Making green meaningful to women – Show 49

By on July 27, 2011   /   Featured Media, Leadership, Women Of Green Podcasts with Carolyn   /   1 Comment
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

OK, we know that American women buy 85% of the products on the planet, and we know we’re the keepers of the home and hearth, so why in the world are we buying so many products laden with toxic chemicals? Why are we voluntarily bringing them into our homes? This is a big disconnect for me. So I asked my guest, Margaret McAllister, an advertising creative director with a specialty in marketing green to women, this question.

“The most important thing we, as marketers, can do is to educate women about what they’re buying, why they’re buying it, and to relate those products to her specific life,” she said in this podcast. “If you really want to bring the message home to women, show them something that she specifically cares about. And there’s probably nothing more precious to her than her children.” I would agree. This self-professed cultural anthropologist shares with me more down-to-earth insights like this in this interview. If this topic intrigues you as much as it does me, listen in and, most importantly, join in the conversation. Love to get your take on this.

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

Tomatoland exposes the dirt on Florida tomatoes.

By on July 26, 2011   /   Family, Leadership   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , , , , ,

We all know that Florida is famous for its oranges. But if it’s up to Barry Estabrook, the Florida tomato will soon upstage its sister. His new book, Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, exposes some juicy facts about how these red rivals are grown and who’s doing the pickin’. According to the book, children as young as 12 do farm work and workers are paid by the number of containers of fruit they pick, a system that often leaves them with less than the minimum wage.

Estabrook writes, “This might explain why the life expectancy of a migrant worker in the United States is only 49 years … migrant workers typically make between $10,000 and $12,000 a year, a figure that is distorted because it includes the higher wages paid to field supervisors.”

To make matters worse, pesticides abound in the sandy soil their grown in, and farm workers are exposed and often unprotected. Give me one of those tomatoes and let me throw it at the culprits here. Shame on you.

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

Everything that’s wrong with our oil-soaked industrial economy in one amazing poster

By on July 25, 2011   /   Innovation, Leadership   /   2 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

 

This about says it. Thank you Grist.

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

Mother and daughter birth a big vision

By on July 18, 2011   /   Family, Featured Post, Leadership   /   7 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

With the birth of my son fast approaching, I wanted to take a stand. I wanted to create a community where real people could come and learn about environmental hazards and the simple changes they could make for their families, the environment and their pocketbook. I enlisted the help of one of the most passionate people I know, my mom, and we set out to create change.

For us, it mattered that change was easy and simple. It mattered that change could come from a small action that anyone could do, regardless of time and money. We also were determined to take a stand against plastic bags. It’s easy to see why – toxic and foul litter in the four corners of the planet, killing marine life and choking our natural resources. It seemed the perfect fit. What if we could get every person in North America to stop using plastic bags?

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

Do women leaders have what it takes?

By on July 14, 2011   /   Leadership   /   1 Comment
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

According to a new meta-analysis (integration of a large number of studies on the same subject), leadership continues to be viewed as culturally masculine and therefore women suffer from two primary forms of prejudice.

Alice Eagly, study co-author and professor of psychology at the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, the US, the journal Psychological Bulletin says, “Cultural stereotypes can make it seem that women do not have what it takes for important leadership roles, thereby adding to the barriers that women encounter in attaining roles that yield substantial power and authority.”

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

Carolyn Parrs on the power of the collective – Mrs. Green’s World Radio

By on July 13, 2011   /   Featured Media, Leadership   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , , , , , ,

The tables were turned in this show. Mrs Green interviews Women Of Green founder, Carolyn Parrs about how Women Of Green was born and the collective power of women to change the world. No small topic. Listen to this lively interview on Mrs Green’s World Radio.

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

Vulnerability Management: Required course for leaders?

By on July 8, 2011   /   Heart, Leadership   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Birute Regine, EdD is the author of “Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World.” She previously co-authored the critically acclaimed “The Soul at Work: Embracing Complexity Science for Business Success” with her husband, noted science writer Roger Lewin. She earned her doctorate in human development at Harvard and has spent 25 years as a psychologist in private practice and now works as an executive / life coach, facilitator, speaker and author.

I was having dinner with a friend, a very successful consultant, whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while. As we munched on a Caesar salad, I talked about my research on successful women. “I asked myself, what did these women, from many walks of life, share in common?” I told my friend. “What I discovered really surprised me. And because it surprised me, I knew I could trust this finding. A secret to these women’s success, I realized, had to do with how they dealt with vulnerability, their own and others’. They were able to transform vulnerabilities into strengths.” My friend leaned back in his chair and said, “You better not use that word with leaders. No leader wants to talk about vulnerability! They won’t go there.”

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

July is clean-up-your-act month

By on July 7, 2011   /   Family, Leadership, Nature   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ever visit a landfill? It ain’t pretty. Most of the debris of humanity ends up there. Bottles. Tires. Plastic. Old newspapers that you were suppose to recycle. Well, this month you have a chance to redeem yourself. July is “Waste Less” month and Women Of Green is participating in the GOOD Challenge. A month-long effort to lighten your load (and Mother Earth’s) in any way you can. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

First packaging-free grocery store in the US

By on July 5, 2011   /   Innovation, Leadership   /   3 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Never again will you have to answer the question “paper or plastic?” At this grocery store, they are eliminating all of it. Destined to become the first zero-waste, packaging-free store in the US, this Austin, TX start-up in.gredients says that it will carry “all the basic ingredients you need for life (and most recipes).”

“Most will perceive our competition as supermarkets, since we’re literally revising what grocery shopping looks like. But really, our competition is hyper-consumerism, which is just not sustainable long-term,” explains Brian Nunnery of in.gredients in an email to Fast Company. “If we were competing with supermarkets, we’d be setting up shop across the street from one. Instead, we’re targeting areas where folks don’t have easy access to good food–and are forced to buy unhealthy food out of convenience.”.

Read more at Fast Company

Continue reading... →
Back to Top

Women’s Role in the Clean Energy Economy

By on July 4, 2011   /   Innovation, Leadership   /   1 Comment
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have attended many Clean Tech conferences in the southwest over the last six months. Frankly, I wish I saw more women in the room. So this post on EcoAid’s website really resonated with me, so I am sharing it with you. It’s a juicy topic. Please join in on the conversation by leaving your comments below. And if you are a woman working in clean tech now, what do you know now that you didn’t know before that could help other women wanting to enter the clean energy sector? — Carolyn

Women across the nation are preparing to play an integral role in the green economy, and the United States will need their help if we’re going to pull ourselves out of the recession and compete in the new economy on a global scale. CAP’s Jorge Madrid has the story in this repost.

It’s true that men have been hit the hardest in the recession as far an unemployment numbers go, but we will need to seize the opportunity to diversify the future workforce in a way that will incorporate all workers in all areas of the clean energy economy—including those where women have been traditionally underrepresented.

Women in Burlington, Vermont are training for careers in the fields of green construction, renewable energy, and energy efficiency as part of the Vermont Works for Women project. Women Going Green in Atlanta, Georgia is educating women in management and entrepreneurial opportunities in the clean energy economy. And young women in Los Angeles, California are receiving science, technology, engineering, and math education through the Infrastructure Academy, which will prepare them for high-paying, high-demand careers developing the next generation of clean energy technology.

Continue reading... →
Back to Top