Sustainable Planet Film Festival Inspires, Educates About Every Day Green Living
Last weekend I attended the 4th annual Sustainable Planet Film Festival, a day-long event in Manhattan that includes a handful of short films and expert speakers discussing various elements of environmental sustainability. We’ve collectively come a long way over the past decade or so in thinking more long-term about our everyday living practices; how we can use less, re-use more and just in general be more conscious of our consumption patterns. We’ve got a lot further to go though, and more than anything, the festival showed me how much; not in a negative, critical way though. Quite the opposite – I came away from the day very inspired and energized about what’s happening out there and what more we can, and must, do.
The festival is the brainchild of Pamela Peeters, a Belgian-born environmental economist and consultant who’s been living in the U.S. for 10 years and been a driving force for sustainability. I met Pamela last month at a Green Drinks NYC event where she was pushing her festival so passionately, I wanted to be part of it.
It’s hard to wrap my head around all that I learned during the day. One speaker, Alberto Gonzalez of Gusto Organics, a 100 percent organic restaurant in NYC, mentioned that in 1920, Americans spent 24 percent of their money on food. The number in 2005 was less than 10 percent and is probably even less today. It’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world; we now have more money to spend on things like education, travel, entertainment and HDTVs. But, “cheap food is an illusion,” he said. “We pay for it in our health.” Yeah, just take a look at the national diabetes rates.
Sustainable nutritionist Meredith Sobel talked about how important it is to eat organic foods, decrease our meat intake, and avoid highly processed food overall. “Stay away from any foods that have more than five ingredients,” she recommended. I’ve started counting some labels and this will clearly be a challenge. I am now definitely more likely to spend $4 on a package of organic berries than $2.50 for the regular kind though. Meredith by the way, was one of several people who acknowledged Al Gore and his film An Inconvenient Truth as being a huge catalyst for the latest wave of environmental action.
All the food talk also got me to commit to the Meatless Monday campaign. Name says it all: no animal consumption every Monday. The goal of the non-profit is to reduce our meat production by 15 percent, which will have a huge impact on our overall carbon footprint because of how much more energy is required to produce meat compared to other foods. You should try it out – if I can do it, you can too.
Another key theme for the day was around architecture and buildings. This is just an enormous percentage of our global energy needs, and thus waste. Two of the films showcased some very impressive and innovative techniques for creating more sustainable buildings. Two near LaunchSquad’s NY office, 4 Times Square download lipstick dvd and the under-construction One Bryant Park, are prime examples of this.
One other critical area worth mentioning is in city planning and development. Dr. Jaime Lerner, former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, talked about how is city has created a far more sustainable infrastructure for its citizens. One impressive stat: over 2 million daily rides on public transport in a region of only 3 million people (85% of people use it). That’s the same as the far larger Sao Paolo.
The Sustainable Planet Film Festival will take its show next to Miami in October and then to Los Angeles, as well as internationally to places like Australia, Mexico and Brazil. It’s yet another small example of people, one at a time, coming together and trying innovative, risky things to help change the world.