Focusing on Mission and Vision

First, great news! I got the email congrats today for coming in 2nd place in the US PIRG video contest on sustainable transportation in the future! Our prize is $250, which we'll put right into the travel project account. We are currently finalists in the Earthkeepers/Timberland video contest, and we'll be entering the Climate Matters video contest very soon as well.

Carrick and I were interviewed on the EVCast podcast on Monday, talking about our green videos and our travel project. The EVCast is a daily podcast focusing on electric vehicles, which we've talked about in some of our videos. Our travel project will include video profiles of several electric vehicle companies, including Aptera, Tesla Motors, GM (Chevy Volt), Zenn Motors, and Poulsen Hybrid. You can hear our interview at www.EVCast.com, and we're in Episode #58.


From the very beginning of creating our cross-country eco-video adventure, our mission has been to inspire and empower kids to create a renewable and sustainable future. I've been focusing more on our vision lately, which is more of the 'how', and speaks more specifically about what we're trying to accomplish. I've broken our vision for the project down to 3 parts:

1. Focus on renewable energy: We'll be visiting examples of different types of renewable energy in the U.S., including wind, solar, hydroelectric, wave power, tidal power, geothermal, and biogas. By showing examples of existing and proven renewable technologies, we want to show people how abundant our natural resources are in this country, and how very possible it is to achieve 100% renewable energy.

2. Focus on sustainable design/living: We'll be showing examples of many aspects of sustainability including: zero waste, pollution-free transportation, sustainable design, green cities in the U.S., and sustainable companies and products. For most Americans, sustainable living means sacrifice and compromise - put on that extra sweater and suffer! We'll show that with a whole-systems approach including smart design, manufacturing, transportation, and zero waste, our country can make a tremendous leap forward in sustainability, with an exciting future of possibilities!

3. Individuals making a difference: Our time is not only unique in history because of our access to information, but also our ability as individuals to make our voices heard and create real change. We'll be interviewing inspiring people who used their passion on issue to make a positive difference. Our travel project itself is a testament to that: after almost 2 years of making green videos with our old camcorder, our videos have been seen by over 200,000 people, and our cross-country eco-video project will bring our message of sustainability to a much wider audience.

So now we're focusing on speaking with companies that support our mission and will sponsor our project. I'm also busy lining up speaking events for the fall and winter, where Carrick and I will show some of our videos, talk about our work, and tell people about our upcoming travel project. Plenty of work yet to be done!

Be well,
Colin