7gen Bloc

Just wanted to drop this quick note to say that Jeffrey's Q&A with Grist readers is now on-line as part of his Interactivist participation this week. The questions posed are pretty interesting as are Jeffrey's answers, and it makes for a good snapshot of some things that don't often get discussed. Worth a look if you've got some time this weekend.

I’m just getting back from the Ethical Corporation Conference. For anyone who was worried about lending legitimacy to Philip Morris by allowing them to attend and speak at the conference… forget about it. Vickie Bell, the Manager of Corporate Responsibility for Phillip Morris who attended the conference, had no aspirations to convince anyone that Phillip Morris is a “good” company.

I grew up thinking that Greenpeace was the coolest environmental group around. They were willing to do stuff I only dreamed about. I wanted to be hanging banners from smokestacks that were emitting carcinogenic chemicals and fighting for the preservation of endangered species on a little rubber boat in the Antarctic.

I’ve been busy mingling with the media over the course of the last handful of days and a couple of the resulting Q&As have now been published. In case you didn’t catch it, this week I’m the featured Interactivist over at Grist. There’s an interview posted now and later in the week I’ll be answering reader questions. Should be fun.

There was no shortage of complaining about the $147 million that Lee R. Raymond, retiring CEO of Exxon Mobil departed the company with. Exxon shareholders didn’t seem to mind. Why would they when large company CEO’s make on average 300 times what the average worker earns. This kind of excessive largesse has become commonplace. But it pales in comparison to what hedge fund managers made last year. Somehow these amazing facts have remained hidden from view.

As someone who goes to too many conferences and is disappointed more often than not, the BALLE conference that was held in Burlington this weekend exceeded all of my expectations. This is an organization that is full of hope and possibility, passion and commitment, a movement at a time where few pursuits rise to that level.

We hosted a dinner for the speakers at the BALLE conference here in Burlington. People were bussed out to Jeffrey's house. We were hoping to build a big bonfire and talk about everyone's efforts to move the world forward, and it rained and rained and... So we all sat around in the house rapping on... The v-log is Jeffrey's talk to the group, encouraging people to let us at 7th Gen know how we can get better and better working with people in the BALLE - local economies movement... It was a a very rich time...

BALLE, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, is having its annual three day conference in Burlington, Vermont - Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We, at Seventh Generation are very supportive all the work BALLE is doing to make the world a better place. And, we encourage all conference participants to use our blog to engage the world in a dialogue about change... Thanks. Gregor

We recently conducted our first in series of biomimicry design charettes to begin to think about the process of innovating some of our products using designs inspired by nature. Dayna Baumeister, PhD from the The Biomimicry Guild led the charette. It was fascinating - brain stimulating and a day of great discovery...good times for all...here is a blurb on the process and a v-log of the charette.

Today I received a very thoughtful letter from the coordinator for Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control Essential Action. The gist of the letter was this: A conference on corporate responsibility I’m scheduled to speak at in Philadelphia in a couple of weeks also includes a speaker from cigarette-maker Philip Morris.