22 April 2011

earth day message from the trenches

As you know these days I have been busy with my new venture. We finally have a website up and running and you can check this out - would love to hear your thoughts.

I have re-emerged for this blog post on Earth Day as it seemed fitting to break my silence today. The Green Den has received overwhelmingly positive responses from the CSR community and I've been totally blown away.

We are now of course actively seeking clients, networking and getting our name out there. It's been exciting so far but the real work starts now. We also have our blog up and running which you can check out here. While you're at it, you can also sign up for our bi-monthly newsletter.

Last year in my Earth Day post I said that I wanted to make an expedition to a rainforest and grow my own organic vegetables. Happy to report that I have achieved one of those goals. My organic garden with its own compost is happy and thriving. I even got a bumper crop of tomatoes a couple weeks ago. I plan on adding more vegetables over the next month. The expedition is still in the works!

What has really changed in this year? On the onset, perhaps not much. The BP disaster has left many people still reeling - a year from that and the US congress still wants to push for offshore drilling. No real progress has been made in climate talks, new laws etc. In India, the environment ministry is finally waking up to the fact that there is an environment to protect. There was also a report of increasing tiger numbers but unfortunately, there were also stories of elephants encroaching on farm lands. Or is it the other way around?

There are many environmental challenges that are still solve and still many others to even acknowledge. One of the biggest new developments in India is the acknowledgment that corruption is so wide spread. Recent scandals have rocked businesses and made investing in Indian business a high-risk venture. This scenario needs to change because without a stable economy, we cannot talk about environmental protection and social progress.

This year I have no goals, except to work really hard on GDC. I'm all geared up to change 'business as usual' because I believe the time has finally come to think about things differently.

We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them
- Albert Einstein