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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
February 7, 2007
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| January 28, 2007 |
Change the World With Charm – Miyako Maekita |
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| Miyako Maekita has spent more than 20 years helping NGOs develop successful campaigns |
Human beings are weak when it comes to the thought of change, says Miyako Maekita, a designer, copywriter, and consultant who often works with NGOs. People don't really like change because it makes them feel tired, depressed, and sad – even when it's for their own good. Yet, we inarguably need to make changes in order to keep life on earth sustainable. How to make this shift toward sustainability, without arousing all the negative feelings associated with change, is one of Ms. Maekita's specialties. On the 55th voyage, she talked about her work on projects that promote change with charm – such as 1,000,000 Candles Night, Food Mileage awareness, and the worldwide “Don't Let it Be World Poverty” campaign. |
site design imagesparkle.com |
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Ms. Maekita spends time in a Guatemalan village. Developing countries, she notes, are starting to question the monopoly of resources by developed countries |
Those living in countries that dominate much of the world's resources, such as the U.S. and Japan, especially need to think about how to make changes toward sustainability – what Ms. Maekita calls “eco-shifting.” Every action, from making breakfast, to stepping out of one's home, to cleaning, to commuting to work, can be eco-shifted, she said. Buying domestic rather than imported products is an important step toward eco-shifting, she said. For example, although imported asparagus and domestic asparagus cost nearly the same in Japan, the amount of CO2 emission they produce differs greatly. “One liter of gasoline ends up being used for one pack of imported asparagus,” she said. |
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| The “Don't Let it Be World Poverty” campaign raised awareness through fashionable white bracelets such as these |
To help consumers measure how much impact their purchases have on the environment, Ms. Maekita devised an internet site that shows where food is produced and how much energy it takes to transport it. Because air is not solid and is difficult to understand by weight, she also devised a unique and user-friendly conversion system that helps consumers measure CO2 emissions in terms of “poco” units. Buying domestic bread rather than imported bread saves 1.1 pocos, for example. Bringing your own bag to the supermarket saves 0.6 pocos. To reach the targets set by the Kyoto Protocol, she noted, people need to reduce their daily use of 285 pocos per person by 17 pocos. The system she developed is an easy way for people to see where and how they can reach this target. And, the advertising used to promote it was done with charm, she pointed out. It's promoted with a fun, eye-catching design that creatively turns a bundle of asparagus into an airplane, and a loaf into a ship to represent the concept of “food mileage”.
In addition to choosing domestic products over imported products, Ms. Maekita recommends eco-shifts such as choosing fair trade and organic products, replacing chemical cleaners with natural versions, choosing grains over meat, using solar panels on houses, cutting down on needless consumption, and avoiding companies that support war, such as Disney. Participating in energy-saving campaigns such as 1,000,000 Candle Night, also helps. Already, more than 1,000,000 people have joined, switching off their electric lights and using candles for several hours in the evening. Ms. Maekita's promotion of this as a chance to enjoy “slow time” surrounded by soft, beautiful light with friends and family for a few hours helped make the campaign so successful. Change, she shows, can be charming – rather than alarming. For more information on food mileage, visit www.food-mileage.com. For more information on the the candle night campaign, visit www.candle-night.org. |
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