Zoe's Green (idealy not brick) Road to Sustainability

Race has always been a very important and prominent issue for me and so I have decided to take a little time to talk on some of the issues that I see so many of my friends and even people I don’t know all across the country and globe face and struggle with everyday. This is of course a very touchy and sensitive topic for most people but I think a huge reason of how we got to where we are today is because we haven’t had some of the really needed and difficult conversations and dialogue, mostly with and among the white community. Recently, I got the opportunity to listen to Dr. Michael Eric Dyson at Seattle U’s Mission Day where he was the keynote speaker. The topic was “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Heart of Jesuit Education". It was incredibly eye opening to hear the way he was able to articulate ideas that can seem often abstract and, almost always, incredibly uncomfortable. Really, what the message to a room full of predominantly white people was: We have GOT...

At the beginning of the quarter, I calculated my ecological footprint and these are the results that I got: If everyone in the entire world lived the same way as I did, it would take 4.1 planet Earths to sustain everyone. This is not a good thing! I constructed some goals to attempt to reduce this number. My goals were: I will start a compost bin in my apartment with my two roommates so that our food waste isn't just thrown in the trash but instead can be carried on into a cyclical system of putting the food back just where it came from in the first place.  On the first day of class, the alliteration of Meatless Monday really stuck with me so once a week, every Monday, I will stay away from any meat at all seeing as that is where a fair amount of my impact is rooted. The food that I choose to purchase is more frequently than not something that's a little more on the convenient side rather than the eco-conscious side. With that being said my final goal for the quarter wi...

This is a very important week for not only our country but also the entire world in regards to the Paris Climate Agreement. Donald Trump has announced that he is going to be the vital decision of whether or not the United States is going to remain in participation or pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. After his first international trip came to a close, Trump found himself in many discussions with different countries' leaders heavily urging him to stay in accordance with the agreement that 195 countries around the world have signed on with. There were multiple different options of where to go from here presented to Trump including putting the decision on whether to withdraw from the agreement to a vote in the Senate. There are a lot of different ways this decision's direction could take but the general consensus is that the United States will more likely than not be the first nation in the world to withdraw itself from the effort to reduce emissions and slow down the glo...

It is no secret that coral reefs around the globe are at a very high risk of being damaged and/or destroyed due to rapid climate change and overfishing. In an article that can be found here , there are efforts being made to find areas of the ocean where reefs and the species that are found in them can take refuge and revitalize themselves regardless of the inevitable climate change that is happening. This is a picture of the reefs of Northern Mozambique. Source: http://www.scubamozambique.com/images/content/images/colourfulreef1.jpg In this specific article, the ocean of Northern Mozambique have been found to be able to support systems that are in need of a place to thrive due to their original home being altered by either rising ocean temperatures or over fishing. The waters in this area are cool enough for the species to live but also have enough light that the plants need to thrive. There is a lot of environmental variability in this area as long as the populations of diff...

My current event for this week can be found here . Businesses are starting to lessen their dependencies on petroleum and fossil fuel based plastic products and moving to the same products that are made out of plants. There is so much excess amounts of different plant parts that are thrown away or composted when they actually have a lot more use to them than rotting in the ground. Not only does this cut down on waste in landfills but it also cuts down significantly on the oil that is used for products that will also eventually end up in a landfill. There are less toxic chemicals used in these plant based products so people are starting to feel a lot better about the products they are using because the ingredients are coming straight from out of the ground instead of all the chemical processing that comes with the oil based products. The plant based products that are being produced aren't limited to the products that you would expect such as bags or laundry detergents, there ar...

We are halfway through the quarter so it is time to give you an update on how my goals to reduce my ecological footprint are going. Here is a little refresher of what the goals are that I committed to at the start of the quarter are: I will start a compost bin in my apartment with my two roommates so that our food waste isn't just thrown in the trash but instead can be carried on into a cyclical system of putting the food back just where it came from in the first place.  On the first day of class, the alliteration of Meatless Monday really stuck with me so once a week, every Monday, I will stay away from any meat at all seeing as that is where a fair amount of my impact is rooted. The food that I choose to purchase is more frequently than not something that's a little more on the convenient side rather than the eco-conscious side. With that being said my final goal for the quarter will be to visit the farmer's market or the co-op to purchase locally grown produce and me...

In class this week, we have been talking about the necessary push for large corporations to integrate sustainability into the core of their businesses. We watched an interesting TedTalk that talked about this pressing need to change the way we do things. The big pivot, as compared to in Andrew Winston’s TedTalk titled “The big pivot”, is the moment when a person with a serious health risk realizes that a substantial lifestyle change needs to happen or something as drastic as death could result if no change is immediately taken. It’s the moment when the talk of change stops and the action takes over. For us as a human race as a whole, and in this case specifically large corporations, we need to have that moment where we stop talking about how bad things are going to get if we don’t do something about it and actually start making actions towards improving the state of our planet. There are three mega challenges that Winston ties with this crucial need for corporations to cre...

Last weekend, I went to the Seattle Mariner's game with a few friends and as we were walking around the stadium I noticed on more than one occasion that there were places to buy salted crickets. Yes, the little bugs that chirp, you are not reading that wrong! I knew I had had a few incredibly overpriced beers at the game but not enough to where my eyes were deceiving me This was a real thing and people were really buying them. I actually ended up getting the chance to try one and they were pretty delicious and far from what I expected them to taste like. I knew that people in other countries ate bugs a lot but I never expected that I would be able to buy crispy crickets at a Major League Baseball stadium just fifteen minutes away from where I had grown up. I decided to look further into this cricket phenomenon and what I found is what brings me to this week's current event which can be found here . Megan Miller who cofounded Bitty Foods, an edible insect company has tapped ...

This week in class, we are focusing on how much the purpose behind a company has an impact on it's overall success. The archaic idea that that profit and social responsibility are competing aspects of purpose is disappearing at a rapid rate because companies are figuring out that consumers want the brands and products that they purchase to aim to be the best in more ways than just profit. The purpose that drives a company says a lot about that company and now more than ever, people are looking deeper than the surface when it comes to the products they buy. An example of how the purpose is a driver is really highlighted in my current event for this week which can be found here . CVS has been on the forefront of exemplifying that changing the core of their business model can have a positive impact for both them internally as a company as well as the consumers that shop there. Image source: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7BeAaHtUeD9URfpTkD4il1iddbWgdZ59HXOQVN0EX40kz...

Collaborative consumption and the sharing market are becoming more and more prevalent and giving some deeply rooted and more traditional business platforms a serious run for their money. Not only are other existing businesses and markets turning their heads at this idea of sharing, new markets that have never existed are being born that are completely centralized by the idea of collaborative consumption.   While visiting collaborativeconsumption.com , I chose to take a deeper look into a website called Boatbound, a platform where you could rent a boat and as well as have the option of a captain included with the boat. You can enter the website looking to either rent or rent out your boat depending on how many people the boat can hold or are in your party. This way, even if you can’t drive a boat (or just don’t want to) and are willing to pay extra for someone else to be your captain, you are able to enjoy the benefits of a boat that would otherwise be idly bobbing in the water...

This week we are looking at cosmetic products and the chemicals they have in them that are turning out to be a lot worse for our bodies than I would have expected. Our instructions were to choose a product we use frequently and look more deeply into the ingredients. I chose to take a look at the face cleanser that I use twice a day, Cetaphyl Gentle Skin Cleanser. I have used this face wash every day for about 5 years now so I figured this was a great opportunity to find out what I was putting on my face all the time. I was pretty nervous but the results were a lot better than I initially thought. Here's what I found: Ingredients in Cetaphyl Gentle Skin Cleanser: Cetyl alcohol Propylene glycol Sodium lauryl sulfate Stearyl alcohol Methylparaben Propylparaben Butylparaben This product scored an overall score of 3 on EWG’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Database. The most concerning ingredients include Propylparaben and Butylparaben which both had a score of 7 b...

Hello! My name is Zoe Haywood and as a senior at Western Washington University studying business and sustainability, I would like to consider myself an environmentally conscious person. The reality is, telling that to yourself is the easy way out. We tend to go about our lives in the same ways with the same little habits paying thinking our actions are so small they don't really matter, right? The thought of walking flashes across our mind as we fasten our seat belts; our shoes crunch on a candy wrapper as we walk to class but we just keep walking, one foot in front of the other. The trash cans scattered about campus are often overflowing with paper coffee cups that we all are very aware should be in the recycle but for some reason, we can't be bothered to carry that empty cup until there is a place for it to be recycled. It's much more convenient for you at that moment to throw it into that bin right there where you know you'll leave it never to really think about it...