Chris Deary

Will We All Work From Home in the Future?

2012-10-23T10:15:33-04:00

Home may be where the heart is, but it's still fairly unusual for it to be where your place of work is too. Despite the communications revolution in recent years just 3.7 million people work from home in the UK -- a relatively small percentage of the total workforce of around 36 million.

As businesses become more and more aware of their impact on the environment, homeworking represents a significant opportunity for them to be kinder to the planet and their workers by sparing them the daily commute.

David Vane, founder of WorkZmarter, says that businesses have nothing to fear. According to David, enabling staff to work from home not only reduces the number of cars on the road; it also decreases staff stress levels.

"There's a perception that people working from home don't work very efficiently," he says. "In our experience, they don't take time to go to the water cooler. We found that our ladies who were mums were dropping off the children at 9 a.m., working all day solidly and producing high-quality work."

WorkZmarter have 15 virtual assistants working from home. David thinks that many more business could benefit from this model.

"The big stumbling block is getting businesses to understand that they don't need to own all of their resources," he says. "The problem for most businesses is that they judge success by bums-on seats. If the director sees 40 people in front of them working, they think 'great, we're doing really well.' The fact that half may be on Solitaire and the other half on Facebook doesn't seem to cross their mind."

So how does David go about convincing those sceptical directors about the value of homeworking? "Well, the company's called WorkZmarter -- work smarter, not harder. Everybody I talk to says they're so busy. Well, what are you doing?

"Everyone's running around like maniacs but lots of people aren't trained well enough to use things like Outlook or LinkedIn and it scares everybody, so they end up ignoring it or spending hours not being very efficient."

But is the rest of the business world going on that journey with him?

"There is a slight change," he says. "I think more small business owners tend to work from home now. It's better than it was eight years ago. I think that over in the States outsourcing is very big now. They're two years ahead of us.

"I would like to have Virtual Assistants in 10 major cities in the country providing back office services for local businesses."

The Green Movement's Answer to the Tastecard

2012-10-11T16:48:58-04:00

A new membership card launching in the UK next month is aiming to make green living easier. Inspired by the Tastecard, which offers members discounts at selected restaurants, Choose Green will enable its members to get discounts on green products and services.

The company was founded by Malou Bramstrup after she discovered quality organic products were difficult to find. "I first thought of the idea in 2011 when I was finding it difficult to buy green, mainly due to the high costs and lack of availability," she says. "I was also a member of Tastecard and thought it was a brilliant idea so combined these two ventures.

"We've targeted the two major obstacles people face when choosing to buy environmentally friendly by offering cheaper products to the customer, and also creating a platform where the public can see a cross-section of products and services easily available to them."

Choose Green will also give smaller organic businesses an opportunity to get their products into the mainstream. "We're basically trying to make buying organic and environmentally-friendly produce easier," adds Malou. Products and services that will be on offer include groceries, taxis, gyms and much more.

"I take my main inspiration from all of the entrepreneurs who are starting from nothing and have a passion for their business," says Malou, who worked in corporate social responsibility before setting up her own venture. "It's so inspiring to meet someone who really believes in something, whatever that something may be."

But it hasn't all been plain sailing for Choose Green. Malou, who is originally from Denmark, told us: "Getting funding was the biggest challenge. I kept thinking, I can't do this on my own, I need funding! So I wrote a business plan and stuck to it. It was really tough at the beginning, being so busy, and also being from another country, so working with a language barrier. It's about pulling all the strings you can and making the right connections."

Her advice to other aspiring eco-entrepreneurs is to "be realistic about your business proposition and then don't give up. If you can see a gap in the market, do your research and then just go for it!"

The website will be up and running by the second week of November and Malou hopes to see Choose Green properly established in the UK within the next five years.

Can Crowdsourcing Save the World?

2012-10-04T14:20:23-04:00

Can crowdsourcing provide the answers to one of mankind's biggest challenges, namely how to sustain an ever-growing population in a world of ever-diminishing resources?

A Dutch start-up thinks so. Netherlands-based Nudge is an online community where people can share ideas for sustainable projects. If the community thinks the idea is good then Nudge (whose name is only partly inspired by the influential Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein book of the same name) will bring it to life.

"In five years time I hope that when people think about sustainability they directly relate it to Nudge," says Operations Director Tieneke Breemhaar.

"There isn't just one solution for a more sustainable world. We must all make sure we take little steps and we must do it together. That's what Nudge provides."

The "wisdom of the crowd" -- aka the notion that the collective opinion of multiple people is likely to produce better solutions to a problem than a lone expert -- may have been made easier by the Internet, but it is by no means a new idea. From trial by jury to democratic political systems, it's a concept that's deeply engrained in our way of life.

No wonder then that Nudge has caught the public's imagination. In the 18 months since it began over 26,000 'Nudgers' have signed up to the community.

"There was one lady who shared the idea that you don't have to cook your pasta for seven minutes as is indicated in the supermarket," explains Tieneke. "If you boil it for one to two minutes and then turn the heat off and close the lid it gets cooked in the same time. If she does that on her own, it's nice that she has made some savings, but if everyone did it then it would have a big impact.

"Nudge took this idea, got in discussion with Albert Heijn (a big supermarket chain in the Netherlands) to see if this could be published on all packaging as a cooking instruction. They were very enthusiastic about the idea. That is what we call a Nudge -- giving people the ability to do something."

Nudge also helped a company called The New Motion, who provide electricity networks for electric cars in Holland. They wanted to know where the best place to put the charging points was, so they asked the Nudge community.

"They were hoping to find 20 locations that would fulfill their needs but we came to the conclusion that they needed 150 locations," says Tieneke. "We gave the Nudgers the chance to act, they provided the information and now it's really being executed."

Nudge is aiming to take the idea all over Europe within the next five years.

Meet the Entrepreneur Changing the Way Fashion Works

2012-09-27T06:43:03-04:00

Adriana Herrera has a dream: "We want to make it very simple for you to find things based on your interests and likes. Right now, no-one is doing that in the world of fashion."

As founder and CEO of US start-up company Fashioning Change Adriana is already well on her to making that dream come true.

A cross between Amazon and Netflix, Fashioning Change uses information about what you like (automatically gleaned from your Facebook profile, if you so wish) to recommend products you might be interested in. All of the goodies listed on Fashioning Change are ethically and sustainably produced. "Everything we do is stylish and well-made," she says. "It's just fashion done better."

With a childhood spent desperately trying to find cool clothes that lived up to the ethical expectations of her socially-conscious Father and an early career spent making eco-friendly handbags in LA's fashion district, Adriana - who self-financed the launch of Fashioning Change in 2011 - is uniquely placed to understand the challenges of creating stylish sustainable fashion.

Yet it's the technical side of the business that seems to really excite her. "Our platform is based on machine learning and artificial intelligence," she says with all the confidence of someone who has spent recent years shunning party invitations in favour of nights in learning to code. "We connect you with the alternatives based on your personal preferences. The more you use it, the smarter it gets.

"I wanted to make products that I wasn't finding. I would find things that were green but they were very hippy dippy, very Granola! I wanted things that were stylish. There was a bunch of amazing designers who wanted to be ethical and sustainable but they had no business acumen."

Without that acumen ethical fashion - like the excellent stuff on show at London Fashion Week's Estethica exhibition recently - recently - has no chance of competing in the mainstream.

Why It's Never Been Easier to Do a Kate Moss

2012-04-01T19:00:00-04:00

So, Kate Moss has been spotted shopping at Oxfam. Good news for fashionistas whose budget is more Aldi than Armani.

And good news for the environment too, with the supermodel joining Kate Middleton in showing the world that you don't have to buy a brand new set of threads for every single social occasion.

It's never been easier to follow in the footsteps of Kates Moss and Middleton by making smarter fashion choices that don't break the bank or the planet. Here are some of Global Cool's favourite online destinations for awesome ethical and sustainable clothing...

1. Goodone
We've had a crush on Goodone designs for so long that we can't even remember when we first fell in love with them. They're an award-winning independent fashion label that truly represent the modern London lady. Goodone specialise in up-cycling garments, recycling fabrics and are famous for their bold, colour-block styles.

2. Fashion Conscience
Just like any other online clothing shop, Fashion Conscience has beautiful dresses, bags and shoes ready and waiting to be viewed, purchased and loved. The difference is that you're able to choose from organic, sustainable, vegan, fair trade or recycled clothes. They sell products from all the best ethical designers including Vivienne Westwood and Komodo too.

3. Annie Greenabelle
Annie Greenabelle is an ethical women's clothing brand, that makes dressing ethically anything but frumpy. All their stunning garments are made with organic and Fairtrade certified cotton, and the entire range is very affordable. They also often use reclaimed and end-of-roll fabrics which means many items are completely unique.

4. Fashioning Change
US-based Fashioning Change believe that everyone should be able to wear stylish brands without having to compromise on their ethics. The site helps you find fashionable eco-friendly and ethical alternatives to top brands and designs. We particularly like their Wear This, Not That section, which gives you more ethical (and usually cheaper) versions of catwalk style.

5. People Tree
People Tree stock beautiful, ethical fashion whilst working to improve the lives and environment of the artisans and farmers in developing countries who work to make it. One of our favourite fashionistas Emma Watson has even designed a range for People Tree, and it's pretty darn fantastic. They also have regular sales where you can pick items for as little as £5, so you can compromise on price rather than style.

What are your favourites?

How to Turn the Red Carpet Green Like Meryl Streep

2012-02-27T13:24:55-05:00

It seems that the clothes are almost as important as the films at the Oscars, so it was great to see so many stars wearing eco fashion. After all, as the star of this year's awards, Meryl Streep, knows all too well - only The Devil Wears Prada.

Colin and Livia Firth - a long-time champion of sustainable fashion with her Green Carpet Challenge - both got on their eco glad rags. Mrs Darcy wore a Valentino dress made from recycled polyester and plastic bottles, while the King of last year's Oscars donned his Tom Ford tux for the second year running - a form of recycling that is tantamount to fashion heresy in Hollywood.

But it was Meryl who stole the show in her eco-friendly Lanvin gown.

For those wanting to follow in the Iron Lady's eco-friendly footsteps (we mean Meryl rather than Maggie, obvs) but unsure of where to start, there was plenty of eco fashion inspiration on display at London Fashion Week last week. Here are some of Global Cool's autumn/winter favourites from the Estethica exhibition...

Pachacuti
In the Quechua language, Pachacuti literally means 'world upside-down' and that's exactly what the designers have done for the world of ethical fashion. From CO2-neutral packaging to organically grown fibres, this Fair Trade panama hats company is the epitome of sustainable style. This season we saw gorgeous felt hats added to the collection, and an entire range of irresistible soft alpaca wool knitwear and accessories - perfect for wrapping up warm this winter.

Makepiece
A new face for us this season was Makepiece - a knitwear company focussed on offering beautiful jumpers, dresses and accessories made from soft, ethical yarns and designed to be ahead of the trends, so they stay fashionable for longer. We love that all the wool comes from their very own flock of low-impact Shetland sheep, and one of the jumpers on display was even knitted from their oldest sheep Daisy Mae - she was the first ever bottle fed lamb and is now a venerable grandmother.

Charini
A long-standing Global Cool favourite Charini had a fresh new look for their Autumn/Winter collection. There was a stark contrast between the delicate, cream bridal range, and the darker, bondage-inspired range. Creator Charini Suriyage told us: "We wanted to use the designs to portray the female sense of power. One of the ranges mixes bondage with lace to show empowerment but still with a sense of sophistication and femininity." All the underwear in the collection is made from sustainable material with no hooks, no elastic, no plastic or any unnecessary dying.

Junky Styling
We loved the fresh colours on display at the Junky Styling exhibition at London Fashion Week this season, which were quite a change from their usual designs. The mix of military jackets lined with bright Scottish blankets, created a strong colour-contrast. We particularly liked the red fringed jacket, made from recycled scarves. The ladies behind the scenes told us: "We've created dresses from suits, scarves and recycled silk tie materials and pieced them together in original patchwork designs."

Eco Terrorism vs Vinnie Jones and Porn: Which Would You Rather Watch?

2012-01-12T12:08:38-05:00

Kudos to the British Heart Foundation for their Hard and Fast video campaign starring Vinnie Jones.

Aimed at educating the general public on the best way to perform CPR, the video sends up Jones' typecast gangster persona by making a Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels spoof in which the former footballer - flanked by two blokes who look like they're appearing in the video in order to fund their way through Bouncer School - resuscitates a 'geezer' using only his hands because "you only kiss your Missus on the lips"...

The campaign went viral, racking up more than a million views on YouTube and earning a string of press coverage. By embracing celebrity culture, keeping the message simple and adding a twist of humour into the mix (the soundtrack for the video is the Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive), the British Heart Foundation unlocked a mass audience for a message that without the help of Jones and his burly companions could have been pretty worthy and dull.

Compare and contrast with some of the eco movement's attempts to engage a mass audience. Treehugger website recently hailed the fact that five 'eco movies' have been shortlisted in the Best Documentary category for this year's Oscars as a sign of the subject's rising popularity. Those films are: If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (a tale about eco terrorists), Battle for Brooklyn, Jane's Journey, Semper Fi: Always Faithful, and Project Nim. How many have you seen? How many of them have you even heard of? Thought not...

At the time of writing the You ube trailers for those movies have a total of 82,046 views between them. That's more than 10 times less than what Vinnie managed on his own. Where the British Heart Foundation was brave enough to put its tongue firmly in its cheek to communicate an important message, too many in the green movement lack the boldness to make content that might appeal to people who have different interests to them (i.e. things other than climate change).

PETA, the US-based campaign for the ethical treatment of animals, has a history of taking a more populist approach to getting their message across. Much like Global Cool, the climate change campaign I work for, PETA has used celebrity association to engage the mainstream with their work. Their latest campaign will see them take their message into the world of pornography with the launch of a new .xxx domain version of their website. Users of the site will be forced to watch an animal being skinned before they get to see a celebrity in the buff.

Whether anyone will still be in the, er, 'mood' for doing whatever it is that they do while looking at naked ladies on the internet (I couldn't possibly comment) once they've seen an animal being liberated of its fur is up for debate. It's unlikely to win PETA any Oscars, that's for sure. But common consensus (and a load of search data from Google, no doubt) certainly suggests that the potential audience for PETA's message is significantly higher in the porn world than it is in the eco documentary world.

Eco terrorists and those who make documentaries about them should take note.

Solving Climate Change the Steve Jobs Way

2011-12-05T19:00:00-05:00

Apple is hardly a beacon of environmental good practice, but that doesn't mean Steve Jobs didn't play his part in helping to find a solution to climate change.

Climate change does not have an awareness problem. It does, however, have a marketing problem. Plenty has been done to raise awareness, but very little has been done to effectively market green solutions to the general public.

Of course, the climate change problem is very simple to sum up: the human race is producing more and more carbon dioxide, therefore global temperatures are rising, therefore the earth will eventually no longer be a place that human beings are able to exist in. In a nutshell: "Hello dinosaurs and dodos, nice to meet you, we're the human race!"

It's the simplicity of this message that seems to make it the default when people try and talk to the public about sustainability.

The actions that individuals can take to help combat climate change are so much more difficult to summarise. This is because the behaviours that are causing us to produce too much carbon dioxide are wide ranging. Just think about all the ways you could waste energy in your home: washing clothes at unnecessarily high temperatures, sitting around in shorts and t-shirt with the heating pumping out to the max, re-boiling the kettle because you forgot to make your brew the first time it boiled. The list goes on, and that's before you've even put a foot outside your front door.

There is no one-size-fits-all way to discourage humans from behaving in these ways. In some cases, the free market, driven by the profit motive, can provide a way for the public to consume products in a less wasteful way. The iPod is a great example of this. By creating this product, Steve Jobs and Apple vastly reduced the demand for CDs, the plastic cases that they come in and the transportation that is required to take them to the shops.

Of course, product innovations such as the iPod won't always be the answer. For other behaviours, it's necessary to motivate the public to consume less, not just differently.

For some people, appeals to thrift might work. In these times of economic turmoil and rising energy prices, the financial motive for energy efficient homes has never been stronger. But when it comes to behaviour change, the solution is rarely as one-dimensional as that. Not everyone is motivated in the same way, and therefore not everyone cares about financial prudence.

Similarly, not everyone is equally empowered to change their behaviour. So reinsulating the loft to save money might float a homeowner's boat, but someone living in rented accommodation is less likely to know how their heating system works, or feel able to do much about it. They might, however, be persuaded to turn down their heating to a lower temperature if they can be convinced that having it too hot is drying out their skin and making them age prematurely (which it is).

The possible solutions to high-carbon behaviours are almost endless, but what almost all of them have in common is that they do not require the consumer to understand the problem they are helping to solve - just as people who bought the iPod probably did not know (or care) that they were reducing the demand for CDs.

The person who puts on a jumper so they can turn down their heating and protect their skin does not need to know how much CO2 they have saved - nor does the person who ditches the car for the bike because they want to be fitter, or the person who takes canvas bags to the supermarket because they have cooler designs and are more comfortable on the fingers than plastic ones.

Whether knowingly or not, Steve Jobs made us all accidental environmentalists, but that was never part of the marketing strategy. We all bought iPods because they were more convenient, beautifully designed and - crucially - because Apple managed to convince us that we would be happier with one than without.

We need to find more green solutions like this for a whole range of behaviours. This presents a much greater creative challenge than simply talking about melting ice caps, carbon calculators or slapping an "eco" label on something. It's time for us all to take inspiration from Steve Jobs and step up to this creative challenge.

What Climate Change Campaigns Could (and Should) Learn From Jay-Z

2011-10-10T09:17:34-04:00

New York - so good they named it twice. Everyone wants to be a part of it, right? But where does that reputation come from? What is it about the Big Apple that makes it one of the coolest cities on the planet?

In the search for answers I consulted the US Census Bureau, where I discovered that the population of New York is 8,214,426 (as of 2006), the median household income is $38,293 and 31.3% of businesses in the city are owned by women. I also looked at The Economist, where I found articles about increasing hunger and poverty in the city, as well as an under-performing and under-funded public school system.

Pretty uninspiring stuff on the whole. Of course, the real answer to my question lies in the very first sentence of this article. New York's popular perception has nothing to do with facts and figures and has everything to do with its portrayal in popular culture. From Frank Sinatra to Jay-Z, the Big Apple has long been sold as a dream factory.

The climate change movement could learn a lot from this. The public have long been bombarded with facts and figures about global warming - most notably in Al Gore's climate change movie An Inconvenient Truth - in attempt to spur them into action. But as New York demonstrates, facts and figures rarely capture the public's imagination.

Let's look at the lyrics on Jay-Z's massive hit record Empire State of Mind, on which New York is described as:

"A concrete jungle where dreams are made,

There's nothing you can't do now you're in New York,

These streets will make you feel brand new,

Big lights will inspire you."

Powerful stuff. And yet it doesn't contain a single verifiable fact or figure. Contrast this with Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, during which the former US Vice President uses a series of graphs and pie charts about melting ice caps and rising temperatures to paint an apocalyptic vision of the earth's future.

If you're the type of person who reads The Economist, Gore's Powerpoint presentation was probably right up your street. You may even have made a conscious decision to do something about climate change as a result of seeing the film. The problem is that most people don't read The Economist. Most people watch the X Factor, and read Heat magazine, and worry about whether they'll be able to fit into their bikini on their next holiday.

Market segmentation experts Cultural Dynamics call these people 'Outer Directed'. They're motivated by money, success, looking good and getting approval from others. They also find science scary and don't like being told what to do. For this reason, pretty much every attempt the climate change movement has made to engage them has failed. Since Gore's film came out in 2006, belief in climate change has actually declined according to this survey.

These 'Outer Directed' people need to be inspired to do things, and that includes taking on action on climate change. Jay-Z's song is a great example of how inspirational language and tone of voice can make something incredibly appealing and attractive. Gore's approach is the exact opposite and only serves to make the whole issue frightening, unattractive and boring.

There is a time and a place for scientific debate about climate change, and for serious initiatives led by both government and big business to help tackle it, just as there is an important role for the type of journalism produced by The Economist, and the kind of data produced by the US Census Bureau. But if the climate change movement is ever to break through to the mainstream and persuade the masses to change their ways, it needs fewer statistics and a little bit more stardust, New York style.

You Tube link to Jay-Z video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjsXo9l6I8

You Tube link to An Inconvenient Truth trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnjx6KETmi4