place of production.

The book recounts experiences that arise in different contexts with different modes of development linked by a single thread. How long has required the its preparation and from where did the idea?
The drafting of the book itself was very fast, but this was possible because we have on our shoulder some fifteen years of work on the relationship between city and country, through activities rooted in university research at the “Politecnico of Milan” (Italy) and related to the participation the world of movements and social networks. In particular since 2000, we initiated research on a city or institutional initiatives with strong spin part in the environmental, social and economic development and capable of producing practical policies for local development self-sustainable. From these, we have improved the experiences of agro-food chains short-involving local and give new impetus to urban agriculture. Altreconomia, who knows our work, we proposed to write a text, since the topic does not exist publications. The drafting of the book itself took three months working full time, during which we first selected the projects most important to us, and then rebuild them as much as possible in detail, even interviewing players directly. Finally we tried to tell the selected projects through real stories, with the intention of making them accessible to everyone, even those who do not deal with the issue of short chain in terms of academic qualifications.

Why talk about it today?
First, to restore the right proportion: the global market has made us believe that the whole world is nourished through a model of intensive monoculture production which is very distant-in time, space and trade-from the moment of consumption, but the data FAO tell a different story. The work of small family farms and methods associated with those of short chain feeds are third world population, with peaks that reach 90% in the African population case. Secondly, because we are particularly interested in the reality of Milan, who thanks to the presence of a suburban agricultural park, it offers in terms of short-chain, unexpected opportunities.
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