Zero Foodprint Asia, Green Schoolyards of America, Global Recycling Day!

ZERO FOODPRINT ASIA

Asia’s population is expected to hit 5 billion by 2035, with the continent currently responsible for over 50% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If the world and its leaders are serious about reducing their carbon footprint, Asia should be the place to start. Food systems account for more than one third of GHG and are often overlooked as a primary contributor to overall carbon emissions. While China has recently set out its net zero emission target for 2060 and Hong Kong by 2050, the potential for the Zero Foodprint model to apply in cities across the continent is enormous.

Zero Foodprint Asia (ZFPA), an extension of Zero Foodprint (ZFP) in California, is a nonprofit organization mobilizing the food world around agricultural climate solutions. ZFPA hosts a crowdfunding program that gathers funds from member food businesses such as restaurants, cafes, bars and food retailers. Members pledge 1% of every restaurant purchase to ZFPA to fund regenerative farming practices that draw down carbon from the atmosphere and help combat global warming; this is the ZFP model. Why? Because industrialized farming is subsidized. Regenerative farming is not. 

In addition to the 1% Pledge, ZFPA programs include the Carbon Neutrality Program, the Restore Fund and SoilFeeders. ZFPA’s Carbon Neutrality involves Equipping food businesses with the tools to become more aware of their environmental impact and create tangible change for future operations. The Restore Fund raises funds to support farmers in the region adopt regenerative farming practices, and SoilFeeders is a four-step way for the hospitality industry to reduce GHGs, restore local soil health and revitalize their local agricultural sector.

Why does ZFPA matter to us? At a time when climate change, bursting landfills, epidemic malnutrition, and fertilizer shortage coincide, the hospitality industry needs to exemplify leadership in cross-sectoral and urban-rural partnerships that critically and practically confront the food-water-soil-health nexus.

DEEPER DIVE: ZFPA, ZFP, Carbon Farming

GREEN SCHOOLYARDS OF AMERICA

Green Schoolyards America seeks to transform asphalt-covered school grounds into park-like green spaces that improve children’s well-being, learning, and play while contributing to their communities’ ecological health and climate resilience. Green Schoolyards America envisions a future in which public school grounds are used strategically to improve the well-being of children, their communities, and the urban environment at the same time. To achieve this, we are working toward the following outcomes:

• CHILDREN: All children and youth have daily access to nature on their own school grounds to improve their learning, play, health, and social environments. Students and the school community act as stewards of their school grounds, actively taking part in shaping and caring for their shared public space.

• COMMUNITY: School grounds are vibrant, lively centers for their neighborhoods—used and valued during the school day for academic and recreational purposes and by their communities after hours. Public infrastructure on school grounds is well cared for and resources are equitably distributed.

• ENVIRONMENT: School grounds act as green infrastructure for their cities, helping to foster healthy urban watersheds, robust wildlife habitats and corridors, improved climate change mitigation, and better air quality.

Why do Green schoolyards America matter to us? Because public school districts are one of the largest landowners in almost every city and town across the United States. Across the United States, over 98,000 public schools serve more than 50 million pre-kindergarten to 12th grade students every day, and collectively manage an estimated 2 million acres of land. Because Choices made by school districts about how they manage their landscapes profoundly impact the perspectives of local citizens whose daily, outdoor experiences are at school. And because it’s a template.

DEEPER DIVE: GSoA, Benefits of Trees

GLOBAL RECYCLING DAY 3/18/23!

Global Recycling Day was created in 2018 by the Global Recycling Foundation to help recognize, and celebrate, the importance recycling plays in preserving our precious primary resources and securing the future of our planet. Traditionally, the Big Six of the Earth’s precious, primary natural resources are water, air, soil, petroleum products, coal and minerals. These resources represent the foundation of humanity’s current existence. All food, clothing and shelter come from them. Most importantly, the Big Six are both finite and rapidly depleting. Hence the importance of the planet’s “Seventh Resource”: Recyclables. 

The environmentally sound management of hazardous and other waste is a complex issue which requires concerted actions by countries, the private sector, civil society and other stakeholders. Global Recycling Day is an important step in this direction – prompting people across the world to work together – on waste – towards a more sustainable future for all.

Why does celebrating Global Recycling Day matter to us?  It’s a day to tell world leaders that recycling is simply too important not to be a global issue, and that a common, collaborative approach to recycling is urgently needed. It’s also a day to ask people across the planet to think resource, not waste, when it comes to the goods around us – placing renewed emphasis on the actual value recycled goods have. Plus, recycling saves over 800 million tons in carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere annually. That figure is projected to climb to 1.1 billion tons by 2030, if we all pitch in.

DEEPER DIVE: Global Recycling Day, GRF