Setting the trend!

Yesterday, the annual Best in the city of Turku -party was arranged to celebrate a wide range of initiatives/people/happenings awarded in 2010 by the regional City-paper. The Local food initiative, that was started by the Solutions local, together -conference was awarded as the best Food initiative of the year in the city of Turku! This makes the work carried out even more valuable, as the so called trend-setters in the city have noticed the work done. The fact that we have not yet even marketed the initiative with full volume raises the value of the award even more.

In the same event, the Campaign, that also has originated from the conference preparations, used the surrounding of a pub to raise awareness on how everyone´s own actions can really make a difference. Although at first one would think that the surroundings were wrong it turned out to be a success. Several young people were reading the Campaign information from the walls, discussed the issues and no one could avoid hearing what was said by the commentator. It felt very natural, as that´s where the young people are - so why not bring there also the campaigning on sustainable development?

We really need to approach things from outside our normal ways of thinking - whether these are organizational, mental or socials. Bring different people together, be enthusiastic and bold! Without a big vision and enthusiasm, no big things will happen. More trend-setters are needed to bring the message across!

Small actions turning into big impacts!

Lucas had an intensive discussion with his friends about what each and every one of us can do to make a difference. It is easy to make promises, like politicians, but what if we would just do things instead of talking. How much could we influence in the end?

Lucas and his friends decided to take part in a campaign organized in the South-West of Finland. They had ran into the campaign through newspaper adds and thought that it would be quite interesting to take part in. Through campaign everyone is able to look into their water consumption and electricity in houses, food choices at shops, transportation modes and the amount of waste created. The campaign website (in Finnish) gives practical indicators on each action made and through them it is easy to see how the actions can make a difference.

As the first easy action, Lucas reduced the temperature at his house one degree and no one complaint or noticed this change! And this reduced the heating costs by 5 %. Amazing. After that Lucas started to use a cup while washing his teeth and that made a saving of 56 cents per week and saved nearly 170 liters of water. It was much more easier and fun than he thought. Why didn't he think of it before?