Ben & Jerry's, Burger King and banana leaves

Food is a vital ingredient to life. It’s also a major source of carbon emissions.

The things we eat have a massive impact on our lives and the environment. It can be easy to lose yourself in all the doom and gloom, so we’ve rounded up some stories of food making a positive change!

Ben & Jerry's teamed up with Greenlister The Republic of Everyone to offer a tasty scoop to uni students willing to check their enrollment.

Ice cream, you scream, Ben & Jerry’s screens for democracy!

With a federal election looming, Greenlister The Republic of Everyone chipped with a cool green marketing campaign to help ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s show its support for climate change action by investing in the youth vote.

It’s recognised that this 18 to 25 year old age bracket tends to vote more on issues it care about than for the party itself. A 2018 study conducted by VICE media found that for 43 per cent of young Australians the environment was of greater concern than any other global issue. According to the Australian Electoral Commission, however, 15.5 per cent of this age bracket isn’t currently enrolled.

To incentivise young Australians to check their enrollment, Ben & Jerry’s teamed up with Australian Youth Climate Action in stalls at university O-Weeks around the country, offering a scoop of ice cream in exchange for every enrollment checked.

In all, 6000 students checked their enrolments and about 1000 of them enrolled – a significant result when marginal seats can be won or lost on tens of votes.

Plant based alternatives carve out a portion of the mainstream

In line with April Fools day but no joke.

Burger King also connected food and sustainability/climate change when it launched a meat-free option in some of its USA stores on 1 April. Dubbed the Impossible Whopper, the plant based patty looks and “bleeds” like real meat, but is actually created in a lab from genetically modified yeast. In a hidden camera style promotional video, the product created by Silicon Valley start up Impossible Foods, was advertised to suggest customers couldn’t tell the difference.

Plastic goes bananas

And on the packaging side, Thai supermarket Rimping has swapped out plastic for banana leaves in much of its produce section. Being large, flexible and waterproof, the leaf makes a great alternative. Over time it has served many other purposes too, from writing surfaces to dinner plates. What else could it replace?

Food scraps make fashion

And taking an even more creative tack with sustainable food H&M will begin selling clothing items made from food scraps in a number of its stores later this month. Piñatex is a leather alternative made from the wasted leaves of harvested pineapples, and Orange Fiber is a silk-like fabric made from orange juice waste. Both will become part of international clothing brand H&M’s latest Conscious Exclusive collection, in the form of patchwork boots and dainty dresses. The collection will also include sneakers with soles made from algae biomass.

Shout out your sustainability

So we know climate change is an important issue for young Australians. In fact, one study by VICE found the environment to be the MOST important global issue for around 43 per cent of 18 to 25 year olds.

So why not share your brand’s sustainability by getting in touch with one of our Greenlisters.

The Republic of Everyone

The marketing team behind the Ben & Jerry’s effort, The Republic of Everyone is all about marrying brands, sustainability, and innovation. They have just the minds you need to help spruik your ideas, or help make them happen.

Dennis Rutzou

With decades of experience, Dennis specialises in shouting your sustainability message from the digital rooftops. One of his clients scored 23 million hits on its Facebook page in one of Dennis’s successful PR campaigns.

You’ve heard of reusable coffee cups and cutlery, but what about a reusable notebook?

Rocketbook claims to work and feel like a traditional notebook but with a slight twist: you can wipe it clean to be used again. It comes in two formats, one that can be cleared entirely in the microwave, and another that can be cleared by wiping a moist cloth over the desired page. Both are compatible with an app that allows you to capture pages to be uploaded and stored on your desired platform (including Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox and Evernote).

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Ben & Jerry’s, Burger King and banana leaves

TGL News

Ice cream, you scream, Ben & Jerry’s screens for democracy!

Plant based alternatives carve out a portion of the mainstream

In line with April Fools day but no joke.

Plastic goes bananas

Food scraps make fashion

Shout out your sustainability

The Republic of Everyone

Dennis Rutzou

You’ve heard of reusable coffee cups and cutlery, but what about a reusable notebook?

Follow us on social media to stay up to date

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