Puma’s supplier reporting guidelines align with the Global Reporting Initiative.  According to Puma this means that twenty strategic suppliers in its supply chain from China to Cambodia will be trained to report on sustainability concepts such as social and working conditions.  The project teaches participants how to measure sustainability by using key performance indicators, while becoming more transparent and learning how to report on energy consumption, waste production and other issues.

Puma, in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), has also announced three major conservation projects in Africa as part of its ‘Play For Life’ Campaign, a global initiative dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of species and habitat conservation.  ‘Play for Life’ has been inspired by the 2010 Soccer World Cup, explains Afrique Avenir.  The campaign promoted the international year of biodiversity through events, fundraising initiatives and public service announcements which culminated in the public choosing three beneficiaries for campaign donations through online voting.  Proceeds will be donated to help save endangered African lions in Zambia, elephant populations in the Ivory Coast and Liberia, and gorillas in Nigeria.

However, Puma is not flawless in its conservation efforts, as evidenced by its 20% share holdings in Wilderness Safaris, a tourism company that has built a lodge on land belonging to the Bushmen of Botswana.  Afrique Avenir reports that Survival International recently urged Puma to separate from the company, which supports luxury tourism in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve while ignoring the inhumane treatment of the Bushmen who are not even allowed to access their own water.

Becoming a sustainable and conservation friendly sports lifestyle company is clearly a process of trial and error for Puma.  If at first they don’t succeed, let’s hope they learn from mistakes and try again!

In a nutshell, men’s tendency to improve their economic well being by destroying the forest and land makes life harder for women fulfilling their traditional role.  As natural sources become depleted, women will use resources such as cow manure for kitchen fuel rather than putting it into the fields.  As Sudesca explains, this weakens the soil and makes women’s lives even harder.

This is one reason development needs to include women, who are often the most conscious of environmental issues.  Women tend to recognize that environmental degradation is closely related to human actions and the social sphere.

India is striving to create a mutually beneficial relationship between women, their communities and natural resources, that allows conservation to become a primary goal.  Sudesca reports that in communities that rely heavily on farms, the women can be trained in on-farm conservation techniques including biodiversity inventories.  In order to complete their work, women must become an essential part of the fight against environmental degradation.

Women, whose traditional seed selection and farming duties include maintaining a diverse selection of food crops, have begun to take on a vital role in conserving the environment and working towards sustainability.  The female population is quickly entering the public sphere with a stronger voice, and taking up careers in the sciences.  Among others, India’s Department of Biotechnology began creating programmes in 1998 that further arm women in the battle against environmental degradation.

The Sudesca article is a fascinating article – if you have any interest in sustainability, conservation, developing countries, or women’s issues, you will probably enjoy reading the Role Of Women In Conservation Of Environment.

According to Museum Publicity,  Chicago’s Field Museum’s new Climate Change exhibit showcases global climate change, likely the most urgent scientific and social issue of our century.  The exhibit explains the science of climate change while also examining the social issues that will arise with future generations if the problem is not solved.  The exhibit demonstrates that there is not just one solution – a necessary effort must be put in by individuals, communities, and governments.

The Field Museum’s exhibit on Climate Change was organized by the American Museum of Natural History  along with The Field Museum and several others, reports the Chicago Tribune.  The exhibit demonstrates how the warming climate has begun to melt polar ice, raise sea levels and alter weather patterns by warming the ocean and creating brutal storms while also changing ecosystems.  Through interactive stations, dioramas and videos, the exhibit provides evidence that over the last 300 years human activity has altered the natural world.

The Climate Change exhibit is sponsored by HSBC-North America, Exelon Corporation, Motorola Foundation, Whole Foods Market and Jones Lang LaSalle.  For every visitor to the Climate Change exhibition, Exelon Corporation will donate $1 to the exhibition up to a total of $200,000.

Also interesting, the Tree Museum recently opened in Switzerland, Inhabitat informs us.  The collection of 2,000 trees showcased at the museum has been accumulated over 17 years.  The trees have all been saved and now represent a museum of their own.  Both the Tree Museum and sustainability-built headquarters are situated on 2.5 acres of a 14th Century monastery grounds.   (Photo is of the Louvre).

The Tree Museum headquarters forms a backdrop that showcases the trees.  The building’s sustainable features include efficient insulation, a green roof, a geothermal heating and cooling system and sustainably-sourced local wood.  The trees are positioned against sandstone walls and contain 22 different varieties that range from English yew to Pinus sylvestris.

Together these museums demonstrate what museums can do to help inform people and solve major environmental and social issues.  Whether working alone or as part of a community, we all have a role to play in solving climate change and related issues.  Educational, informative and interactive, these museums have made a positive step forward.

A note to anyone heading for London’s Grant Museum of Zoology – According to Culture24, the museum will be closing for 6 months as of Wednesday June 30, 2010 and will reopen in January 2011.

As WWF Canada reports, National Marine Conservation Areas aim to protect marine ecosystems while allowing the area to be used in ecologically sustainable ways.  To date, the Gwaii Haanas has been poorly managed, with a noticeable lack of consideration for ecological, cultural, and social values.  The new Reserve will be co-managed with Parks Canada, Fisheries & Oceans Canada, and the Haida Nation, as well as local stakeholders.

The Gwaii Haanas is an important area ecologically, with over 3,000 species in a fairly untouched area.  Gray and humpback whales, sea lions, dolphins and other mammals migrate through the area which is home to a variety of fish, seabirds and other marine life.

This particular area has been faced with rapidly declining numbers of sea life ranging from herring to prawns.  However, after years of discussion between the Haida Nation and the Government, they have finally come to an agreement that will close approximately three percent of this area to fishing, as reported by the Times Colonist.  As progress continues, environmental groups hope that these no-fishing areas will be expanded.

Parks Canada reports that the National Marine Reserve and Heritage Site will preserve approximately ten kilometres off the Reserve’s shore.   In combination with the preexisting national reserve, the conservation area will set out to protect more than 5,000 square kilometres ranging from mountaintops to deep sea.

The shared responsibility model in Gwaii Haanas is unique in its effort to treat land and sea as a single system.  As such, it provides a role model for other conservation and sustainability agreements across North America.

Also, as WWF suggests, our oceans are exposed to a triple threat consisting of poor management, overexploitation, and climate change.  These are the primary causes for the reduction in the number of fish to what is believed to be beneath a sustainable level, which has negative impacts on coastal communities.  The Gwaii Haanas agreement represents a trickle of hope for renewal and sustainability in our oceans.  Now we are left to hope that the success of this National Marine Conservation Area will spur the development of many more!

Meanwhile, the three day World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of the Mother Earth wrapped up in Cochabamba Bolivia.  This conference largely grew out of how so many NGO’s were barred from any official dialogue at Copenhagen.  Over 30,000 people participated in Bolivia and the conference resulted in a wide recognition that a world referendum is needed on climate change, a climate justice tribunal, and the protection of the rights of Mother Earth.  Several people blogged about the conference.   Hopefully they will accomplish an agreement at the summit planned to be held in Mexico later this year.  Their bottom line is that they want to establish a legal framework for protecting our increasingly threatened natural environment and raising the global consciousness about Mother Earth, on which we all depend for life.

Now that so many people are on board, what are some of the things we can do going forward?  This being the Friday File, what’s fun?

Sustainability can be fun if we take the right attitude to it.  My current stainless steel travel mug is decorated with zebra stripes with a pink border, and I love using it.  Look at lists of things we can do, such as on Earth Day’s website, and make a fun version of it.

If you’d like some inspiration, check out National Geographic’s website that shows some fun ways that Earth Day has been celebrated over the years.

And sometimes activities can be fun just because we’re helping our home planet and making a difference.

Hello from Vancouver, home to the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.  BC Hydro is using their role as the Official Supplier of Electricity to the Games as a platform to promote a message of conservation, Simi Heer explained to me.  Simi is BC Hydro’s Power Smart Media Representative.

BC Hydro provides electricity to 94% of British Columbians, and is the third-largest electric utility in Canada.  Their Power Smart program has been delivering a sustainability message for years, encouraging British Columbians to consume less electricity.

It was fun to dance on the electricity-generating floor at Club Energy, and watch as the colored lights beneath the floor turned on and flashed with my dancing speed.  The floor is also part of BC Hydro’s message of how we impact and are tied to energy.  According to Simi, 1.1 million watts of electricity were generated the first two days from people dancing on the floor.  She told me that the floor has generated around six kilowatt hours of electricity in just over a week, enough for six loads of laundry.  That’s a lot of dancing.  “The message we’re trying to show is that it’s hard to generate electricity, so we should be wise in how we use it,” Simi commented.  Electricity doesn’t excite everyone, so the dance floor “makes it more interesting.”

Also at the Power Smart Village pavilion is a short film that draws parallels between athletes using their bodies efficiently and people using energy wisely.  Sometimes people need to be trained in conservation messages, just like athletes require training to become skilled in their sport.  Lack of knowledge can be a major stumbling block in getting people to live more sustainably.

Another onsite display is the Home of the Future, which is made of two recycled shipping containers.  The outside is made of B.C. cedar board siding and pine beetle wood.  Inside, a Smart Washer & Dryer and Smart Refrigerator monitor energy levels and do their most intensive work when the energy demand is low.  Part of BC Hydro’s Olympics effort is to recruit British Columbians to become members of Power Smart, and reduce their energy consumption by 10%, reports Simi.  It’s one step along the road to living sustainably.

As the panel was introduced, it was noted that the pathway to being green is often less clear than the desire to be sustainable.  Thus, it was fitting that the first speaker was Peter Robinson, CEO of the David Suzuki Foundation that helps teach people how to be sustainable.

Peter suggested that sustainability targets should include longer term solutions that apply to the whole system, that balance production and consumption, are transparent and include accountability.  Making operations efficient and reducing energy and waste helps a business save money.  The next step is reducing their product’s footprint, by making it and its packaging greener.  Level three involves greening your network – your customers, suppliers, producers, and not least your employees.  As in the palm oil article I posted recently, examine your supply chain.  How green is it and how could it be made more sustainable?

Maureen Cureton, Green Business Manager at Vancity (see www.vancity.com/greenbusiness), spoke next.  Vancity, she started, was the first North American-based financial institution that became carbon neutral.  They accomplished this through focusing on building energy savings, paper use, employee commuting and bus travel.  Items such as 100% post consumer paper cost more, she acknowledged, but reductions in consumption helps offset costs.  Vancity’s environmental commitments generate employee and member (customer) loyalty as well as enhanced brand value which far outweighs any residual cost increase.

TJ Galda, Chair of the Electronic Arts Green Team, was next.  He opened by saying sustainability gives a business a good triple bottom line – including the business, the environment, and the corporate cultural attitude.  They’re thorough at EA (as it’s called) – the paper towels get composted.  TJ made an excellent case about the benefits a business receives when employees are happy, and increasingly employees want to go home at night and tell their children that Mom or Dad works at a planet friendly company.

David Moran, Director of Public Affairs and Communications for Coca-Cola Canada, rounded out the panel. Coca-Cola Canada is a huge company, and it takes time to change a company that size.  But they’re making a good effort.  They’re examining ways to reduce their sugar footprint, and to become carbon free.  A beverage container now contains a significant amount of sustainable material.  And managers present their efforts to their Board of Directors annually, who importantly support the green shift.

The event was wrapped up with a Q&A session, during which the speakers responded to questions with knowledge and a genuine interest in helping businesses become sustainable.

Overall, it was a great event and hopefully this article will help businesses everywhere and of any size examine their own footprint and make it sustainable.