Travel & Lifestyle Freelance Writer | Market Research Consultant
Of late, I’ve taken to wearing the same outfit two days in a row.
That way I waste less of my creative juices on dressing myself, allowing more creative juices to be used on writing.
Alas, those creative juices have become highly valuable, yet limited resources.
So this morning’s Conference of World Affairs panel was awesome.
I’d like to think I had some role in that awesomeness … I didn’t.
The three women who spoke (the topic was, after all, “Women Saving the Environment”) were all so wise. They’d seen and done so many things.
Jayni Chase has worked to promote environmental education in schools for the past 22 years.
Andrea Moffat is the vice president of the corporate program Ceres, a national network of investors, environmental organizations and public interest groups.
And Kavita Ramdas (who is now my personal heroine) served as the president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women from 1996 through 2010.
All of them made excellent points about women’s role(s) in helping to save our planet. Here are a few of my favorite:
1. Women make roughly 80 percent of the purchases in the United States. That’s huge! Ads are directed toward us; commercials appeal to our preferences; marketing campaigns want the women to like their product. That role as society’s main consumers can have an enormous impact on the way in which companies are run. Let’s use that pull to do something great (and green)!
2. Listen to the women. In third world sectors of the world especially, it’s the women who are concerned with the health of the children, the welfare of the community; the men are too often simply looking to make a buck.
3. Consider the womb. It’s mostly water, an enclosed environment, just like Earth and its atmosphere. You can expound on the analogy (or completely refute it), but both can be considered a home.
4. God told Adam to reap and Eve to sow. Adam’s been doing a stand-up job; now it’s time for Eve to get moving too.
5. Don’t drink bottled water. For crying out loud, we’re lucky enough to live in a country that has clean water … why are we buying it in bottles that too often end up in a landfill?
6. Only a tiny number (forgive me; I forget the exact statistic) of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. It’s time we step it up, ladies.