CRED Foundation

" 'A Year of Living Generously' is an online experiment based on a shared hunch that looking after this planet and its people is what we are all here for, and that if many of us can make small changes in our everyday choices then over time we can make a big difference for everyone."

Various actions or pledges are put up on the site, and for those who commit to be part of it you can opt in to the challenges that are set. As an answer to the often-asked question 'what can I do about it anyway?', this site is a great place to start in terms of engaging with some of our generations' most pressing issues.

Vanity Fair have an interesting interview here with 'Jeffrey Sachs—visionary economist, savior of Bolivia, Poland, and other struggling nations, adviser to the U.N. and movie stars', a man who 'won't settle for less than the global eradication of extreme poverty.' He almost makes you think it could just happen...

www.fairtradefirst.org.uk 'is all about promoting the uptake of fairly traded goods, business to business. We offer a practical helping hand, to promote social and environmental responsibility amongst companies and other organisations. To do this, we offer a free, pain-free service, helping businesses source affordable ethical goods'. They also offer a service to members of the public.

Cred has historically supported the Nestle boycott, and this site (which is also an interesting place for research or general knowledge) gives ratings for this and many other multinational corporations in terms of Human Rights, Worker's Rights, Ethics, Political Influence/Litigation, Enviromental, and Fair Trade/Globalisation categories.

When we visit International Partners one of the things that we look to do is offset the carbon emissions that the aeroplane belches out into the atmosphere. The Carbon Neutral Company is one of the more established organisations, providing a very helpful 'carbon calculator' to figure out how much damage you're causing, not just by a plane ride, but also in daily life!

They then come up with a sum of money to 'offset' that impact, e.g. how much it'd cost to plant the right amount of trees, to give off the right amount of oxygen to 'neutralise' all that carbon. They also provide information on how to reduce that impact in the first place.

NB One of our partners, The Green Gold Corporation, has a comprehensive re-forestation programme alongside rigorous environmental policies - we're exploring how they could be positioned as a 'carbon neutral' project.

Some electricity providers claim their product is 'green', but when you look at the fine detail you may find that they're not quite as they make out... Ecotricity is a company with an impressive record in ploughing money into building new sources of green energy. Could this be one of the biggest differences you make in reducing your annual 'eco-footprint'?

This presentation displays the carbon dioxide emission levels of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates - all in real time.

An illuminating 'self test' to see what your eco-footprint is - there are a few out there, but this is quite simple and quick.

You may have heard people say 'if the population of the world could be represented as 100 people in a village, then...'. This presentation is a fascinating & visually interesting look at who would be in that village, and how many people in the village would actually own a computer with which to read this...

For those wanting a bit more information on the continent of Africa, this site has quite a lot of interesting content on places, people and culture in a few different regions.

Gapminder is a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualise human development.