laneo blog - the blog of laneo!

Yvon Chouinard: Words from “above” - 19 Jun 2008

Wise words from a man who need’s no introduction !

Hat’s off to you Sir,

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Tags: outdoors, society, environment

Running the Sahara – for charity - 28 May 2008

We just came across a very noble feat. 3 runners crossed the Sahara Desert for 110 days, running close to 2 marathons a day, in a journey for charity that’s been captured on film for a documentary called “Running the Sahara”.

All of us working at Laneo love the way outdoor activity brings us all closer to nature, especially when it mobilizes “commercial forces” to help restore and protect it.

One of the adventure’s goals was to help establish clean water wells for desert villagers the runners met along the way. The project was run under the umbrella of the “H2O Africa Foundation”, a charity and two major sponsors; Magellan and National Geographic. Alongside, a documentary film under the same name “Running the Sahara”, was shot and directed by James Moll, and produced and narrated by Matt Damon (Co-Founder of the H20 Foundation) which provided some very needed additional coverage.

We dug around for some additional information on the results of this quest and found the usual tidbits; if you find anything really interesting, please ping us at Laneo and we’ll publish it!

Posted by: andrew | 1 comment
Tags: films, society, news, environment

Polluting becomes a “crime” in Europe - 24 May 2008

Degrading a protected site, polluting with waste, will soon be liable in the European Union to criminal sanctions, under a law passed by parliament yesterday.

“After eight years of negotiation, the European Parliament has reached an agreement with member states on legislation that will force national governments to apply criminal sanctions to those causing deliberate or negligent damage to the environment.”

With all the great initiatives currently happening on and offline (Laneo included) to promote a collective, citizen based, sense of urgency, a law like this could almost close the circle on improving the “management of our planet”; all that’s left is applying all these good resolutions…

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Tags: society, news, environment

Mountain Riders goes to the mountains - 22 May 2008

If you want to get involved in a really great initiative and you’re near or visiting the French Alps, then go and check out our friends MOUNTAIN RIDERS and their annual Cleanup Weekend Website here.

This is another great team made up of Skiers, Snowboarders, Mountain Bikers, Climbers and generally passionate outdoor enthusiasts that have been extremely successful at animating a tremendous range of Eco-initiatives from School Classes, Publications, Partnerships (see previous post on the “Defi pour la Terre”) and Guide Books; you can practically not visit the Alp Region without seeing something from this Association !

Probably the favorite moment of the year for us at Laneo is their series of cleanups that they organize with a growing number of local associations and communities. These events draw big crowds of people that are always astonished to see the extent of the mess left behind after the snow thaws – and we guarantee that once you see it, you can’t forget it !

It’s happening this weekend, May 24th & 25th and there are an unimaginable number of ski stations that are involved (and others all throughout the summer), so there must be one near you – Laneo hopes to see you there !!

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Tags: websites, society, events

WIRED June 08: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green - 21 May 2008

Wired Magazine’s June issue “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green”, will certainly raise a few eyebrows when it comes out next month.

This highly admired magazine has always taken the “out of the box” angle on a tremendous variety of subjects but this time, it’s journalists are tackling one of humanities current hot topics; the Planet.

Their point is that we should embrace change and actually “slaughter some of environmentalism’s sacred cows” such as a) accept genetic engineering, b) embrace nuclear power, c) A/C is ok and others in order to win the war on global warming.

We’re impatiently awaiting the issue to hit our news stands in Paris but whatever we read, we’ll continue to take our bikes to work, each local grown food and prefer sustainable products.

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Tags: websites, society, documentation, news, environment

Surfer Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz: The Last Frontiersman - 19 May 2008

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Tags: films, family, society, sports

Moovement on Earth Day - 22 Apr 2008

Today is Earth Day and Laneo teamed up with some good friends of ours, and renowned French Web Start-Up, MOOVEMENT (Recruiting 2.0), to promote human resources as a determining factor in sustainable development via a dedicated web recruiting site called, ECO-MOOVEMENT.

Richard Menneveux, Co-Founder, and I have often talked about this tirelessly and he has been a leading figure here in France and in Europe on improving the “match-making” between individuals and companies based on intrinsic personal values and innovative technology.

At Laneo, we’re still in the development phase and won’t be recruiting more than 4-5 additional people this year but when we do, we’re going to be looking for “special people” with not only business acumen; people who’s outdoor values match ours and who want to further the environmental cause.

Initiatives like MOOVEMENT are another great example at how leading edge web-based systems are helping bring the “right” people together that is going to make our place, planet earth, a better place to live!

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Tags: websites, society, environment

Laneo attends the LIFT Conference - 11 Feb 2008

Laneo attended the LIFT 08 Conference in Geneva last week, a conference about the challenges and opportunities of technology in our society. In the same category as DLD 08 (see post below) but very different in style and flavor, LIFT was once again an excellent venue for spreading the word on Laneo’s mission and also a true learning experience. Some of the keynotes that caught my eye (and ear’s) were the following:

• Younghee Jung, Anthropologist working for Nokia in Tokyo & Paul Dourish, a researcher from University of California Irvine about user experience.
• Rafi Haladjian, founder of Minitel start-ups and internet/wi-fi providers in France about his latest venture; Violet.
• Tom Taylor from Headshift, talk about how to use peer pressure and social networking to get ordinary people to change their behavior in favor of more sustainable activities.

You can see full-screen videos of the presentations here VPOD.TV

LIFT 08 is an example, and there are others, that bringing together a very wide variety of people from around the world to promote and facilitate discussion about new technologies and their impact on our society, is really effective.

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Tags: technology, society, community

Laneo attends the DLD Conference - 22 Jan 2008

There are a number of Digital-Media-Web-Social-Science-Lifestyle events around the world for example: TED, Le Web 3, Lift, Picnic, SIME to name a few and they all host a wide variety of fascinating speakers that address issues and future trends around the internet. What makes the DLD venue (short for Digital Life and Design) in Munich so compelling is that it is more than just bringing together people in the web industry. It creates an inspiring bridge between the key developments on the web and other important inclinations in lifestyle (physics, art, architecture, genetic programs, health and of course media) spun together with an eclectic crowd coming from all areas of the planet. Laneo had the privilege to be invited to DLD08 this year (thanks Rupert). We attend a few of these basically because they’re the only social-business network where almost everyone completely understands what we’re doing and how we’ve set out to achieve it but also spontaneously offers a vast and rich array of suggestions and support that continue to fuel our growth. Rubbing shoulders with the hottest internet ventures in the world is inspiring but more importantly, it was while talking with these entrepreneurs that made for some passionate conversations – in a world made up of increasing “virtual endeavors” – Laneo (I’m proud to say), stopped the majority of my counterparts in their tracks and got them thinking about “reality”.

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Tags: shows, society

A Merry Christmas from Laneo - 25 Dec 2007

All of us at Laneo wish you, your families and friends a warm and Happy Christmas !

Danish: Glædelig Jul
Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! or Zalig Kerstfeast
English: Merry Christmas
Finnish: Hyvaa joulua
French: Joyeux Noel
German: Froehliche Weihnachten
Italian: Buone Feste Natalizie
Norwegian: God Jul or Gledelig Jul
Portuguese: Feliz Natal
Spanish: Feliz Navidad
Swedish: God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År

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Tags: family, society, community

Ideas for a Green Christmas - 05 Dec 2007

For those of you scrambling around preparing for Christmas, I thought you wouldn’t mind having some helpful tips on making holiday festivities as eco friendly as possible. I asked some friends and Laneo Members from around the world to send me the URL’s of sites they thought provided some worthy advice.

Here’s a list 9 sites, in no particular order. If you have some of your own, please add them to the list via the comments.

1) USA
2) Canada
3) Australia
4) UK
5) France
6) Spain
7) Germany
8) Italy
9) Belgium

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Tags: society, environment

Would you send Laneo your old running shoes? - 29 Nov 2007

We’ve been thinking about putting together a recycle program with some of our corporate partners and we’d like to know if you’d like to participate?

The idea is to promote sustainability when purchasing new equipment by exchanging your old equipment at time of purchase. Most textiles can be re-used in some form and shoes can be partially recycled, and there also other ways of putting your used wares to good use. We have partners that have programs underway to put things like bicycles to better use, heart monitors that can be refurbished and backpacks dismantled to extract and re-use certain materials.

We’re discussing plans to partner with worldwide carriers (Fedex, DHL, UPS etc.) that have the capability to carry out sophisticated logistics linked with our web based membership, which will optimize the carbon footprint of such an operation.

If you’re interested, please respond to this post with a “yes” and feel free to add any comments and we’ll keep you updated on our progress.

Posted by: andrew | 3 comments
Tags: brands, society