WizeWorld Volume 99

Welcome to the 99th volume of WizeWorld: a collection of stories and sounds to round out your week, pique your curiosity, and widen your wizdom. 

This week’s theme is sustainable change.

One big idea won’t save the world—it takes a series of small, beneficial choices like cutting down on sugar, finding great alternatives to single-use plastic, cutting down on fast fashion, and more. 

We’ll be looking at:

• How nationwide sugar reduction could save lives
• An interview with photographer Rian Plante
• The Kickstarter turning coffee grounds into reusable cups
• Organized Listening from Jolin Ras
• The fast fashion exec who quit to support sustainability

Learn

Harvard Health Publishing reports that a team of scientists have proposed a 20% sugar reduction in all packaged food and a 40% sugar reduction in all sweetened beverages that could have major health benefits across the United States. Those benefits include a prevention of 2.5 million heart attacks, strokes, and cardiac arrests, as well as 750,000 diabetes cases and 490,000 cardiac deaths across the average adult population’s lifetime. The proposal would require the voluntary participation of food and beverage companies but, as the article points out, nothing stops you from making those changes now. Something as simple as swapping a soda, energy drink, or even a high-sugar kombucha for a can of Wize can be a great place to start.

Connect

Enjoy this interview with Wize Collective artist and athlete Rian Plante. Plante got started in photography by capturing his friends’ amazing feats as they hit the slopes and trails, but his goal is to go global: traveling the world, camera in hand. All of that travel doesn’t fit well with high-sugar and high-caffeine beverages, however. That’s why you’ll find Rian sipping a can of Wize Fresh Mango iced tea whether he’s at home on Vancouver Island or abroad. 

See

Disposable coffee cups are one of the biggest forms of consumer waste in the world, and improperly discarded coffee grounds can produce harmful gasses and damage soil. Colossal brings us the story of a company looking to change both problems at once. Coffee Kreis began as a Kickstarter looking to raise the money to turn coffee grounds into reusable cups and travel mugs. Having successfully reached their goal, Kreis (which means circle in German) is now in the production stage at Indiegogo and will reach its supporters soon. Just another example of smart design that can change the world. 

Listen

This week’s playlist is ORGANIZED ♻ LISTENING from artist and sound designer Jolin Ras. Enjoy tracks from Rare Earth, Jungle, Heatwave, Mos Def… and even Adele. If you’re curious about the man behind this eclectic mix, Ras describes his business as being multi-versed within interconnected mediums involving audio in both a digital and physical realm. Check them out at @jolinras.group on Instagram.

Get inspired

Finally, Positive News shows us what can happen when we stick to our principles over a paycheck. Hannah Hamilton was in PR for companies like Michael Kors and Bally, but grew more and more uncomfortable with the way fashion was negatively impacting the world—from carbon emissions to overconsumption. So she joined forces with Vaayu: a startup that works to help retailers measure and reduce their carbon footprint. She was able to apply her knowledge of the fashion industry to help companies like her former employers make big, real, and sustainable changes to their business practices (rather than simply greenwashing). Though she’s proud of her career switch, she says that people in similar industries should capitalize on the power they have right now within their roles to make major improvements. 

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