Karen Warner founded Big Head Farm in 2009, located in southwest Michigan. After experiencing the challenges of starting a farm and creating a viable business, Warner began thinking through ways to support new farmers and to protect small to mid-sized farms from going out of production. Warner is currently working to advance a farm accelerator model that would give farmers the resources and support they need to succeed from start-up to retirement.
Continue reading... →
To make fashion more sustainable, the industry’s underlying structure and supply lines need a major makeover. Yet, despite these obstacles, a few designers–alongside fashion muses like zero waste hero Lauren Singer–are taking zero waste fashion from fiction into the real world.
Continue reading... →
This month we’re all about sharing stories of girls and women around the world who are beating inequality and empowering their communities along the way. Well, here’s one about a different sort of female empowerment—the kind that lights up the night, makes light bulbs shine bright, and literally powers communities. It also features donkeys lugging solar panels around the Kenyan savanna, which is not a sentence I get to write everyday.
Continue reading... →
Rodale Institute and St. Luke’s University Health Network launched a true farm to hospital food program. The Anderson Campus at St. Luke’s has over 300 acres of farmland, much of which had historically been farmed conventionally with crops like corn and soy. The hospital administration recognized the impact that providing fresh, local organic produce could have on patient health and approached Rodale Institute to transition the land to organic and farm vegetables to be used in patient meals as well as in the cafeteria.
Continue reading... →
Consumers want safer chemicals and ingredients in their products, and they want companies to be transparent about what’s in their products. meet this demand and achieve a competitive advantage, retailers and manufacturers including Target, Walmart and SC Johnson have taken steps to phase out hazardous chemicals in their products and encourage product transparency.
Continue reading... →
“Loliware was born because, as designers, we wanted to have fun getting super-creative with a material, but we have a bigger vision that Loliware will replace a percentage of the plastic cups destined for the landfill.”
Continue reading... →
Lisbon, one of Europe’s most underrated cities, has in recent years been the recipient of an influx of artists, many fleeing Berlin and Paris for cheaper rents. While the expat scene thrives, the global community seems to have overlooked the local talent, which also exists in spades.
Continue reading... →
You probably know the saying by now: anything a man can do a woman can do better. And usually she does it with less complaining, more style, and let’s be totally honest, a whole lot more grace. Even farming. Yep, the new face of farmers in the U.S. might just pleasantly surprise you.
Continue reading... →
In her keynote speech at last year’s annual Netroots Nation gathering, Darcy Burner pitched a seemingly simple idea to the thousands of bloggers and web developers in the audience. The formerMicrosoft MSFT +0.6% programmer and congressional candidate proposed a smartphone app allowing shoppers to swipe barcodes to check whether conservative billionaire industrialists Charles andDavid Koch were behind a product on the shelves.
They can’t read or write but a couple of brave Bedouin women from Jordan travelled far and wide to help their villages become solar powered. The biggest struggle yet may be with their husbands: We’ve covered this hopeful story of Solar Mamas, Bedouin women from Jordan who went to Barefoot College to learn how to solar power their villages. We’ve interviewed the women from solar mamas, and have reviewed the film Solar Mamas, a documentary movie about their journey.