4 Research-backed Hacks for Resolutions, New Book Interviews 200 Women, $23 trillion for clean energ
These high-schoolers won $10,000 for a solar-powered tent for the homeless (story below...)
4 Research-Backed Tips on Resolutions that Work
From the Heath brothers, two of my favorite authors (Decisive, Made to Stick, and others)
Look for bright spots - instead of looking for deficiencies, the research suggests asking "what's working and how can I do more of it?"
Make one change at a time - self-control and willpower is a limited resource that you want to focus very carefully. You will run out! Don't try to fix a relationship, learn a new language and meet your neighbors all at once.
Turn that one change into a habit - make your new behavior a habit so you can be on automatic pilot and not have to will your way forward each day. That won't work. What will work is making it a routine. Habits are hard to break and you can use this to your advantage.
Set an "action-trigger" to start your habit ASAP - research suggests that what helps limit the use of willpower is a simple hack: use a regular daily or weekly occurrence as a trigger for a new behavior. For example, every day after dinner, I will take time to review the family finances and daily spend. Dinner is the trigger. In fact, cleaning up dinner (glad to miss that!) is the trigger.
New Book - 200 Women: Who Will Change the Way You See the World
From the website: "200 Women is a book and exhibition founded on original interviews and accompanying photographic portraits. This landmark project is the realization of an epic global journey to find two hundred women with diverse backgrounds, and to ask them what really matters to them."
This video is fantastic....
A small group of writers, creative directors and photographers traveled the world armed with five simple questions.
What really matters to you?
What brings you happiness?
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
What would you change if you could?
Which single word do you most identify with?
Check out the 200 Women website
New Report on the $2 Trillion Circular Economy (The Conference Board)
The Conference Board report Business Transformation and the Circular Economy: A Candid Look at Risks and Rewards
What is the business case for a circular economy?
What are the risks involved in a circular economy?
What business practices do companies need to adopt to succeed in a circular economy?
What guidelines can they follow?
What are examples of companies that have transformed their business models to capture value from the circular economy?
Walter Stahel (Nature, 2016) presents research suggesting a 70% reduction in dangerous air pollution and 4% increase in employment from a circular economy strategy. And a 2016 McKinsey report explains how thinking in circles will transform the fashion, food and plastic industries.
New Report on Gender Diversity in the Workplace (Forbes)
Fairygodboss, a women’s career and community site, surveys 750,000 women every month and published their latest annual report, “The State of Gender Equality In The Workplace,” which reveals new truths about the experience of women in the workplace.
Employee Resource Groups (ERG's) are still heavily subscribed and effective in employee engagement, safety and satisfaction
Perpetrators of sexual harassment are colleagues more often than bosses; the majority of workplace sexual harassment is perpetrated by a colleague (57%), rather than a boss (36%) or manager (25%). The majority of women (68%) don't report harassment for fear of being a "nuisance" or "troublemaker"
Men must take a proactive role in preventing harassment and creating workplaces that are safer, more inclusive and empowering for women. Raising the awareness of men to gender bias appears to be a critical step along with improved policies to protect victims and punish perpetrators
Women of color have a "drastically different" experience than their Caucasian counterparts thus emphasizing the importance of intersectionality, a more holistic approach company's must take to diversity and inclusion, long emphasized by scholars in social sciences. In short, gender cannot be addressed without considering race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, etc.
Intersectionality is a sociological theory describing multiple threats of discrimination when an individual’s identities overlap with a number of minority classes — such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, health and other characteristics (Care2.com).
Increase in killings of environmental and land activists (LA Times)
2017 saw an increase in the number of killings of environmental activists and land activists. And very few involve any repercussions. Between 2003 and 2012, over 900 activists were murdered and only 10 convictions were made.
Image source: LA Times, a woman holds up a poster of a slain environmentalist and indigenous rights activist Berta Caceres during a march in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. (Fernando Antonio / Associated Press)
According to John Knox, a law professor at Wake Forest University, who was appointed as the first special rapporteur on human rights and the environment for the UN Human Rights Council, the increase is due to three factors:
increasing demand for limited resources
marginalized and underrepresented people with limited or zero opportunity for recourse or input
lack of rule of law and legal protections for activists
Many of those killed are indigenous people who are literally fighting for their lives and cultures.
"That is what makes the struggle so desperate. They’re fighting not just for a healthy community but also for their culture and their way of life. Many of the most vulnerable communities are faced with a kind of existential threat: If they give up their ancestral territory,
their culture dies."
A new website has been created Environment-Rights to provide resources and support for environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) and those that represent them.
International Chamber of Commerce: 4 Take-Aways from the One Planet Summit
Image Source: UN Climate Change Program site
From the website: "The One Planet Summit [held December 12], convened by President Emmanuel Macron of France, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim featured a range of high profile announcements on climate finance from a variety of stakeholders, including governments, banks, businesses, and investors"
The public sector is scaling up climate finance: including $44 billion from Europe, $100b from the UK
Business participation is indispensable: potential to mobilize $3 trillion towards low-carbon projects
Meaningful movement towards carbon pricing: China announced the start of a process to develop a carbon market; France, Germany, UK, Sweden and the Netherlands committed to a "meaningful carbon price" in "relevant sectors"
Placing climate at the centre of investment planning: in perhaps the biggest announcement, 225 global institutional investors, with US $26.3 trillion assets under management, launched the Climate Action 100+ coalition at the summit, which will work actively with global businesses to integrate environmental considerations in their activities and strengthen corporate governance on climate change issues.
And finally....Engineers Make Solar-Powered Tent for Homeless (Business Insider)
A team of 12 high school students--with no training in engineering--won an MIT-sponsored competition by inventing a solar-powered tent that folds into a backpack for the homeless. The inventors are juniors and seniors at San Fernando High School in California. They are also part of a nonprofit organization called DIY Girls that promotes careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Now that's cool.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
: )
Erik