Muttonhead is a unisex sportswear brand that believes in practicing fair trade and manufactures all garments in Toronto, Canada.
Inspired by a time when garments were valued for their functionality, Muttonhead combines classic shapes with season-less styles.
www.muttonheadcollective.com
Patagonia’s Founder Is America’s Most Unlikely Business Guru #ethicalbusniesspratices
A couple of years ago, Yvon Chouinard—founder of the outdoor-clothing brand Patagonia—gave a talk at a sustainable-fisheries conference in Vancouver. He’d been invited to speak in recognition of Patagonia’s longtime commitment to environmental issues and its reputation as a company that manages to churn out profit while minimizing ecological impact. Chouinard delivered his spiel, but he came away frustrated by the surprising ignorance of his audience. “They didn’t know what they were doing,” he says of the seafood merchants. “They had no idea about toxins, about incidental catch. Their customers are all going to want to know this stuff soon. Restaurants will want to know.”
So, despite having zero background in the food business, Chouinard decided to launch his own salmon fishery. Patagonia Provisions, which debuted at the beginning of April, sells packets of salmon jerky ($12.50 for two ounces) next to rain jackets, hiking pants and organic cotton shirts. The salmon is caught in British Columbia’s Skeena River, using traditional equipment that the company describes as “First Nations fish wheels and dip nets.” Chouinard has so far poured $1.3 million into this curious experiment. He isn’t sure when he’ll make it back. “I can’t help myself,” he says. “I just want to show the fishing industry how it can be done.”
If you can’t help but feel inspired, read the rest of this article in the Wall Street Journal.
A year ago we blogged about a Kickstarter project called Compas Green, a year later “We are looking to get more trucks and teachers so that we can be more regional and reach a wider audience,” Justin says. “We’re applying for grants and sponsorship from ethical businesses so that we can offer our project for free in underprivileged schools.”
Why not ask Nick and Justin to drive to your town in their DIY mobile greenhouse and educate your community on sustainability and Biointensive mini-farming?
“We teach all ages, kindergarten through university level, and our community workshops have seen a few septuagenarians. We tend to focus on high schools and universities though, because we can go more deeply into full-spectrum sustainability with those students.”
You don’t even have to feel bad about them driving a big truck across the country because it is run on waste vegetable oil! To read more follow their website and head over to treehugger for the rest of their interview.
Hayley Lapalme’s TED talk “How I Fell in Love with Hospital Food”
Hayley grew up in the Canadian outdoors, paddling canoes and playing tag in the forest near her home in Waterloo, Ontario. Hayley’s respect and appreciation for the people who feed the world’s communities was cultivated in her grand parents’ backyard and has grown over time through the farmers she has met across Canada, India, and Barbados. She now works as a researcher and facilitator advancing the sustainability of our food systems with the environmental non-profit, My Sustainable Canada.
Hayley talks about the provincial hospital food system and highlights the two largest obstacles, the crisis of quality and of mix messaging. She points out how a large problem can be turned into a even bigger opportunity… so watch the video and see for yourself.
Compass Green is the first mobile greenhouse to be run entirely on renewable energy and will be constructed on the back of an 18-foot box truck.
Friends of ours in Brooklyn Nick Runkle & Justin Cutter have started a project called Compass Green, a mobile education project that will be utilized to teach sustainable agriculture, inspire creative solutions around food security issues, and to demonstrate an environmentally responsible way of living.
