An IMPACT library of easy-to-watch videos about the negative impact of our consumption and materialism, habits and lifestyles on communities and the environment; and the positive initiatives and innovations that are part of the solution.

Difficult times call for difficult questions and uncomfortable conversations about our values and
our actions … or lack of it. We are the problem and we are the solution.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
  • ACTIVISM

    Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good.

  • Accountable Audit

    The systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining audit evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which the audit criteria are fulfilled.

  • Accrediation

    The process of qualifying, endorsing and licensing entities that perform certification. In other words, accreditation is certifying the certifier.

  • AUGMENTED REALITY

    Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory.

  • Solution: Brain powered AR & VR headsets
  • Solution: Mindleap AR & VR Neurogoggles
  • Solution: What are AR & VR
B
  • BIOPHILIA

    Biophilia, which literally translates to “love of life,” is the idea that this fascination and communion with nature stem from an innate, biologically-driven need to interact with other forms of life such as animals and plants.

  • Solution: Biophilic design
  • Solution: Installing a green wall
  • Solution: When trees meet buildings
C
  • CARBON EMISSION – Scope 1

    Direct emissions from a business’s operations such as fuel combustion, operation of vehicles and fugitive emissions.

  • CARBON EMISSION – Scope 2

    Indirect emissions resulting from the generation of purchased electricity, heating or cooling and steam by a business.

  • CARBON EMISSION – Scope 3

    Indirect emissions that occur in a business’s value chain such as purchased goods and services, business travel, employee commuting, waste disposal, transportation up- and downstream, investments, leased assets, and franchise activities.

  • CARBON NEGATIVE

    Means the same as Climate Positive, which means that activity goes beyond achieving net-zero carbon emissions to create an environmental benefit by removing additional CO2 from the atmosphere.

  • Solution: The World's First Carbon Negative Country
  • CARBON OFFSETTING

    Negating – or offsets – the same amount of carbon emissions we release into the atmosphere by simply buying carbon credits to cancel out our emissions on a voluntary or compliance basis by government policy. The credits are related to a wide array of environmentally friendly projects, such as protecting the Amazon rainforests, or providing renewable electricity to communities in developing economies.

  • Problem: Carbon Offset Scandal
  • Solution: Can carbon offset really save us from climate change?
  • Solution: Carbon capture plant does the work of 40million trees
  • Solution: Carbon Trade for Future
  • Solution: China – Going Carbon Neutral by 2060
  • Solution: EU Emissions Trading Scheme
  • Solution: What is Carbon Trading?
  • CLIMATE POSITIVE (also known as Carbon Negative)

    Means the same as Climate Positive and Carbon Negative, which means that activity goes beyond achieving net-zero carbon emissions to create an environmental benefit by removing additional CO2 from the atmosphere. This is an additional ‘positive’ or ‘net export’. This is better than Net Zero or Carbon Neutral.

  • CITIZEN SCIENCE

    The scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur (or nonprofessional) scientists (also known as community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, public participation in scientific research or volunteer monitoring.

  • CLIMATE NEUTRAL

    Refers to reducing all GHG to the point of zero while eliminating all other negative environmental impacts that an organisation may cause.

  • COMMERCE

    Trading and the accumulation of wealth. Uncontrolled, commerce has had negative impacts, but conducted in a more holistic and sustainable way, it can be a positive contributor

  • COMMUNITY

    A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government. A group of people having common interests. People matter and it is the right of every person to have their basic needs met and enhancing the well-being of communities is a fundamental obligation of all

  • COMPOSTING

    An aerobic method (meaning that it requires the presence of air) of decomposing organic solid wastes or recycling organic material into a humus-like material, known as compost, which is a good fertilizer for plants.

  • CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

    CSR helps a company be socially accountable—to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. CSR is a broader concept than corporate sustainability and both focus on helping companies run in a way that allows them to be ethically profitable—never at the expense of others. Both help companies make a positive impact on those around them.

    3 Differences Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability

  • Vision - CSR often looks backward and reflects on what a company has done to contribute to society. Corporate sustainability looks forward and develops a sustainable strategy for the future.
  • Target - CSR initiatives are often opinion formers (e.g., media, politicians, and pressure groups). Corporate sustainability looks at the whole value chain (i.e., everyone from end-consumers to stakeholders).
  • Motivation - The motivation and driving force behind CSR initiatives is to protect a company’s reputation. For corporate sustainability, the drive has more to do with creating new opportunities for emerging markets.
D
  • DESIGN – BIOPHILIC

    Biophilic design is design that cultivate the love of living things and connect with nature.

  • Solution: Biophilic cities
  • Solution: Biophilic design
E
  • EARTH DAY – APRIL 22ND

    Earth Day is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, it now includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network in more than 193 countries.

  • Problem: Planet of the Humans
  • ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

    Any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organisation’s environmental aspects.

  • ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

    Part of an organisation’s management system used to develop and implement its environmental policy and manage its environmental aspects.

F
  • FAIR TRADE

    An arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. Members of the Fair Trade movement add the payment of higher prices to exporters, as well as improved social and environmental standards.

  • Solution: What is Fair Trade?
  • Solution: Why Fair Trade is so important
  • FOOD: DIET – OMNIVORE

    Someone who consumes both plant and animal based food.

  • Problem: Omnivore’s dilema
  • FOOD: VEGETARIAN DIET

    Someone who does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarian diets contain various levels of fruits, vegetables, grains, pulses, nuts and seeds. The inclusion of dairy and eggs depends on the type of diet followed. The most common types are:

  • Fruitarian: A diet which predominatly consist of raw fruit.
  • Lacto-ovo vegetarians: Vegetarians who avoid all animal flesh, but do consume dairy and egg products.
  • Lacto vegetarians: Vegetarians who avoid animal flesh and eggs, but do consume dairy products.
  • Ovo vegetarians: Vegetarians who avoid all animal products except eggs.
  • Vegans: Vegetarians who avoid all animal and animal-derived products.
  • Flexitarians: Part-time vegetarians (Flexitarians)
  • Pescatarians: Someone who does not eat meat or poultry but do consume fish
  • Solution: Lentils: A miracle of nutrition
  • Solution: The Changemakers
  • Solution: Vegan 2019
  • FOODPRINT

    The environmental pressures created by the food demands of individuals, organizations, and geopolitical entities including multiple parameters to quantify the overall environmental impact of food, including carbon footprinting, water footprinting, and foodshed mapping.

  • Problem: Foodprint
G
  • GREEN NEW DEAL

    Green New Deal (GND) proposals call for public policy to address climate change along with achieving other social aims like job creation and reducing economic inequality. The name refers back to the New Deal, a set of social and economic reforms and public works projects undertaken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression.

  • Solution: Green new deal explained
  • GREEN NEW DEALS

    The European Green Deal (EU) – a package of policy initiatives, which aims to set the EU on the path to a green transition, with the ultimate goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2050. It supports the transformation of the EU into a fair and prosperous society with a modern and competitive economy.

    The Green Deal (UK) – a government policy initiative that gave homeowners, landlords and tenants the opportunity to pay for energy efficient home improvements through the savings in their energy bills.

    The Green New Deal (USA) - A Congressional resolution introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey — first in 2019 then again in 2021 — with the support of more than 100 cosponsors. This resolution lays out goals for upgrading our crumbling infrastructure, modernizing cities, and overhauling energy, transportation, industrial, and agriculture systems to get to 100 percent renewable energy as soon as possible. It includes proposals for how to clean up our air and water and free communities from toxic pollution. And it’s a roadmap for creating high-quality jobs with good wages and benefits, worker protections, and the right to form a union.

  • Solution: The European Green Deal
  • Solution: The Green New Deal
  • GREYWATER

    Wastewater generated in households or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination. Sources are all streams except for the wastewater from toilets including sinks, showers, baths, washing machines or dishwashers. Also known as sullage.

H
  • HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION: ETHNIC CLEANSING

    The expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity. Along with direct removal (deportation, population transfer), it also includes indirect methods aimed at coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. Although the term ethnic cleansing has no legal definition under international criminal law, it constitutes a crime against humanity.

  • Problem: China’s transformational camps.
I
  • ICE

    Ice glacier - A body of dense ice formed where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier slowly deform and flow under stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs, and other distinguishing features. They also abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques, moraines, or fjords. Glaciers form only on land.

    Ice cap - a large body of glacial ice astride a mountain, mountain range, or volcano with an area less than 50,000 km (19,000 sq mi).

  • INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

    The descendants of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived, and practice unique traditions and retain social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are clearly different from those of the dominant societies in which they live. It is estimated that there are more than 370 million indigenous people spread across 70 countries worldwide.

  • Solution: Indigenous communities and climate change
  • Solution: Indigenous explained
  • INVASIVE SPECIES

    An invasive species is an introduced organism that negatively alters its new environment. Although their spread can have beneficial aspects, invasive species adversely affect the invaded habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage.

  • Problem: Invasive species
L
M
O
  • OFF-GRID

    A characteristic of buildings and a lifestyle designed in an independent manner without reliance on one or more public utilities.

  • Solution: A simpler way
P
R
  • RESPONSIBILITY

    Accountability for something within one’s power, control or management.

  • RISK MANAGEMENT

    The culture, processes and structures that are directed towards realising potential opportunities whilst managing adverse effects.

S
  • SCIENCE

    Any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.

  • Problem: Why don’t we trust science
  • Solution: Understanding the science of climate change
  • STAKEHOLDERS

    The English word stakeholder means "partner". It means external or internal groups of people who have an economic, financial or ideal interest in the positive course of a project or an entrepreneurial process.

  • SUPPLY CHAIN – CIRCULAR

    In a circular supply chain, products are disassembled or reduced to their raw materials form, and remade into sellable products – thus allowing businesses to achieve the environmental benefits of recycling while recouping costs in the process.

  • SUPPLY CHAIN – TRANSPARENCY

    Supply chain transparency refers to the ability and willingness of a business to openly disclose information about the provenance of goods and labor and end-to-end supply chain practices. Digital technologies - blockchain and RFID sensors - can now obtain an accurate and irrefutable record of all the products and suppliers along the entire supply chain journey.

  • Blockchain for Supply Chain Transparency & Traceability
  • The Age of Transparent Supply Chains
  • SUSTAINABILITY

    NOW defines sustainability as wellbeing for people and our planet. It’s development and action that takes responsibility for our total impact on the community and the environment, to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The goal is to be carbon neutral/positive and support of the 17 Global Goals with accountability and transparency.

    Forum for the Future defines sustainability as a dynamic process which enables all people to realise their potential and to improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life support system.

  • Solution: Sustainable Travel and Tourism NOW
  • Sustainability Solutions
T
  • TORNADOES

    A violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground.

  • Problem: Tornadoes
V
  • VFM – VALUE FOR MONEY

    A measure of quality that assesses the monetary cost of the product or service against the quality and/or benefits of that product or service, taking into account subjective factors such as fitness for purpose, along with whole-of-life costs such as installation, training, maintenance and disposal, and wastage.

W

Waste is any substance which is discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use.

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