In 2009, Earth Hour became the world’s biggest mass participation event ever by getting businesses and community groups to turn off their lights for one hour and encouraging the community to make changes in their daily lives to reduce their environmental footprint.

This year, Earth Hour is on Saturday 27 March at 8:30pm

With less than six weeks to go, WWF-Australia is counting on businesses, organisations and community groups to sign-up and switch off! By supporting Earth Hour, you are sending a powerful message that you care about climate change and you want others to care too.

Getting involved is easy and is a great way to engage your community while taking the first step towards reducing your environmental footprint.

Visit the new Earth Hour Australia website for ways to get the most out of Earth Hour.

The Sustainable Living Festival 2010 is almost here, with another great program of events over 3 weeks, culminating in the main event on 19-21 February in Federation Square.

Some festival highlights include: Peter Singer talking on the ethics of climate change; Professor Charlie Veron on the degradation of the Great Barrier Reef; and Songlines World Music Corroboree.

For a full festival program, visit their website.

We are now stocking the new KeepCup - the sustainable drinking mug to replace all those terrible takeaway ones thrown out everyday.

They are easy to use and clean, come in a lightweight, durable material and are designed and made here in Melbourne.

Road-tested by several members of staff, they have proven highly successful - so if you are addicted to your morning takeaway, then give the KeepCup a go.

national launch of the Transition Decade

The launch of the Transition Decade will showcase leading work by groups that are using this shared time frame and scale of change, and will set out the many ways that thousands of organisations and millions of people can join the alliance.

12 NOON SUNDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2010
MELBOURNE TOWN HALL
MASS CONVERGENCE + PUBLIC MEETING

• presenting the case to restore a safe climate
• promoting a shared timeframe for action
• demonstrating the power of collaboration

For full details go to the Friends of the Earth website.

Greening the Blogosphere

October 15 was Blog Action Day, an annual event run by Change.org in which bloggers from around the world are asked to write about the same topic on the same day.

This year's topic was climate change, and the response was incredible. More than 13,000 blogs from 155 countries with reach to 17 million readers participated.

You can see all the blogs, including more than 50 of the world's leading nonprofit organisations -- World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace and Oxfam -- as well as entries from Gordon Brown and The White House, at the action day website.

Wanted! Keen Green Volunteers!

Greener Houses Growing Greener Neighbourhoods

Interested in being involved in the development of an eco-demonstration house in Melbourne’s North? Want to help others make their homes more eco-friendly?

FREE TRAINING COURSE starts October
Information Session Thurs 15th Oct 7:30pm
Volunteers will be trained in sustainability
Register your interest now! 9457 7900 or je@nenetwork.org.au

You can find out more about the overall project from The Hornery Institute

Neco is Australia's leading online eco store, and their located in Melbourne. They have a wide variety of environmentally sustainable goods, from insulation, to lighting, to gardening for home and offices. So next time you are going shopping, check out what they have on offer first.

And now that it seems we are getting a bit more rain, the Brelli might be just the thing! Just in time for spring racing carnival, Neco has limited stock of new York's hit biodegradable Brelli in both 35" (small) and 52" (large) for only $19.95 each.

'Made from sustainable bamboo, the see-through Brelli will keep your fascinator dry without obscuring your radiant beauty.'

Check out the Neco website for the lowdown on the Brelli and their whole product range.

Friends of the Earth are encouraging you to support your favourite environmental cause by entering the Great Australian Run. It is a 15km course, starting and ending in Albert Park, on Sunday 29 November. An elite field made up of some of the best runners in the world featuring Australian heroes, Benita Johnson and Craig Mottram will lead the pack, but people of all levels are encouraged to participate and fundraise for their favourite charity. For all the details, check the website.

On September 13, Aaron from the Merri Creek Management Team, met us down at our favourite Rushall Station site to do some weeding. He showed us how to identify the weeds and remove them so the native grasses can get a chance to grow and re-establish along the creek.

Now that we know what to do, we are keen to get down their regularly as the weather improves and do as much weeding as we can. We are hoping to get together again on Sunday October 18. If you would like to join us, please email me and I will keep you posted.

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We had a small, but hard-working team down at the Merri Creek collecting litter along the water's edge. It was really saddening to see the amount of rubbish: styrofoam bubbles, bottles, plastic containers, plastic food wrappers etc. But it was satisfying work, seeing the difference it made clearing it all away, Sal even found a $10 note. Hopefully we will be down there more in the coming months. There has been a lot of work done upgrading the path so their is plenty of areas for new planting and weeding.

The Merri Creek planting day went a treat. A big group turned up to help, despite the early fog, and it soon warmed up into a lovely sunny morning.

There is another day of rubbish removal and general tidying up around the same site on the 5th July, so if you would like to join in, let us know by email. Thanks again to everyone who came along and helped out.

To celebrate Fair Trade Fortnight, we organised a fair trade coffee break in the Carlton kitchen, ordering in fair trade coffee and tea from Oxfam. It was a great way to take a bit of time out from the daily grind and think about how our purchases effect other people around the world. Thanks to everyone for getting involved.

The Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping, which quietly appeared in our stores last year, has been a real success story, recording consistently solid monthly sales. Produced by the Ethical Consumer Group, it provides information on companies and brands, evaluating the social and environmental impact of companies in the Australian market.

The aims of the guide, listed on their website are:

• to inform shoppers of more ethical or less ethical choices in their buying
• to empower people and create awareness about consumer power
• to provide a means for consumers to give feedback to companies and government, and so encourage change.

It retails at only $5 and is an invaluable resource for helping us all to make well-informed choices in our everyday shopping.

If you are looking to purchase goods from overseas try Etiko. Etiko is an ethical importer who ensures their suppliers are either:

• certified fairtrade
• certified sweatshop free
• worker or farmer owned co-operatives

Check out their website and think fairtrade next time you go shopping.

Etiko won the Sensis Social Responsibility award of the Telstra Business Awards in 2008.

We have the new floral range of blank journals from Dharma Door. The pages are made of recycled cotton waste from garment factories and the covers are handprinted. Dharma Door is a fair trade organisation that imports from developing communities in India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines and Bangladesh.

from left: Michelle, Mark, Tess, Ross, Kylie and Zandy Tibballs (Wastewise)

Readings is committed to developing and improving environmental practices in the workplace. In 2006 we had an external auditor provide a performance review that outlined our main areas of impact and what we could do to improve them. Download PDF (0.15 MB)
EnvironmentalPerformanceReview This review recommended applying for accreditation with Sustainability Victoria's Wastewise program. Sarah Nickels, an environmental auditor, helped us establish an action plan for improving our environmental impact and achieve Wastewise accreditation. Our environmental committee now meets regularly to make sure we are on target.