My bike - my love

My bike - my love

You love your bike with all your might. But you've never admitted it in public. Do it now! The city of Karlsruhe and the fairkehr agency's campaign "Start your brains, not your car" are launching the initiative "My bike is my summer love". People who declare their bicycle love can win gadgets, gimmicks or vouchers making their bike love life even more enjoyable.

You worry about me – so why don't you worry about you?

A great example for a campaign on behavourial change: The Thai Health Promotion Foundation started it to make people think about the severe consequences of smoking.

Emissions flying high

Aviation is the least sustainable mode of transport. Nevertheless the German government subsides airlines with more than 11 billion Euro per year. The aviation industry, however, complains about having several major disadvantages lately and claims to be on crash course. Read more in the latest issue of fairkehr, the magazine for sustainable transport and travelling.

Open publication - Free publishing - More aviation

Cycling with new energy

E-bikes are not just bikes. They are a new form of mobility - in many situations they can even replace cars. Charged with renewable energy they are comfortable and speedy zero emission vehicles. A real profit for the case of sustainable transport. Read more in the current issue of "fairkehr", the magazine for sustainable mobility and travelling.

Open publication - Free publishing - More e-bike

Looking for last minute offers?

Planing to go on Easter holiday? If you haven't booked yet you may well have a problem – unless you choose a sustainable last minute offer. Last minute booking and sustainability, that looks like a contradiction. It isn't though. Utopia, an internet portal for green consumers, recommends the last minute Easter holiday offers on "Verträglich Reisen".
"Verträglich Reisen" is the fairkehr agency's magazine and internet portal for sustainable travelling in Europe – not only useful for planing your Easter holidays but also summer vacations, short trips and weekend activities.

Organic food is soul food

Funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Protection in Germany (BMELV) the so called BIOSpitzenköche, an organisation of cooks dedicated to organic food, seasonal and regional ingredients and fair trade, care for sustainable agriculture and production methods that go easy on resources.

The fairkehr agency supports the BIOSpitzenköche with public relation and regular website updates. This month's top recipes: finger food for the beginning barbecue season.
Have a look and get plenty of ideas – and appetite.

You waste food? You waste energy!

200 g cheese thrown away - that means waste not only of money but of pure energy. With that energy you could have gone by bus for almost 10 kilometers. The "Verbraucher Initiative" (Consumer Initative") in Berlin has set up a calculator that visualizes perfectly the energy you waste when throwing food away. Calculate your energy and money waste here: www.resterechner.de

Tous Candidats 2012. Everyone can be a candidate.

2012 is a presidential election year here in France. Polls, economic figures,(under-the-belt) comments and sexual scandals have occupied the front pages and headlines for the last 6 months. The usual stuff.

The current economic stress has significantly pushed the subjects of sustainable development, ecology and “well-being” out of the media and mainstream political frame.
This is why the French NGO Colibris (represented by the charismatic philosopher-thinker-farmer Pierre Rabhi) has launched the campaign “Tous Candidats 2012”: a simple idea of enabling people to express their ambition of living in a more human and eco-friendly world.

How?

Sidiese has developed for Colibris a website (www.touscandidats2012.fr) where people can upload a photo and write a slogan in order to easily create their own presidential poster.
A mosaic of all the candidates has been developed on the website and several tools have been created to make the campaign viral and create as much buzz as possible. The objective of this campaign is to remind the media and the political world that people care about these topics and that change is needed.

A modern and dynamic campaign for a noble cause.

Highly popular (more than 20,000 posters have been published), Tous candidates 2012 encourages the thousands of candidates to cover the walls of their hometowns with the newly created posters (on the 31st of March) as part of the "InsideOut Project".

No need to be French to support this campaign. Feel free to stick your future poster in hometown Oldham or Oberhausen.

Agence Sidièse

Give me my 50 dollars back

This man had to pay 50 dollars for not riding the bike lane. In this hilarious video he demonstrates why riding the bike lane is much more dangerous than using the street and why New York City should better ticket the people blocking the bike lane - e.g. the police.

Future II

Swear! Swear to retell at least one story you will encounter on this website Future II.

Just consuming is a no-go.

You will? Then go!

Railway across Europe

Railway without borders - still is wishful thinking: The new issue of fairkehr, the VCD magazine for transportation, environmental matters and travelling, explains why it is so difficult to establish railroad connections throughout whole Europe.

Open publication - Free publishing - More bahn

Holes of Happiness

Potholes can be a nuisance to car drivers and bicyclists. A guerilla gardener from London, however, really makes the best of every pothole in the big city's asphalt.

The Man who Lived on his Bike

THE MAN WHO LIVED ON HIS BIKE from Guillaume Blanchet on Vimeo.

For 382 days the French guy Guillaume Blanchet was doing everything on his bike that people do in every day's live: cooking, showering, reading, meeting friends, hanging on the phone. He dedicated the clip to his bicycle-loving father.

LIFECYCLE: 365 Days in the Life of a Bike in NYC

Everywhere you go you better take your bike with you.

The History of CO2

Simple and moving:

As you'll know if you've happened upon this blog, we've been busy setting up a European network of like-minded agencies called 'Do Not Smile'; we've got good friends and colleagues now in Paris, Bonn and Brussels and we're actively scoping out more creative agencies with a penchant for sustainability so that we can swell our ranks even further.

As well as sharing ideas and insights, the network means we can collaboratively pitch for international accounts knowing that we have the reach needed to work alongside the bigger multinational agencies.

Anyway - to the point of this posting. I wanted to share one of the many useful nuggets of learning that I've gleaned from our continental friends: the notion of responsible communications. Established by a book of the same name and by a set of guidelines adopted by the French Advertisers Association, responsible communications is all about honesty, transparency and an end to 'greenwashing' particularly on the part of larger, more polluting corporations.

There are ten keys to the concept, scribble them down and apply them next time you're planning a campaign:

1. Make sure that the represented behaviour is responsible and ethical.
2. Use an appropriate register and do not exaggerate.
3. Be honest.
4. Use arguments that are placed in contact and reflect reality.
5. Use vocabulary that is clear, precise and easy to understand.
6. Provide sufficient, transparent and easy-to-access information.
7. Make sure that what you say is based on reliable, verifiable data.
8. Use creative/design elements that have a direct, logical connection with the reality being discussed.
9. Follow the riles of rising logos, acronyms, symbols, trademarks and labels.
10. Involve service providers such as agencies, copywriters and photographers.

So there you have it... ten steps to more ethical, responsible communications.

The eleventh step? Well you could always join our network.

(With thanks to Gildas and the comrades at Sidiese.)