We have now entered a new era, that of conscious resignation, where employees prefer jobs offering fulfillment and positive impact over better pay, greater flexibility or greater well-being. It’s a challenge that companies have every interest in taking seriously.

What’s wrong with plastic? Unfortunately, the list is long. The massive and growing use of fossil fuels and chemicals that pollute the environment and our health, the 5 to 23 million tonnes of plastic dumped in the ocean every year that suffocate ecosystems and kill 100,000 marine mammals, not to mention the 400,000 to 1 million people who, according to estimates by the Tearfund association, die every year from illnesses linked to poor waste management, in particular the toxic fumes emitted when plastic waste is burned. Plastic enters the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. In this article, we explore the challenges posed by plastic pollution and the actions being taken to curb it.

Guided by a resolutely optimistic spirit, we believe in the power of collective action to preserve our planet. This selection of inspiring content is an invitation to be informed without constraint and to commit to the climate, because we are convinced that every step counts in building a sustainable and promising future for our world. Definitely captivating, without a hint of boredom!

The ocean, which covers 71% of the planet’s surface, is a kind of control center that has sustained life on Earth since its origin. Since 1870, the start of the pre-industrial era, it has sequestered 155 billion tonnes of CO2. It absorbs over 90% of the energy surplus caused by the increased concentration of man-made greenhouse gases (GHGs), and sequesters around a quarter of the CO2 emitted by humans every year. So far, the ocean has made it possible to slow the pace of climate change on the one hand, and the violence of the impacts generated by this change on the other. Without the magic of this natural mechanism, we would already be overwhelmed by unbearable heat.

Every year, over 100 billion items of clothing and accessories are sold worldwide: consumption has doubled in just 15 years thanks to this toxic system of overproduction and overconsumption. The fashion industry has thus become one of the most polluting: it produces 20% of the world’s wastewater and 10% of its carbon emissions, more than all the emissions from international flights and shipping combined.

The real challenge today is above all to radically transform our production models and organizations in order to reduce our emissions at source, because to date there is virtually no company in a position to claim that its CO2 emissions are falling in absolute terms. Emissions need to fall by 5% a year for the next 30 years if we are to meet the target of limiting global warming to +1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, yet they continue to rise every year. Between fatalism and solutionism, there is a third way, full of hope, which consists in urgently committing to a real transition, because the solutions and technologies for acceptable sobriety without regression do exist.

As part of the ‘Seeding Freedom’ ecofeminist festival held in Berlin on September 4, of which La Mèche was a partner, participants in the writing workshop led by Hélène Coron did us the honor of sharing their texts, written with talent and emotion, on the theme of the ‘Poetics of the Earth’.

Sapotage is an association made up of 4 young market-gardener friends – Christopher, Selma, Yasmine and Layla – who are committed to growing healthy, chemical-free vegetables in Versoix. In their search for a larger, more permanent site, the team faced a number of obstacles. We went to meet them to discuss the place of race and gender issues within the Swiss agricultural landscape.

Echoing our article on ecofeminism, we’d like to share with you a series of 4 podcasts presented by German author Elisa Gratias and French journalist Emilie Langlade. Discover a Franco-German sound journey into the vibrant, gushing heart of ecofeminist literary works. Visions, dreams, utopias and actions are interwoven from emblematic locations in Berlin’s women’s history. Authors and activists are invited to share their experiences to shape a possible new world that emerges from systems of oppression, domination and destruction of women and nature.

Last October, an Extinction Rebellion activist burst into a Paris Fashion Week show with a poster reading “Overconsumption = extinction”. The operation denounces the impact of the fashion industry, which produces 8 to 10% of the world’s CO2 emissions per year, on climate change. Despite the dramatic ecological and ethical situation, many of us still buy fast-fashion clothes. Why is it so hard to give up this habit?