On October 6th, the One Earth team spent an inspiring day at the first public event of the Binners Project – the Coffee Cup Revolution! This Cities for People supported project collected more than 42,000 used disposable paper coffee cups in an effort to re-direct from the landfill, and to make wasteful practices visible, while valuing the perspective and experiences of the binners. Many community members came out to take part in this event, and there was widespread media coverage from CBC, the Vancouver Sun, and The Province, among others.

The Binners Project engages the Canadian waste-picker community to identify if there is interest in facilitating learning and exchange among waste-pickers at the national level and beyond. Anticipated outcomes include increased urban resilience through green and inclusive economies, social inclusion, capacity building and connectivity among waste-pickers, and civic engagement.

Have you been mulling over a great project idea to help transform your neighborhood? Are you ready to take the next step to make it a reality?

The Montreal Urban Ecology Center, in partnership with the One Earth and Center for a New American Dream is now accepting applications for the 2014 Get2gether Neighborhood Challenge. The challenge is a great way to get organized and bring your ideas to life. MUEC, in association with ioby, will help your team raise funds for a project to improve your neighborhood and will match the funds raised by each selected team up to $2,000. 

All selected winners will begin the project process in August 2014 by attending two custom, ioby-led webinar trainings on crowdfunding. Whatever amount the teams raise through this process will be matched dollar-for-dollar by MUEC up to $2,000. The winners typically reach their goal and more within four weeks! Last year’s winners were able to raise more than $25,000 combined for their work. You can find some project ideas here.

Challenge Timeline:

• August 4, 2014: Deadline to submit your application
  
• August 11, 2014: Announcement of selected projects
  
• August 2014: Crowdfunding webinars
  
• September 15, 2014: deadline to raise funds toward the matching grant.
  
• October 1, 2014: Matching grants awarded

Click here for more information.

As part of One Earth’s work on envisioning compelling sustainable futures, Vanessa and Dagmar Timmer partnered with Musagetes to launch the inaugural Disruptive Imaginings workshop on Wasan Island. Disruptive Imaginings brings together participants from the fields of futures, arts, and sustainability in order to engage people in imagining alternative futures.  This project is focused on immersive visions and experiences of sustainable futures. Over the course of the workshop from June 22nd-27th, participants explored the intersection of their disciplines, shared practices and charted a way forward. 

Following the Wasan Island workshop, the participants are working on:

• identifying the key elements of a framework / set of guidelines of this emerging field that can inform existing and new projects,
  
• providing peer learning and feedback on each other's work, and
  
• developing collective projects that can serve as experiments for this approach.
  

The Disruptive Imaginings participants will re-convene in Vancouver in May / June of 2015.

Bill Rees and Vanessa Timmer are in China as One Earth is a core partner in the Second Biennial Global Research Forum on Sustainable Production and Consumption conference Global Transitions to Sustainable Production and Consumption Systems. It is a forum to present and discuss new research outcomes from the Asia-Pacific region as well as from Latin America, Africa, Europe, and North America.  This conference provides a unique opportunity for Chinese and Asian SPaC researchers and practitioners to join together with the others in the global community.  The conference will take stock of new issue framings and explore emerging research questions. The scope will cover local and global issues and interconnections across scales, connecting regions and researchers. The Conference Program (Agenda) can be downloaded here (PDF).

One Earth was part of the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) this May, hosted by Social Innovation Generation (SiG). SiG and SIX staff invited some of the world’s leading social innovators, social entrepreneurs and social financiers to meet with Canada’s social innovation community in five Canadian cities: Montreal (May 13 | June 18), Toronto (May 21 – 26), Vancouver (May 26 – 30), Windsor (May 22), Ottawa – (May 27).

As part of the SIX Innovation Exchange Summer School, One Earth’s Vanessa Timmer led the afternoon tour of Greenest City initiatives, co-hosted a relational approaches and trust workshop, presented on Flipping the Power: investing in relationships not just dollars, and participated in the Labs for Systems Change workshop at MaRS (26 May).

The conference events focused on:

• Showcasing Canada’s social innovation partnerships with government, universities, non-profits, foundations, businesses and citizens.
  
• Learning from global best practices.
  
• Creating a forum where theoreticians, policy makers, grassroots activists and social innovation practitioners can share insights and have fun.
  
• Strengthening the capacity of Canadians to work together across sectors and disciplines to solve our toughest social challenges. 
  

View resources from the conference here. 

 What if hundreds of people united, each putting in place the changes they wish to see in their city, all on the same day? Join One Earth on Saturday June 7th in highlighting the power of new economies, ways of exchanging or sharing through a fun and engaging intervention. 100 in 1 Day is taking place in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. This citizen-driven festival will unite people across the city to make our cities  better places by creating acts of urban change. These acts, or interventions, have the potential to raise awareness of urban and social issues, inspire ideas, and motivate leaders to consider new approaches to old problems. Afterwards, send your interventions/pictures or videos to Alicia Tallack at One Earth: alicia@oneearthweb.org.

Bill Rees "wowed the crowds" at the recent Fresh Outlook Foundation's SustainABLE Communities conference, November 25 - 28, 2013, in Kelowna, British Columbia.  Bill was voted (for the 7th consecutive year!) the most popular conference speaker.  In his 2013 presentation, he shared "the most important things he's learned during 43 years as an ecological economist".  Watch a video of his talk, below!

For information on the SustainABLE Communities conference, including the detailed programme, list of speakers, etc., click here: http://freshoutlookfoundation.org/events/2013bsc/.  For a list of speaker presentations, click here: http://freshoutlookfoundation.org/resources/bsc-presentations/.

The National Industrial Symbiosis Program (NISP), Canada has officially launched this March at the GLOBE Conference in Vancouver, BC with policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society and academic partners in attendance.
 
The NISP Network works to identify mutually profitable links or synergies between its business members so that under-utilized and under-valued resources from one (materials, energy and water) are recovered and reused elsewhere in the industrial network – creating a truly circular economy. This industrial symbiosis has a proven track record of impact on cost savings, job creation, lower carbon emissions, and water savings.

Currently, One Earth is supporting outreach to secure 3-5 pilot industrial symbiosis programs in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Hamilton, or Montreal.

 Learn more about NISP here.

One Earth Executive Director, Vanessa Timmer, is touring the country with April Rinne, Chief Strategy of Collaborative Lab, to shed light on the collaborative economy (or "the sharing economy").  The collaborative economy has the potential to transform the way we design products and services, create sustainable and "shareable" cities, re-imagine public services, reduce waste and connect communities. The tour is part of the launch of Cities for People, a Canada-wide initiative to create more resilient and livable cities.  April Rinne's national speaking tour is co-sponsored by Social Innovation Generation (SiG). Using a wide array of innovative examples from around the world -- from transportation to office space to food to education – she will show us how we can use technology and human ingenuity to unlock the wealth that exists in people, places and resources to develop scalable solutions to many of our pressing challenges and to improve social outcomes. Tickets to the public event in Vancouver (13 February, 5:30-9pm) are available here.