EOS—Earth Open Source Overview

Background
Food is intimately connected to each of the apex challenges of our time: climate, energy, water, poverty, hunger, population displacement, ecosystem degradation, health, the economy. Because food is so central, transforming the sustainability of the food system can contribute substantially to addressing each of these challenges. For example, making the food system carbon neutral would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 30 to 40 percent contributing significantly to solving climate change.

EOS stands for Earth Open Source. We apply networked, open source collaborative approaches to achieve break-through improvements in the sustainability of the food system.

Open Source–the roots of our food system—From the beginning, food has been a collective, cooperative, “open source” endeavour identical in its open source character to the volunteer collaboration that has generated some of the most powerful—and free--operating systems and information technologies available today, like Linux and Wikipedia.

The crops that feed humanity today are all the product of open source, cooperation: Over millennia, thousands of generations of farmers have spontaneously shared seeds, knowledge and know-how with their neighbours. Farmer to farmer collaboration has generated every one of the crops that feed humanity today. Rice, wheat, maize, potatoes are just a few examples. These crops are humanity’s collective heritage and legacy, a biological and genetic “commons,” that is the fountainhead of our food supply and that is an exact parallel to the “intellectual commons” of the free software movement.

Food production processes and systems have also traditionally been open source, from production, through processing, through delivery to the eater. Traditionally, farmers—or more accurately whole agrarian communities—cooperate to plant, harvest and market their crops, and to rise barns, dig wells and canals, build roads and create other essential infrastructure.

Closed source revolution – Beginning in the early 20th century, a “closed source” revolution swept the food system. From early experiments with chemical agriculture, to the Green Revolution to the Biotech Revolution, an industrial approach to agriculture has taken hold in some countries, based on patented chemicals, patented seeds, and proprietary machinery.

Self-regenerative displaced by dissipative agriculture—This revolution has transformed agriculture from a living, self-regenerating biological system into a dissipative industrial machine. In place of the perpetually self-regenerating cycle propelled by the sun, seed and seasons, agriculture has become an extractive industry driven by and totally dependent on non-renewable resources, primarily petroleum-derived pesticides, fertilizers, and fuel. Today, for every calorie of food produced, 10 calories of petroleum are dissipated.

Transparency in the food system—Traditionally, the food system has been “open source” in another way, as well; it has been transparent; people knew where their food came from, who produced it, and had confidence in its integrity and authenticity. The closed source revolution in the food system has created opaque supply chains in which privileged access to certain kinds of information creates opportunities for certain classes of players to profit at the expense of others in the supply chain and where there is little or no traceability or accountability regarding quality and authenticity. EOS advocates “open sourcing.” We are confident that creating transparency will transform the performance of the supply chain. Bringing in the light of day will make knowledge of our food supply chains open to all, and will trigger spontaneous improvement in standards without need for additional regulations, as was witnessed recently when UK documentaries exposed practices in chicken production leading 75% of the population to insist on better welfare for chickens, according to a RSPCS poll.

Food security, environmental damage and health impacts – Not only does industrial agriculture lack the resilience of the self-regenerative, open source agricultural system, and is, therefore, much more vulnerable to challenges from weather, pests, and other contingencies, but, this system also damages the environment and human health. It depletes non-renewable natural resources, exploits and degrades our water, soil and air quality, and has turned our food into a health hazard.

Economic well-being – Despite the good intentions of its developers, when one subtracts the ecological, health and social costs, closed source agriculture has lessened the economic wellbeing of the farmer, reduced food security, delivered less rather than greater efficiency, and in many cases survives only on the basis of immense public subsidies.

Illusion of choice – “Our choices are not entirely our own because, even in a supermarket, the menu is crafted not by our choices, nor by the seasons, nor where we find ourselves, nor by the full range of apples available, nor by the full spectrum of available nutrition and tastes, but by the power of food corporations…. Unless you are a food executive, the food industry is not working for you.” (Raj Patel, author of ‘”Stuffed and Starved”)

EOS addresses the current challenge – Open source, community-wide cooperation built humanity’s food system and is the key to restoring its sustainability. Through this approach, we can build on the millennia of open-sourced “R&D” that farmers have already completed, recreating a self-regenerative food system that will not only feed us all abundantly and sustainably, but will bring us within reach of solving the apex problems of our times.

EOS – Vision
A world-sustaining food system

EOS – Mission
To use open source collaboration to engage individuals, farmers, corporations, universities, communities and governments in collaborative programmes to achieve breakthrough advances that help feed humanity, increase equity, support self-reliance and preserve the Earth.

EOS – Aims
1. Engage people in understanding food and enable them individually and collectively to take positive action to improve the social and environmental impact of the food system.
2. Implement collaborative, multi-stakeholder, open source projects and programs that achieve significant advances towards a world-sustaining food system. Including individual, corporate, community and national programs for:
a. Research and knowledge creation and dissemination,
b. Food policy and best practices development,
c. Implementation of self-regenerative practices at every level of the food chain from farmer’s field to consumer’s table.

EOS – Concept
· A global open source knowledge hub that develops and pioneers original research, that uses open source, social media, Web 2.0 and other networked strategies for gathering, processing, integrating and providing digitised information, and that enables comprehensive, holistic, in-depth evaluation and understanding of the way producers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers produce, sell and consume food.
· An enabler of positive change that uses open source, social media, Web 2.0, and other participative strategies to enable global citizens to undertake vibrant debate, and create moving events and transformational initiatives that (a) are informed by EOS’ comprehensive and holistic open source sustainability knowledge-base, and (b) effectively mobilize the collective will to support best practices and innovations that transform the sustainability of food producers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers.
· A leader and community maker that listens to stakeholders, connects key players, matches needs and enabling solutions, and co-develops innovations contributing to a world-sustaining food system.

EOS – Programmes
These programmes are currently in operation or in the process of being implemented.


· Global Citizens Alliance for Learning and Action—this global online hub and suite of tools and facilities uses social media strategies, and open source, Web 2.0, and other online-collaborative modalities to enable the following two key activities:
1. Community Learning—Self-directed learning opportunities enabling people to comprehensively understand the full range of social, environmental, and health impacts of their food habits, as well as of the practices employed throughout the global food system.
a. Example: Tweehive—Twitter-based social media learning campaign that aimed to raise awareness, and interest in bees, and mobilized participation in a local London event—Pestival—that, itself, used hands–on and multi-platform events to celebrate insects and their importance in our lives. (completed)
b. Example: Year of the Carrit Learning and Doing Campaign—Year-long social media focused campaign to inspire local food demand, production and consumption in and around London. (early implementation stage)
2. Citizen Action—On-line, social media and other collaborative tools that enable Global Citizens to translate their personal understanding of food sustainability issues into grass roots food sustainability projects, and into initiatives that influence public awareness, and government and industry policy.
a. Example: Joy-cotting and Carrot-mobbing—instead of boycotting bad products, joy-cotting and carrot-mobbing are social media based initiatives that inspire and organize large numbers of citizens to reward brand-owners that create products or take on practices which are sustainable and healthy, and benefit society and the environment.
b. Example: EOS Ethical Exchange—See detailed description, below under “EOS Guild Marketing Program.”
c. Example: Issue-specific, citizen-initiated social media campaigns—Global Citizen originated initiatives that use social media, open source, and Web 2.0 approaches to inform consumers and motivate action that changes government or industry policy.
d. Example: Translating political campaign tools into issue-oriented campaign tools—Obama won the last US presidential election because of the success of his social media-based campaign work. The same tools that he used can easily be “remodelled” to serve as issue-based campaign tools, capable of mobilizing virally expanding engagement of Global Citizens in restoring the sustainability of our food system. (seeking funding)
e. Example: Social media-based campaign design and organization platform—The website www.localmotors.com is a platform for crowd-sourcing the design of custom automobiles and campaigning to recruit support for actually building a particular design. The content of this site is not of interest, but the design and functionality represent the best example yet of a platform for crowd-sourced creation of anything. This model (but not the aesthetics of the site!) will be applied by EOS to build a platform for designing learning and action campaigns and recruiting the nucleus of an on-line community to put campaigns into action.


· EOS Academy (Knowledge Community)—The EOS Academy provides an online platform enabling multi-disciplinary open source collaboration among experts located anywhere around the globe. The Academy transcends organizational boundaries to provide support for education programs, policy development, research programs and practical implementation projects. Online volunteer collaboration among a diversity of food and agricultural experts will create, consolidate, and evaluate knowledge and technologies, establish best-practices, and create new tools and resources. These collaborations will also apply this knowledge for transformational improvements in sustainability of the food system. The Academy platform includes online wiki’s, topic-specific working groups, discussion forums, webinars for knowledge exchange and discussion of research results, and networked cooperative research and demonstration programs creating and applying new knowledge relevant to a world-sustaining food system. Examples: (1) EOS Guild and (2) the EOS biosafety and DNA fingerprint analysis lab, both described below. (funding being sought)

· EOS Guild—A membership association for food companies with the vision to recognize (a) that industry alone has the resources and expertise required to secure sustainability of our food system and (b) that working toward this goal not only makes business sense in the medium term, but is literally essential to the long-term survival and success of their companies. The EOS Guild aims to provide leadership through example, demonstrating that world-sustaining corporate performance is possible and delivers concrete and reliable corporate benefits. (funding being sought)

Membership includes:
§ Full access to the EOS Online Sustainability Workspace,
§ Full participation in the EOS Open Source Collaborative Platforms, and
§ Regular, high-profile exposure through the EOS Guild Marketing Program.


· EOS Online Sustainability Workspace
This online facility provides participating companies with the tools to understand their current level of social and environmental performance, identify key sustainability targets for their company, and create and implement a plan for achieving those targets. It offers the following:
§ Twelve workshops, each focusing on one of the 12 Vital Signs of sustainability;
§ Training program that equips the corporate management and the sustainability team for all stages of the corporate sustainability journey;
§ Convenient and integrated access to a comprehensive database of online sustainability knowledge, technology, and data;
§ Integrated on-line database system and set of analytical tools for evaluating and monitoring corporate and product-specific sustainability;
§ Suite of online tools for the design, planning, and management of corporate and product sustainability programs;
§ One-on-one access to world-class specialists with expertise in all areas relevant to sustainability.

· EOS Open Source Collaborative Platform
The collaborative platform supports cooperation among Guild member-companies to tackle specific sustainability targets that can most effectively be addressed in a coordinated way. It includes the following:
§ Membership in collaborative industry working groups to address specific technical challenges and undertake collective sourcing, negotiation and lobbying;
§ Membership in the EOS Knowledge Community, providing global-scale access to informal, open source consultation with leading sustainability experts around the world.

· EOS Guild Marketing Program
Companies that join the Guild program are engaging in a courageous initiative that demonstrates a strong commitment to assuring the welfare of future generations. Action of this sort inspires strong loyalty and enthusiasm from the rapidly growing polulation of consumers who understand the challenges that humanity is facing today and the consequences of failing to successfully address those challenges. The purpose of the Guild Marketing program is to amplify and reinforce this effect. It will include the following:
§ A multidimensional marketing and communication program using social media, Web 2.0 and a host of other on-line marketing modalities, as well as traditional marketing channels;
§ Focus of the marketing is the sustainability advances that Guild companies are achieving and the sustainability-related characteristics and benefits of their products.
§ Example: See Joy-cotting and Carrot-mobbing, above.
§ Example: EOS Ethical Exchange—This program is a Web 2.0-based, open source re-invention of the ethical certification model. It not only employs an on-product seal, but also promotes consumer participation by using on-line, social media-facilitated, interactive mechanisms to engage consumers in assessing the sustainability of specific products, based on digitized sustainability data collected by volunteers and supplemented by manufacturers’ own disclosures. The consumer-facing digitized sustainability reporting and evaluation framework not only creates transparency in the food system, but also enables consumers to interact directly with brand-owners to influence the quality and specific characteristics of the food products they offer. This program not only provides consumers with the information they need to choose products based on their sustainability values, but it also motivates brand-owners to compete on the basis of social and environmental performance.


· Open Source Food and Seeds
These projects aim to restore the seed commons and the self-regenerative functionality that have been the foundation and engine for progress in humanity’s food production system since farming began.
§ Biosafety Assessment Laboratory—Laboratory now being set up as a collaboration between the Indian government and the government of a European-region country. Objective is to provide comprehensive capacity for assessing the impacts of GMOs on health, the environment and society. (in progress)
§ Biosafety Research on Bt Cotton—Program to assess the allergenicity of Bt cotton to humans and livestock. Conducted in two states of India. (in progress)
§ Biosafety Research on GM Soy—Program to understand the allergenicity of GM soy to humans who report emergent allergies to soy. Conducted in the US. (in progress)
§ Biosafety Research on GM Animal Feed—Research to understand the impacts of GM feed use on the efficiency of livestock production and on the health of livestock. Conducted in multiple states. (in progress)


· Food Security/Self-Sufficiency/Local food
Co-creating national and regional level programs for food self-sufficiency, local food production.
§ Sustainable Welsh Food System—Creating and implementing a plan to achieve a self-sufficient and carbon neutral food system for Wales by 2030. (in progress)
§ Year of the Carrit Learning and Doing Campaign—Year-long campaign to inspire local food demand, production and consumption in and around London. (see above)

Future EOS Programmes
A number of projects are in the concept development stage. These include:
· World-sustaining food finance—micro-credit for smallholder farmers through “The Seed Bank.” Micro-credit has been profoundly beneficial as a development tool, helping small enterprises get off the ground around the world. However, micro-credit has not been applied widely as it could be applied to directly support farmers. This is the case, primarily because the risk associated with small-holder agriculture is much higher than the risk associated with setting up small enterprises of other kinds. EOS will address this by coupling micro-finance with strong technical support and agricultural development expertise to provide on-the-ground guidance that will support the small-holder in achieving more consistent success.
· Sustainability loyalty card—a system linked to the loyalty card system of the food retailers that automatically calculates a sustainability score for each purchase and for each shopping trip, records this data on the retailer’s web site where the consumer can follow their performance over time. This scoring system can be linked to competitions that reward those whose sustainability scores are best or who improve the most, and to other public awareness initiatives.
· EOS Board of Trade—The EOS board of trade will offer only those products/commodities that meet specified standards of sustainability. There will be different categories of products offered: organic, fair trade, Non-GMO, compliant with EOS performance criteria, etc. All products will carry a comprehensive EOS sustainability score enabling side-by-side comparisons.

GM Alfalfa Alert

The USDA and Secretary Vilsack, in collaboration with Monsanto, are about to lift a court-ordered ban on Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) "Roundup Ready" alfalfa.

This GMO would have disastrous effects on US and global agriculture. If you have not done so already, we ask you to submit comments (it will only take 2 minutes!) before the Wednesday, March 3^rd deadline.

Genetically engineered alfalfa would be the first perennial GM crop, and would result in a huge increase of toxic RoundUp in the environment. It would expose livestock widely to both genetically engineered genes and pesticide residues. It would especially affect cows and horses--their health, their reproduction, and their byproducts, particularly milk.

Alfalfa pollen is carried far and wide by the wind and bees, so the presence of GM alfalfa in the environment would contaminate organic alfalfa, rendering organic dairy impossible. Consumers who eat alfalfa sprouts would be exposed directly, as well as those who eat meat.

Despite positive trends, this is the most serious GMO threat yet, as it creates the legal precedent at the Supreme Court level, for GMO contamination to be acceptable for any crop, with the support of the USDA (see Background below).

Sorry to alarm you, but it would be extremely helpful if each of you could take action before March 3 by doing one or more of the following:

1. Follow the directions in the True Food Network page pasted below to conveniently call your Senators and Representatives on Monday and Tuesday, and tell them that they should not support the commercialization of GM-alfalfa. This will have a strong impact, as there have not been enough comments to date.

2. Follow this link: http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=14469696 to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) where you can send the OCA email letter by clicking “take action now.” This will take you 2 minutes and can be done on the weekend.

3. Submit comments directly to the USDA at: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480a6b7a1. You can write your own comments from the points below and above, or copy and paste the letter found at the OCA link: http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=14469696 , in the "Take Action Now" section. This will take you 4-5 minutes and can be done on the weekend, and will have a strong impact.

Thank you for taking action on this important issue to help protect yourself, your family, your country and the world.

Warm regards,

Susel and John Fagan

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From True Food Network

Call your Senators and Representative today and say
“USDA must not approve GE alfalfa!”

Dear Friend,

Monsanto wants to sell its genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa and wants the USDA to approve its permit application, but consumers, farmers, dairies, and food companies don’t want GE alfalfa plants and seeds released into the environment.

USDA’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) admits that if GE alfalfa is approved:

* GE Contamination of non-GE and organic alfalfa crops will occur
* GE contamination will economically impact small and family farmers
* Foreign export markets will be at risk due to rejection of GE contaminated products
* Farmers will be forced to use more toxic herbicides to remove old stands of alfalfa

Yet, unbelievably, USDA has decided that these impacts are insignificant! And, USDA intends to approve Monsanto’s Roundup Ready™ GE alfalfa anyway.

Call your Congressional Representatives today and ask them to hold USDA accountable by contacting Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack and urging him to deny approval of Monsanto's GE alfalfa! Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202)224-3121 and ask for your Senator/Representative’s office. If you do not know who they are click here to look them up. Speak with the agriculture staff person or leave a message. Tell them that you DO NOT support the deregulation of GE alfalfa, for the following reasons:

* GE contamination of non-GE and organic crops would be inevitable
* You won’t buy products that are GE-contaminated
* Alfalfa is a major food source for livestock and GE alfalfa would destroy the integrity of organic dairy products
* You support the rights of farmers to grow the crops of their choice, and GE contamination makes that impossible
* GE crops increase pesticide use, harming human health and the environment
* Ask your Representative and Senators to contact Secretary Vilsack and urge him to deny USDA approval of Monsanto's GE alfalfa

Then email us at info@truefoodnow.org and tell us who you called and let us know what kind of response you got!

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Background

In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. USDA failed to conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) before deregulating the crop, as required by law. An EIS is a rigorous analysis of the potential significant environmental, health, and economic impacts of a federal decision, mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the GE plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in an EIS.

USDA released its draft EIS on December 14, 2009. A 75-day comment period is now open until 3 March, 2010. CFS has begun analyzing the EIS and it is clear that the USDA has not taken the concerns of non-GE alfalfa farmers, dairies, exporters, retailers or consumers into consideration in its recommendation to approve the commercial sale (deregulation) of GE alfalfa. In fact, the EIS states that consumers don't care if their organic food is GE contaminated and neither do organic farmers, as long as farmers employ the organic practices required under the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA). Obviously, this is not true and we need to push our Congressional representatives to call upon USDA to deny the approval of GE alfalfa.

For more talking points and links to review the EIS and other documents, click here, or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar: http://ga3.org/cfs/EIScongress.html

6 Month Adventure-Learning-Doing Sustainability Internship

A very exciting opportunity just came up.

We are looking for two people—women/men with an interest in a sustainability-oriented career; college graduates or career-changers—who will take part in a 6 month, transformational learning, doing, creating experience.

The objective will be to create and begin to implement a plan to transform the sustainability of the Welsh food system as a first step for creating a model for bringing about such transformation around the world.

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Creating a Sustainable Food System for Wales

6 Month Internship

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Transforming the food system is a key leverage point in addressing today’s global challenges—climate change, peak oil, food security, poverty, social justice.

EOS* and the TYF* are teaming up to offer two six-month internships as part of the Do Programme in which motivated graduates or career-changers with professional experience will:

• Take a central role in developing a plan for achieving carbon neutrality and self-sufficiency of the Welsh food system by 2030,
• Amplify their ability to catalyze social and environmental change by expanding their range of skills, knowledge, and experience.

This project will mesh with a broader initiative aimed at uniting everyone in Wales–members of the public, industry, and government–behind achieving national sustainability. The aim will be to create a model that can motivate similar projects in other nations.

Interns will:

• Research the changes required to deliver carbon neutrality and self-sufficiency to the Welsh food system.
• Investigate the barriers to change and formulate means to overcome those obstacles.
• Organize and undertake a broad multi-stakeholder consultation engaging all sectors of the public and industry, and the agricultural community, as well as NGOs, government bodies, and sustainability experts.
• Articulate a consensus master plan for bringing the Welsh food system to self-sufficiency and carbon neutrality by 2030, which will include practical programmes engaging the public, industry and government in making the changes needed to ensure a bright sustainable future for Wales.
• Develop a communication and education plan mobilizing awareness of the proposed programme, capturing the public imagination and inspiring community wide support and participation.

The goal will be to present the completed plan to the public and to the Welsh Assembly Cabinet Ministers and business leaders at TYF’s Hay on Earth event at the Hay Festival in May 2010, as a first step toward enrolling Wales-wide engagement in the plan.

Interns’ achievement and personal development will be supported by:

• The unique, holistic environment of the Do Programme, located in St. Davids (see attached description),
• Regular access to a team of leaders in sustainability, including leading scientists, authors and prominent spokespeople (see bios below), all practical assistance required to support building a plan capable of delivering lasting change.

To apply, please send CV and covering letter to jfagan@earthopensource.org.

*EOS Trust was recently founded to use open source collaboration to engage communities—individuals, farmers, corporations, governments and universities—in projects to achieve breakthrough advances that help feed humanity, increase equity, support self-reliance and preserve the Earth.

*The Do Programme is sponsored by TYF, howies and the Do Lectures to create an inspiring and enabling platform for people passionate about change to makes plans, take action and make progress

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The Do Programme

Making change happen

The Do Programme was created in 2008 to bring together TYF’s insights from 23 years of innovation and leadership in adventure with the passion and knowledge for change and action that underpins the Do Lectures. The programme is sponsored by TYF and howies.

The Do Programme is a six month supported experience of research, exploration and action learning that helps committed Doers focus their efforts on areas of work that stir passion and action. The Do Programme has sustainability at its heart, and includes extensive work on resource depletion, climate change, peak oil, food security, social justice, and helps participants develop the confidence, skills and knowledge needed to make an impact.

The two strands of the Do Programme can be pursued individually or together:

Do Adventure: researching and developing experiences of learning through nature and adventure to transform the way that people understand play, risk and action. Understanding comes through applied learning work with adventure learners, families, youth groups, community groups, business and government.

Do Change: gearing up the skills, knowledge and experience to accelerate social and environmental change through the development and implementation of practical projects around chosen specialist areas such as climate action, food, energy, engagement or wellness. Develop outcome-led projects that integrate human-centered and Triple Top Line approaches for whole-systems benefit.

Costs of participation in the Do Programme are covered by sponsor organisation’s use of adventure equipment is free. Accommodation and food costs are not included. A combination of short taught sessions, individual research, group work, experiential exercises and action learning create learning that is captured digitally by students via blogs and web applications.

The winter 2009 Do Programme runs for 6 months from November 2nd through to April 30th 2010. The summer 2009 Do Programme runs starts on 10 May 2010.

For further information, call Ross Beese on 01437 721611, ross.b@tyf.com

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Bios

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John Grant

John Grant is the author of 4 bestselling books on new frontiers in marketing, media and innovation. His latest The Green Marketing Manifesto came out in 2007 & was named Environmental Book of the Year by the UK Book Industry in 2008. John also featured in the Conversation with Green Gurus book by Mazur and Miles (Wiley, 2009). John's next book Co-opportunity (Wiley, Jan 2010) is about social networks, social change and sustainability. John's recent consulting clients have included the UK Government (ACTONCO2), Cisco, The Co-operative bank, The Design Council, The Guardian, innocent drinks, IKEA, ING, i-Team (a local government initiative), O2, Philips, SSE, Unilever and numerous social ventures. John is also a prolific speaker, writer for publications (including the FT), blogger, awards judge and commentator. He is an associate of Forum for the Future. John has been involved in efforts to integrate sustainability and marketing since the early 2000s. John also has substantial experience of new media and innovation, having worked with pioneering internet businesses in their formative years including Napster, Amazon and K-World (biggest funded media start-up in Europe, 2001). A number of John's client projects (for instance Cisco, IKEA and The Design Council) and many of the social ventures John has been advising have been attempting to fuse sustainability goals with web 2.0 platforms. John is an experienced company director, having co-founded the award-winning socially aware ad agency St Luke's in the mid 1990s; and having been a non-executive director of a number of high profile organisations including Ministry of Sound and Onzo (a international design award winning - and heavily funded - UK cleantech company).

Book endorsements:

“A much needed contribution to the practice of marketing” Professor Zaltman, Harvard Business School

Voted in top ten business books of the year by Amazon

“an excellent roadmap…for green to become mainstream” Joel Makower

“radical thinking that cuts across your business as a whole” VP of Marketing, Sony

“An incredibly timely book” Jonathan Porritt

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Andy Middleton

Andy is a social entrepreneur and environmentalist with a passion for exploring and blurring the boundaries between eco design, smart business, sustainability and adventure.

His background encompasses extreme sports, four decades of surfing and work in some of the most challenging environments on the planet. Experiences as a sports coach, adventurer, environmentalist, entrepreneur and activist have combined into a potent spring of ideas, creativity and energy for change.

Andy is Founder Director of the TYF Group www.tyf.com , a business dedicated to helping people ‘think, do & play’ their way to smarter choices and stronger commitments for a safe, just future. TYF’s adventure guides take around 15,000 people every year to play in wild nature, creating opportunities for personal growth, environmental awareness and excitement. He is a Council Member of Countryside Council for Wales , a Board Member of Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales www.sustainwales.com and works on part time secondment to the Welsh Assembly as a climate change adviser.

He works as a facilitator, speaker and change agent with business and government organisations, with clients including The Guardian, American Express, Body Shop, Sony and Reed Elsevier.Panasonic organisation development and sustainability consultant, facilitator and speaker. Andy’s engagements also include frequent media, web and broadcast commentary, and he is the author of five books.

Andy’s ‘main events’ include the Do Lectures which he co-runs with howies co-founder David Hieatt, and the Hay on Earth, one of the UK’s foremost sustainability action events.

Andy lives with his adventurous family in a self-build eco house overlooking the waves and cliffs of the Atlantic. When he find time, he blogs at http://ecosapiens.squarespace.com and at http://doblog.tumblr.com/

andy.m@tyf.com

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Paul Skinner, MA (Oxon), Chartered Marketer

Paul is taking a central role in the development and co-ordination of the EOS’s launch and growth strategy, based on proven competence in business development, marketing and strategic activities in a global context. Paul speaks fluent English, Spanish and French and currently lives in the UK.

Previous Professional Positions:

2008-9

• Global ID Group: Vice President of Marketing and Business Development.

2002-2007

• Darwin Technology International Ltd: Business Development Director.
• Co-operwrite Ltd: Managing Director.
• Freelance consulting: Sole practitioner.

1999 to 2002

• L’Oreal. (Paris): Global Project Manager for the Kerastase Nutritive brand.

1997 to 1998

• L’Oreal (Madrid): Product Manager.
• L’Oreal (Paris): Assistant Product Manager.
• Shell (South of France): Logistics Manager.

Education and training:

• Harvard Business School: “Launching New Ventures” program on innovation and entrepreneurship.
• Chartered Institute of marketing: Professional Postgraduate Diploma, Chartered Marketer.
• Oxford University: MA (Oxon) Modern Languages.

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John Fagan

John Fagan, Ph.D. was an early voice in the scientific debate on genetic engineering and genetically engineered food and during the last 15 years has become a champion for food purity, safety, security, nutrition and sustainability around the world. He is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on GMO testing and non-GMO certification and has made important contributions to developing certification programs that support the food and agricultural industries in adopting sustainable practices to deliver safer, more nutritious and more ethical products.

Beginning in 1994, Professor Fagan took an ethical stand, publicly urging biomedical and agricultural scientists to take safer, more productive research directions. He called for scientists and government policy-makers to de-emphasize high-tech approaches such as genetic engineering and to focus on more natural methods of prevention in medicine and the use of sustainable agricultural methods that avoid petroleum-based chemicals and genetically engineered seeds. He underscored these warnings by returning a $613,882 grant to the National Institutes of Health and declining other grant awards totaling more than $1.25 million. These grants had been awarded to support research that would have contributed indirectly to initiatives such as germ-line genetic engineering of humans.

Subsequently, Dr. Fagan redirected his research to develop, evaluate and implement sustainable approaches in agriculture and food production. In particular, he pioneered the development of innovative testing and certification technologies to verify food purity, quality and authenticity, and to assure transparency and sustainability in the global food system. These have been made available to governments, industry, and citizens through the Global ID Group, which includes Genetic ID, Cert ID and FoodChain Global Advisors. These technologies include DNA tests for genetically engineered foods, the first certification program for Non-GMO foods, and the internationally recognized ProTerra Certification Program, which evaluates and verifies corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability in the food and agricultural sectors.

Recently, Dr. Fagan has co-founded EOS, Earth Open Source, an organization dedicated to an open source, commons-based approach to achieving a world-sustaining food system. EOS uses open source collaboration to engage individuals, farmers, corporations, universities, communities, and governments—in programs to achieve breakthrough advances that help feed humanity, increase equity, support self-sufficiency and preserve the Earth. Initial programs focus on the following:

an open source seed program designed to restore the seed commons that has been the foundation and engine for progress in humanity’s food production system since farming began,

co-creating national and regional level programs for food self-sufficiency, local food production,

developing “food 2.0” programs that create the transparency in the food system that will enable consumers to participate actively and directly in determining the quality and specific characteristics of the food products offered in the marketplace.

Dr. Fagan’s expertise is sought by industry leaders and government decision-makers, scientists, and the public, to whom he has presented hundreds of lectures around the world in the last 20 years.

Earlier, Professor Fagan conducted biomedical research at the US National Institutes of Health and at Maharishi University of Management, examining molecular mechanisms in carcinogenesis and molecular mechanisms by which environmental contaminants influence the physiology. Professor Fagan holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology, biochemistry, and cell biology from Cornell University.