Environment

A holistic approach to the environment supports the health of soils, water, air and biodiversity. Alongside restorative and regenerative models, it requires growing the individual’s understanding of the chain of consequences and impact of consumer choices on the global environment.

We seek out models of benevolent coexistence that acknowledge the interconnectedness of all life on earth and the effects of any development process on the environment. Our environmental focus is on the connection between climate change and soil regeneration.

Soil regeneration is key not just to halting desertification and drought-driven migrations, but to global warming, by increasing drawdown and carbon sequestration. Regenerative and restorative systems can maintain and improve resources through continuous organic renewal of the complex living system.

Changing consumers’ perspectives by connecting them to the local and global environment can impact on some of the main drivers of climate change: food, fossil fuels, fashion and waste. Any of these are a lens to focus on the interconnectedness of our current environmental challenges, by looking at the conditions and effects of their production, consumption and disposal.

Let us take Food. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. To meet global demand, soils are stressed by methods that do not allow for their regeneration, resulting in inferior crops over time, and a reduced ability to sequester carbon. Poor soil conservation practices lead to extreme topsoil erosion and to desertification, with devastating consequences for food security and global warming. In turn, this threatens food production through extreme weather events such as floods and droughts.

Sustainable thinking for the food system is about a triple bottom line: good for the planet, good for the farmer, good for the individual consumer. Few sustainability actions are more hand-to-mouth than choosing to eat foods that heal the planet and ensure the long-term wellbeing of both soil and self. Solutions lie in combining traditional practices, new technologies and the power and wisdom of nature’s design.

Yet beyond all ideology or legislation aimed at incentivising positively or negatively to manage consumption and waste, it is the awakening of our deep conscience that will change our relationship to nature and to other beings, from the inside out.

Some facts on the environmental crisis

In 2017, over 1/3 of the 50 Nobel prize-winning scientists declared overpopulation and environmental degradation the two greatest threats facing humankind, and 15,364 scientists from 184 countries declared rapid human population growth the “primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats”
The leading environmental concerns are overconsumption, overpopulation, biodiversity loss, deforestation, desertification, global warming / climate change, habitat destruction, Holocene extinction, ocean acidification, ozone layer depletion, resource depletion, urbanisation and pollution (including waste, waste disposal and water pollution)
The risk of ‘population overshoot’, i.e. when the human population is too large to be sustained by its environment in the long term, poses a serious threat not just to the quality of human life but to the entire biosphere
29% of the world’s surface is land and 71% is ocean
71% of the land is habitable, 50% of the habitable land is used for agriculture
By 2050, feeding a planet of 9 billion people will require an est. 50% increase in agricultural production and a 15% increase in water withdrawals.
77% of agricultural land is used for livestock and 23% for crops
70% of global freshwater is used to grow food
Over 135 million people were affected by acute food insecurity in 50 countries and 820 million people went hungry in 2020
Most of the world’s population lives in countries in which overweight and obesity kill more people than underweight
The global food system is responsible for ⅓ of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than all emissions from transport, heating, lighting and air conditioning combined

1/3 of global food production is wasted every year, or about 1.3 billion tonnes in 2019
The carbon footprint of food wastage is est. at 3.3 b tonnes of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere per year
The globalisation of food trade has led to a specialisation, focused on about 150 types of produce in any given supermarket, against some 500’000 edible species available worldwide
Agricultural expansion is the main driver of deforestation, forest fragmentation and the associated loss of biodiversity; subsistence farming is responsible for 48%, commercial agriculture for 32%
Unsustainable agricultural methods accelerate the rate of soil erosion and deplete the amount of carbon the soil is able to store and increase global warming dramatically
24% of global land has already declined in the last 25 years due to unsustainable use
60% of carbon stored in soil and vegetation has been lost since the 19th Century as a result of land clearing and urbanisation
Biodiversity decreased by about 30% since 1970, more rapidly in low income countries that subsidise the lifestyles of wealthier countries, reaching 60% in the tropical regions.
The numbers of mammals, birds, fish, plants and insects are in steep decline falling an average of 68% from 1970 to 2016, which is more 2/3 in less than 50 years
Rich nations consume 28 tonnes of material per person per year, 4x more than is ecologically sustainable, requiring an extraordinary amount of energy to extract, produce and transport

Sources: FAO, Reuters, World Bank, WWF, UN, UNEP, ourworldindata.org, World Food Crisis Report 2020