As we begin gearing up for September’s Bike To Work month, The Sartorialist reminds us that, no, you do not need to change your clothes to ride to work. Seriously.

(via The Sartorialist)

How on earth has no one told me about The Scout before now? The Brooklyn-based web mag recently launched the third in a series of films about craftsmanship—something that those who know me will recognize as close to my heart, and work. This profile of the Mast Brothers, Rick and Michael, offers a beautiful, and occasionally humorous look inside their Brooklyn chocolate shop.

In their quest to imbue their bars with as much of the adventure and curiosity of their craft as possible, they’re planning on sailing their beans back from Dominican Republic personally. “Any idea that makes us nervous, or scared that it won’t happen—we know that we’re definitely on to something. And sailing the beans is definitely the biggest thing…we know we’re onto something.” For making the connection between food and farm—or, in this case, cocoa plantation—you can’t do much better than that.

“If we start treating people like people, and stop assuming that they’re slower, smaller, better smelling horses; if we get past this ideology of carrots and sticks and look at the science, we can build organizations and work lives that make us better off, and that have the promise to make our world a little bit better.”

An awesome inquiry into why we do what we do, adapted from a lecture by Dan Pink at RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.) Check it:

(via 18th & Hoyt)

Design.

It is a difficult word to define, let alone execute with change-making results. It requires intent, insight, attention to detail. It asks for deeper thought around functionality, necessity, purpose and accessibility. Design has the power to change the way we interact with the world.

With this year’s Grant for Change we asked you to share your designs, but first, we negotiated the criteria. We asked for designs that instigate positive change. We asked for designs that address the world’s greatest challenges, and challenge assumptions about the way even the most basic things are done. We asked for design that is replicable, creative, compelling and effective.

After six weeks of open nominations, 124 nominees, an exciting voting period, support from hundreds of communities, interviews with our ten finalists, and much deliberation, we are excited to announce our second annual $10,000 Grant for Change Grantees:

Congratulations to Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney and their project Truck Farm.

Grandpa’s old pickup truck, turned mobile garden, has turned heads from Northern Massachusetts to Washington DC, and with it comes a humorous and edgy spin to the conversation around food.

It has inspired the creation of over 60 (and counting) food gardens in new and unusual places. Its course has been recorded with pictures and sound, culminating in a documentary film that is now rolling its way into the film festival circuit.

On the ground, the truck itself instigates awareness, offering a tangible, and remarkably simple, example of design as a tool for positive change; when the farm moves, it reminds us that we do not need a static plot of land to grow our own food.

Curt and Ian are fired up for the next steps of the Truck Farm movement. Their goals include a movie-screen attachment, to make the mobile farm a portable theatre; a series of contests focused on who can grow a garden in the craziest place; a succession of portable events, to gain traction with schools, through youth programs and innovative curriculum; and a (wish list) meeting with the CEOs of the Big Three automakers to see if any of them are interested in bringing a mass-production Truck Farm to market. In their own words:

“Urban agriculture is taking root in Detroit now, with vacant lots being planted in crops and commercially-viable farms sprouting up on 8 Mile Road. So why not take a bit of inspiration from that, and build a line of cars with room for a seedling or two? It sounds ridiculous, and is, but wouldn’t it be fun?”

Take a closer look – and see what we’re so excited about – here. We look forward to the upcoming year of storytelling, mobile farm movements and the urban agriculture conversation. We hope you will join the discussion.

You know composting is good. Perhaps you’re doing it yourself on a small scale, collecting the organic waste from your kitchen and turning it into rich soil for your garden. But what happens to that larger scale organic matter that sometimes passes through your life? Where does yard debris go after you put it on the curb?

The surprising answers to those questions led two young entrepreneurs—Tyler Miller, and Nau alum Pierce Louis—to start Dirt Hugger, a local composting company that creates sustainable economies by collecting, processing, and utilizing valuable organic nutrients locally. It turns out that without access to composting services, organic materials are mostly processed in unsustainable ways: they are dumped in landfills where they produce 40% of the nation’s methane gas emissions, burned in open air piles, or trucked long distances to urban processing centers.

Tyler and Pierce are in the running for the Myoo Create Beat Waste Startup Challenge: as one of ten finalists, they’re up for a $15,000 grant from Adventure Ecology, the folks behind the Plastiki expedition. For nurturing the idea that organic waste has real nutrient value and that communities are strengthened when they retain that value locally rather than trucking it out of town, they’ve got our vote. Whether in compost or clothing, we need more of this kind of closed-loop thinking.

While I’m a sucker for good infographics in any context, they’re particularly powerful when employed to give perspective to an issue as critical as education. For this trailer to Waiting For Superman, an upcoming documentary from the director of An Inconvenient Truth on the need to reshape education in America—animator Jorge R. Canedo Estrada of Buck engaged with some pretty sobering statistics. The results are powerful.

(via Vimeo).

At Nau, we’ve always asked our designs to do more than just one thing. The idea that a single jacket should be able to move from the bike to the office to the bar was one of the original design principles that we launched with, and it carries through the execution of pieces like the Chrysalis Dress, the Vice Blazer and many others.

So we were interested to learn of a few folks who are taking the idea doing more with less a bit further. Today, a group of ninety-six people from around the world began an experiment to see what happens when you pare down your wardrobe to just six items. The project, Six Items Or Less, has exceptions for underwear, workout clothing and raincoats; but even so, pledging to go a month with just a handful of clothes poses some interesting questions about our relationship to what we wear.

Of course, there are plenty of people around the world who get by on fewer than six items for much longer than a month. But in our culture of ready to wear and disposable fashion, it’s interesting to challenge the assumption that we need a closet full of clothes. But more than a post-consumerist statement, pairing back might have other, more personal impacts as well: Kimberly, who turned us on to this site, also sent along this post from one of Six Items or Less founder, alias Uberblond, on how the designer Tom Ford, among others, would pick one outfit to wear for a season so he could focus on designing. Is it possible that what we wear is less about self expression and more about self-distraction?

What do you think? Could you get by on six items for a month? A year? Follow the experiment at sixitemsorless.com, and post what you’d pick for your six items in the comments below.

(hat tip to Kimberly F)

If you haven’t checked out Drea Cooper & Zackary Canepari’s project California is a Place, you should. Combining beautiful cinematography with impressive first person storytelling, it’s my new favorite profile series since the New York Times wrapped One In Eight Million last year.

For starters, check out their profile of Baybe Champ and the Original Scraperbikes, who are using bikes to create positive change in an entirely new and unexpected way on the tough streets of Oakland:

“In order to become a member of the Original Scraper Bike Team, you must: Be a resident of Oakland, CA. Be at least 7y/o or older. Retain a 3.0 Grade Point Average (GPA), Create your own Scraper Bike…(It Has To Be Amazing, Or Else You Can’t Ride.) A single-file line when riding. After 10 rides The Scraper Bike King and his Captains will decide if your bike is up to standards and if you can follow simple guidelines. After your evaluation we will consider you a member and honor you with an Original Scraper Bike Team Shirt. Only worn when Mobbin’ Stay posted to our website for all upcoming Scraper Bike Rides…” — The Scraper Bike King

In the wake of the Dow’s 1,000 point plunge and recent hundred point aftershocks, it’s worth reflecting once again on the legacy of the financial crisis and what—if anything—we’ve learned. Our Partners For Change at Ecotrust believe that the lesson of the financial crisis is the same one we must learn if we are to deal effectively with the environmental crisis: live within our means. Check it:

Today is the birthday of a person I find inspirational on an epic scale: Rachel Carson.  A marine biologist by training, she was a gifted writer and steadfast defender of ecological health and long-term responsibility over chemical company interests and short-term profit. Her 1962 book Silent Spring (along with her other works) set the stage for wide-spread public awareness of and concern about the effects human behaviors have on our environment.

Carson described how the deleterious effects of indiscriminate pesticide spraying ruined the reproductive cycle of birds, and would eventually lead to a Spring without bird-songs. Her beautiful and lucid writing drove home the powerful and insightful scientific arguments she made. She was attacked by those who stood to gain from the ecological damage she decried, but she persevered because her message was scientific fact in the form of inspirational, poetic prose.

She died too young, but her scholarship, wisdom and courage live on. So today, take a minute to enjoy the songs of the birds on the Spring air, think of Rachel Carson, and decide what you are going to do to help sustain our world.