Earth Promise “21 in 21″ Interview Series – Matthew Owen of Cool Earth Matthew Owen, Director of Cool Earth Matthew Owen has been Director of Cool Earth since its launch in 2007. Cool Earth enables everyone to be a climate change hero.  Stopping rainforest destruction is the single most powerful action any of us can take, to keep 260 tonnes of carbon dioxide in each forest acre where it belongs. Cool Earth was created to help individuals, families, communities and companies do just that.  We invest from the bottom up in rainforest communities to secure many thousands of acres of endangered forest and make sure that is worth more standing than it is destroyed. 76,000 individuals have joined with Cool Earth to prevent 14 million tonnes of climate changing co2 emissions. This makes Cool Earth Europe’s fastest growing Environmental institution that has now set its sights on the US. Earth Promise: What changes, or Earth Promises as we call them, have you made in your lifestyle to be more green?  Changes in home, travel, work, with your kids and community? Matthew Owen: The usual easy ones- walking to school, store cupboard food in glass containers and we have gotten used to poor lighting.  I tend to ignore the tokenistic unplugging of phone chargers and spend the time on the train instead. EP: Tell me a little about yourself as well as your involvement with the environment? MO: About two and a half years ago I was approached by Frank Field – Britain’s smartest politician – and Johan Eliasch – a very successful businessman who runs the Head sportswear group – with the idea of creating a mass movement on deforestation, enabling individuals, groups, including schools and businesses, to directly fund rainforest protection on a massive scale. The idea was that if a million people were each able to protect one acre of critically endangered rainforest then together we would be able to put a protective arm around the world’s most valuable forests. Six months later we launched Cool Earth, a charity that does just that. Our original target of protected 10,000 acres in the first year was smashed. We are now heading towards our second birthday and with our supporters have protected 55,000 acres of endangered rainforest across South America.  The support that we have received has been exceeded our expectations and it’s not just individuals but schools and companies and because of their support we were able to launch in the US too.   In fact, we just launched a campaign with Tropicana called Rescue the Rainforest, where people can go online to www.Tropicanarainforest.com and be a part of saving the rainforest.  Specially marked cartons of Tropicana Pure Premium products will carry a code and for each code entered 100 square feet of rainforest will be saved.   Having Tropicana as the first U.S. company to get behind our mission is an important milestone in seeing our vision come to live.  We hope the campaign spreads across the country, thereby enabling us to make a significant impact on protecting the rainforest and its invaluable resources.   Imagine if everyone who drank orange juice was a part of this campaign  – the impact could be enormous. EP: Tell me about some of the steps you have taken in your professional life to help the environment? MO: Putting Cool Earth together has been inspiring. Launching a charity in the digital age has meant that the vast majority of our work is done online and it is easy to keep in touch with supporters. Resource use has been kept to a minimum and therefore our admin costs are low too. Aside from putting real power into the hands of rainforest communities, I’d say making sure over 90% of all sponsor dollars go to conservation has been the biggest achievement so far. EP: Let’s say you get a one hour meeting with President Obama.  What advice do you give him about making Earth Promises in his life? MO: An hour is a long time and I’d start boring him past 15 minutes.  I would stick to three messages: Use the obvious value of rainforest carbon credits to embed carbon trading into every part of commercial life in the US.  The essential reading for this is Eliasch Review – http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/eliasch.htm Get serious about enforcing existing sanctions on illegal logging- even if this means chasing plywood supply chains across four continents. Use 0.1 percent of the USA aid budget to give every junior school in the US one acre of rainforest. Cool Earth can help out with that. EP: Sometimes if a message is played over too much, consumers will tend to ignore it after a while or tune it out or turn against it.  How can green Evangelists be more effective in making sure we are relevant but not overbearing?  MO: Be honest about what makes a real difference. Unplugging your cell phone charger every time you are not using it for a year would save the same energy as you use driving a car for ten seconds.  Lay off the car at weekends and don’t sweat the small stuff. I also think it is key to keep the message simple.  The nature of the environment is that it impacts on so many things that the sheer weight of the message that you are trying to put across can people can get lost and then it is easy for them to shrug it off.  Deforestation creates a web of destruction that reaches across the globe but at Cool Earth we have one strap line: ‘keeping carbon where it belongs’. The message is simple and we think that this is why it as resonated with so many people. EP: There are lots of people who fit into two eco groups – “think green”, meaning they know there is an environmental issue and they are concerned, but do not take any steps to help.  Then there is the “act green” group who take action and make changes to help the environment.  Getting people to move from the “think green” group to the “act green” group is key.  What steps can be taken to make this transfer happen? MO: We have to work green behavior into the fabric of everyday life. Remembering to make green decisions can only take us so far. Green fatigue is already widespread since lifestyle environmentalism will always be at risk from changing trends. Being carbon responsible shouldn’t depend on engaging the brain’s green lobe.   EP: If you had to put together an ad campaign around the climate crisis and global warming, what topics and images would you include?  What do you think hits home with people? MO: Not polar bears, not hurricane battered palm trees. I would focus on supermarket aisles given this is the single most important battle ground for establishing green consumers. EP: What are some of the things that anger you or drive you crazy that you see people do that hurts the environment?  MO: The ignorance of cause and effect: Cheap meat = industrial soya = forest clearance on Mata Grosso = a loss of biodiversity, global air conditioning and the Earth’s ability to recover from the mess we’ve put it into. EP: What is the most vital message you hope people will hear regarding the environment that will lead them to take action? MO: They can make difference: but the mantra recycle, reuse, reduce mantra isn’t enough. People need to know the right actions can have real bang for buck. It is easy to scare people with facts but we all just get resistant to their impact. It was that attitude that we took with Cool Earth and look how far we have come, what was an idea only 2 and half years ago is now an international NGO that has 70,000 members that together have protected 55,000 acres of rainforest.  And again, working with companies like Tropicana can make a huge impact if everyone got involved.   EP: Were you “green” as a child? MO: Yes but not necessarily through choice – we were all much greener in the 70’s. EP: What was your first, ah ha! Green moment? MO: Building bivouacs at scout camp. EP: What is the one Earth Promise you are going to make in the future that you have not done yet? MO: Leave the packaging in the supermarket. EP: Thank you. Tags: 21 in 21, carbon footprint, change, changes, climate change, conservation, Cool Earth, earth, earth day, Earth hour, earth promise, earthpromise, eco-friendly, education, energy, energy efficient, environment, environmental, environmental issues, environmental movement, global warming, green, green changes, green interviews, green living, green practice, green practices, green revolution, green tips, Matthew Owen

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