Beyonce is showering free tickets, McVegan is a thing and Elon Musk makes all Tesla patents public. Check out the latest sustainability news of the past week.
1. Queen Bey & Jay Z are offering a lifetime of concert tickets to fans who go vegan!
We’re drunk in love with Beyonce and Jay Z at the moment for using their stardom to change the world. They are running an online competition to encourage fans to take up (even a partial) vegan diet to reduce their footprint on the planet. A random fan will be chosen and win a pair of tickets every year for 30 years to concerts by the two.
2. McVegan Happy Meals
McDonald’s Sweden and the UK have added vegan options to their menus and we’re lovin’ it! From the McVegan sandwich to McFalafel to Vegan Happy Meals. With more and more people identifying themselves and vegan or vegetarian (almost 1 in 10 Swedes), its no wonder big chains are riding the plant-based wave.
Bringing a touch of green to those golden arches
3. Tesla patents are all public!
Electric cars may not be the solution, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. And we need more CEOs like Elon Musk, who believes “[their] true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.” This makes the technology free for anyone to use – a move Musk encourages other entrepreneurs to make.
Saving the world one patent release at a time.
4. UK’s sobering plastic pollution crisis
Every other day, we get news about the global plastic pollution crisis. But this one’s particularly heartbreaking. Of the 50 beached whales, seals and dolphins involved in the study, all 50 were found to have microplastics in them, which goes to show the immense scale of the crisis. What can you do? Read up more about microplastics here and then attend beach clean-ups by green organisations near you.
5. #YouthForClimate!
Inspired by 15-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg – who, by the way, we’re huge fans – students all over have been joining the #climatestrike, after realising that governments and politicians all around the world have not made climate policy a priority nor recognised the problem with sufficient urgency.
Never stop fighting the good fight.
6. 168,000 used plastic straws made into an art installation?
After “The World’s Tallest Clothing Closet” took the world by storm, artist Benjamin Von Wong returns with another ambitious installation – this time, with plastic straws. While the plastic straw debate may be cliched at this point, it’s still an ongoing problem. That’s why Von Wong wanted to create something that makes the problem difficult to ignore. So with the help of Zero Waste Saigon, Starbucks Vietnam and hundreds of volunteers, a 3.3m tall art installation representing the Parting of the Plastic Sea was birthed – with the hope that it will inspire more to care for our planet.
It’s just one straw, said 8 billion people.
Photo credit: Von Wong
