Beet Read: Cows Save The Planet

CowsSaveThePlanet

Can Cows Save the Planet? By Rachel Caudill, Good Food Book Club Volunteer Coordinator

 Join us in reading the April Co-op Good Food Book Club book, Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth(2013) by Judith D. Schwartz.The Book Club will meet Sunday, April 27, from6:00-7:30 at a member’s private residence to discuss Cows Save the Planet. Email bookclub@moscowfood.coop for more information and directions.

 “You might ask what dirt has to do with global warming. In reading this astounding book we will learn how to unmake deserts, rethink the causes of climate change, bring back biodiversity, and restore nutrients to our food. In other words, how to staunch and heal the great wound we have inflicted on our planet.”  So says renowned ecologist and writer Gretel Ehrlich in the Foreword to this month’s remarkable book, chosen in honor of Earth Day and this month’s theme.

 As we’ve seen with many of the books in our Good Food Book Club, our food choices are now profoundly intertwined with global planetary health. From industrial farming, to GMOs, to soil erosion, to colossal food waste and landfill excesses, to mass extinction and wholesale destruction of fisheries and ocean health, to climate chaos itself, our global human population and the way we eat has impacted every facet of the Earth’s resilience. What if there was a silver bullet… What if there already exists an overall approach with a suite of strategies that could quickly, cheaply, and massively restore Earth’s food systems (and climate!) to a thriving, healthy stable state?  Would you believe such a thing possible? Even better, could it be as simple as grazing happy cows?

 Come find out as we read this month’s ground-breaking book and learn for ourselves the pivotal role that soil health has in supporting not only healthy food for our global population, but also to curbing—and even solving—the climate crisis.  You can get a taste of the astonishing paradigm reported in this book by watching Alan Savory’s pivotal TED talk, “How to Fight Desertification and Reverse Global Warming.” Savory, of course, is featured in Schwartz’s book.

 As Ehrlich writes, “Widen your mind with a holistic approach to the extinction cliff… Judith Schwartz’s book gives us not just hope but also a sense that we humans—serial destroyers that we are—can actually turn the climate crisis around. This amazing book, wide-reaching in its research, offers nothing less than solutions for healing the planet.”

 Please join us to discuss Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth(2013) by Judith D. Schwartz Sunday, April 27 from 6:00-7:30 pm. Remember to email bookclub@moscowfood.coop for the meeting location and directions and/or to receive email reminders about the Good Food Book Club. Cows Save the Planet by Judith D. Schwartz is available through your local library.  If you are interested in buying the book, check out the area’s local used book stores or visit Book People of Moscow where Book Club members receive a discount. For more information about the Good Food Book Club, check out the Outreach section of the Co-op website at www.moscowfood.coop.

B the Change with B-Corps

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The Moscow Food Co-op is very excited to be part of the B Lab’s “B the Change” campaign. Certified B Corporations are leading a global movement to redefine success in business as not only being the best in the world, but the best for the world. B Corps are new and existing businesses that are certified by the nonprofit B Lab as meeting rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency. B Lab is a nonprofit that conducts third party evaluations of business practices. They use a customizable platform for benchmarking, measuring and reporting on business impacts and host the world’s largest database of verified social and environmental performance data for private companies. An analogy that has been used actively during the campaign is that B Corp certification is to sustainable businesses as LEED certification is to green buildings or Fair Trade certification is to coffee.

Today, there is a growing community of more than 900 Certified B Corporations from 32 countries and 60 industries that have signed the B Corp “Declaration of Interdependence” which states:

“We envision a new sector of the economy which harnesses the power of private enterprise to create public benefit. This sector is comprised of a new type of corporation—the B Corporation—which is purpose-driven, and creates benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. As members of this emerging sector and as entrepreneurs and investors in B Corporations, we hold these truths to be self-evident: That we must be the change we seek in the world. That all business ought to be conducted as if people and place mattered. That, through their products, practices, and profits, businesses should aspire to do no harm and benefit all. To do so, requires that we act with the understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations.”

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In addition to providing a certification that labels businesses as socially and environmentally responsible (B Corp certification), the B the Change campaign has helped pass legislation in 19 states and Washington D.C. that creates a new form of corporation, the “benefit corporation.” These entities operate in the same way as traditional corporations but with legal protection to pursue purposes other than profit. According to the B Lab founders, marketers use terms like green, responsible, sustainable and even local, yet there are no standards to back up the claims. Although there exists an increasing number of narrow product or practice specific standards (e.g. “Organic”, “Fair Trade,” “Energy Star”, “LEED”, etc.), there are fewer standards outside of the B Corporation certification that provide a comprehensive understanding of a company’s performance as a whole. This makes it difficult for a consumer to tell the difference between a ‘good company’ and just good marketing.

The B the Change campaign aims to make it easier for consumers and investors to support businesses that truly align with their personal beliefs by providing a reliable certification logo to look for as well as a searchable database of all existing certified B Corp businesses.

You will soon find posters around the store with the certified B Corp logo and the campaign slogans. In order to help our customers identify brands we carry that are currently B Corp certified, you will also find tags with the logo next to certified products. If you are interested in learning more or joining the campaign on a personal or business level, please visit www.bthechange.com.

This article was written by Misty Amarena, Outreach + Education Coordinator, and was originally featured in the April issue of Community News.