Camilla Parke writes:

I must admit that I sat a little uncomfortably through the opening minutes of The End of the Line, the documentary screened on World Oceans Day, in which violent shots of blood drenched waters were interplayed with images of bloated Europeans gorging on sushi. My guilt is not misplaced; as an unquestioning consumer I have contributed to the problem journalist Charles Clover uncovers in this film: the little known damage that overfishing is doing to the world’s oceans. Significant improvements in fishing technology, huge increases in consumer demand and poorly enforced, inadequate quotas have decimated our seas. The impact on biodiversity is alarming: if overfishing continues at its current rate, scientists predict we will be out of most fish by 2048.

The plight of one endangered species in particular – Bluefin tuna – was explored in the film, and the press this week have focused on those retailer and restaurateurs that have (and have not) responded to calls to find more sustainable alternatives. A number of places are getting it right, and have been for some time – Feng Sushi in London’s Borough market has been sustainably sourcing its fish for the last 10 years. But for larger companies, the challenges are more significant.

Japanese restaurant Nobu seem unfazed by petitions from its celebrity diners to remove Bluefin from its menus, content to mention its endangered status on the menu and discretely suggests diners choose an alternative. Others are responding more proactively: Marks and Spencer has committed to only using pole and line caught tuna in its entire range of products; Pret a Manger is making a similar commitment.

Alongside the statistics, one of the most powerful learnings from the film is the fact that it is still possible to reverse the fortune of our oceans – as Clover points out, the answer is ‘not rocket science’. Although one hurdle is the inadequacy of current policy, one of the most important things we can do as consumers is to make more noise. Ask shops and restaurants how fish is sourced, and avoid those that are unsustainable. This really means thinking more and consuming less – a challenge given our love affair with eating fish. But if we don’t want to go hungry in the future, do we really have any other choice?

The photo at the top is borrowed, with thanks, from the End Of The Line website.

Emily Pitts writes:

Demos’s recently launched ‘It’s a material world’ argues for the social value of heritage conservation, at a time when budgets for conservation courses are being slashed and the future of the discipline seems threatened. It calls for a national conservation strategy that includes education in schools, involves local communities in preserving the public realm, more support from government and a call to arms directed at professionals in the conservation and cultural sectors. If we don’t make the effort to be inclusive in how we look after the public realm, they argue, and make choices collectively about what to conserve, then social capital also declines.

An increasing interest in preserving social capital and a renewed vigour in community life is something we have been tracking for a little while, and early signs are that the economic downturn is increasing the extent to which we think of collective good. According to Yankelovich Monitor, 41% of American consumers define being a good citizen as ‘Not buying a home that is larger than you really need to help reduce energy usage’ compared to 34% just a year ago. Our data from the UK, whilst not directly comparable, hints at a similar sense of personal empowerment and responsibility, with the majority of consumers agreeing with the statement ‘I feel that I can make a difference to the world around me through the choices I take and the actions I make’. Interest in community life is also strong; according to our Planning for Consumer Change survey, since 2005 more people agree that the quality of life is better improved by looking after the interests of the community than those of the individual.

With changing attitudes towards community in evidence, the time might be right for the cultural sector, and conservation in particular, to push away from the individualistic outlook of the early ’00s and emerge in the schoolrooms and town halls of every community as a mainstay of our society. But is it possible for conservators to be more professional and more inclusive of the public at the same time, as Demos asks? Resolving conflict between public priorities and those of the experts could prove tricky, but rather than seeing these clashes of opinion as either/or tradeoffs, can we instead look to them as latent energy areas for future innovation?

The image is of the filming of the final of the BBC series ‘Restoration’ Village‘at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. More images can be found on their Flickr site.

Becky Rowe writes:

I’ve been in Australia for a few days for a client project and one of things I have noticed (aside from the jetlag and great weather) is the constant reference across all kinds of public communications to ‘us’, ‘we’, ‘together’, ‘you’, and ‘community’.

New building projects mention ‘helping our communities grow stronger’, while ‘no alcohol’ signs on the beaches explain why it is beneficial to everyone if you don’t drink your beers on the beach. The taxi rank at the airport had a large sign which communicated clearly and simply what you could ask of your taxi driver, and what he could expect of you (you are entitled to ask your driver to turn on or off the radio or aircon, and to take a different route, but you aren’t allowed to be drink or eat in the cab).

The prevalence of these signs, the explicit wording, and clear reference to shared responsibilities, all communicated in a friendly and understandable way, somehow surprised me. In some ways I found them a bit patronising, but I also found it refreshing to have ‘the rules’ of ‘good citizenship’ made clear.

Knowing the rationale behind an apparently bureacratic or even irrational rule can make all the difference to compliance. I think the UK has something to learn from the Australians about how to behave – and how to get people to behave.

Amy Esser writes:

In recent years the noise around environmental sustainability has increased, and society mostly now acknowledges its part in damaging the planet. Despite this, we are not yet seeing significant changes in behaviour to reverse the damage and help preserve our planet for the future.

Sadly it seems that even the prospect of environmental Armageddon is not enough to prompt real action or even divert our moral compasses. If we as individuals are lacking motivation and desire to make the changes ourselves then who needs to take the lead? Perhaps sensing that faith could make a difference, the Vatican announced earlier this month that environmental pollution and damage is a modern day sin.

Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary, said – in language that was largely misunderstood in the (non-Catholic) English media – that priests must take account of “new sins which have appeared on the horizon of humanity as a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalisation”. Whereas sin in the past was thought of as being an individual matter, it now has “social resonance”.

Bishop Girotti told L’Osservatore Romano,

“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbour’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos”.

The effect of this interpretation will take time to manifest itself. Perhaps it is more interesting to see the re-emergence of old authorities in response to more turbulent times.

Image source: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1308679,00.html

Camilla Parke writes:

If you were starting to lose faith in your less-than-philanthropic next door neighbour, don’t give up on them just yet – especially if they are Brazilian. Reassuringly, it appears that we are getting better at doing the right thing: A recent global study from PR firm Edelman on consumer attitudes towards social purpose and the role of brands showed that 37% of consumers say they are more involved in good causes then they were 2 years ago.

And it appears that some nations are much more socially conscious than others – compared to the encouraging global average, 63% of Brazilians say they are getting more involved, and according to the study each one is actively supporting an average of just over four social or environmental causes (twice as many as the rest of us).

So what makes Brazilians so socially conscious, and what could this mean for companies that operate there? The disillusionment with government and its inability to address social ills is a significant factor. Some of HCHLVs recent global research on sustainability shows that Brazilian consumers attach importance to social and community issues – and that they expect private companies and brands to do the same.

Jo Phillips writes:

We have been talking a lot here at HCHLV recently about the influence that a powerful personality with strong beliefs sitting at the helm of a company can have on brand perception. Bill Gates and Anita Roddick are archetypal, but more modest entrepreneurs can have a similar brand impact (think of Johnny Boden, Stelios, or Richard Reed of Innocent) My view has been reinforced by conversations I have had with consumers across the country this week, as I’ve heard often that Richard Branson is the only man who can save Northern Rock, and indeed any other problem we might care to throw at him.

So it might be thought foolish of Michael O’Leary to publicly declaim his discompassionate greed and complete obliviousness to the cares of people and planet:

“We would welcome a good, deep, bloody recession in this country… It would help see off all the environmental nonsense that has become so popular among the chattering classes.”

He chooses to overlook that people lose jobs and homes in a recession, not to mention the fact that not even George Bush is stubborn enough to deny climate change any more, or come to that that people fly less when they have less money. It was enough to lose Ryanair one customer at least – I have just paid £20 more for a BA flight rather than travel with his airline.

Eleanor Cooksey writes:

With the rise of CSR and increasing interest in pro bono work, I was struck by an article in last week’s Economist which describes the range of projects now available which use spare processing capacity on ordinary PCs. They range from the biggest and best known, SETI@home, which started in 1999 searches for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence, and now has over 3 million contributors, to projects looking for the next prime number. Whilst we are used to the idea of volunteering about ‘doing good’, donating spare PC processing power suggests we could think more laterally about how we can share under-used resources.

What is also interesting is the ever widening pool of those who might volunteer in this way. A growing number of other devices, including games consoles, also contain significant amounts of processing power and are internet enabled. One of the projects, Folding@home, (which looked at protein simulations) became the largest known distributed computing network thanks to its 40,000 plus PlayStation 3 volunteers.