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Here you can find a collection of our past newsletters, where we share current news, updates, insights, and collaboration efforts within our community! |
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As the COVID-19 pandemic continues in our community, it is interesting to reflect on the changes around us. At the onset of COVID, my group Women10 Living Fit Inside Out adapted to an online platform or outdoor activities, continuing to emphasize the promotion of strong, healthy mature women. Last year, we were lucky enough to connect with Steve Kenzie, Executive Director of the Global Compact Network, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Meeting Steve, we learned about their role in creating a world that we want to live and do business in. The Global Compact network outlined a set of principles or shared values that companies and businesses operating globally could adopt - the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). Their mission is to turn global momentum on sustainability into practical local action.  Check out his introduction to the SDG’s he gave to my group here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxP-thRdSew&t=167s After this presentation, I began to develop the idea for Earth in a Nest, a marketing platform and association, to bring the global Sustainable Development Goals down to a small business, community level. Here in our community, small business has the opportunity to be the catalyst for a culture shift focused on creating a sustainable and inclusive future. Our mission at Earth in a Nest is to mobilize this change. Our team, including Jessica, Ben and I, are working hard building the resources and platform in order to do this. We believe the people behind the business and their story is so important (which is why you will often see a photo of the business owner alongside their business profile on our website!) and why we wanted to share our background with all of you. On our page, you will see a new ‘Our Team’ section, sharing a bit about ourselves, and why each of us are aligned with this mission. Now it’s your turn… Why are you aligned with the mission of Earth of Nest? Comment below and let us know! This ‘why’ is so important. When we understand why we do things, we will feel a sense of belonging to the mission. As Simon Sinuk put it, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Our why is connected to every individual in our community, young and older, and their right to live their life to the fullest. Their right to an inclusive and diverse society. And we can’t have an inclusive and diverse society without a healthy planet. So far this year, we have already hit our goal of 50 businesses! We would love to welcome our newest members: Sage Rosemary Wholistic, Next Step Coaching, Transformational Health, More Than Common Productions, Laframboise Team, Realty Executives Local Group Inc Brokerage, COACH+, Laporte's Nursery & Greenhouses Inc., 101 Experiences and One Red Maple! After being inspired to build this association just under a year ago, Earth in a Nest is now becoming a force of businesses here in our community. 
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To jump start the new year, our official logo is ready, designed by artist Liz Lott, one of our many great Earth in a Nest business members. The Earth in a Nest means more than just our name and logo. It represents a global community that respects and values the Earth and everyone within society, committed to their protection. With the launch of our new logo, we are also excited to announce the creation of our new Facebook and Instagram pages - please check them out and give them a follow!  We hope to use these platforms to promote all of our businesses and our commitment to implement Eco-Age friendly practices. Please join and like below!
Join our facebook page here! And our Instagram here! We know our community values sustainability and inclusivity. We want them to know our businesses do as well. By sharing our goals and membership with our communities, others can learn how they can make small changes in their own lives as well as support local businesses that are aligned with their values. If any of our businesses have any special promotions, or events they would like us to share- please email myself or Jessica and we will be happy to do so! We would love to welcome our newest 2022 members: Art and Sole Academy, The Gathering Place, North Bay and Area Community Foundation, and Nipissing University! Being registered with us is an opportunity to let your clients know you are working towards Eco-Age friendly practices - something many of us are already doing. Our heart goes out to all the businesses that continue to struggle through all the COVID challenges. We are still hopeful for a Sustainability Summit in the upcoming spring alongside Canadore College and will keep you updated on dates and progress - what an amazing opportunity this could be for collaboration and learning together. Thank you for all of your support as we continue to grow Earth in a Nest. We hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week. And don’t forget to follow our Facebook and Instagram page! Hariett and Jessica Earth in a Nest was created in 2021 with the goal of identifying like-minded small businesses and organizations looking to develop their Eco-Age friendly practices. Together, we can move our North Bay community towards further social, economic and environmental sustainability. “Sustainability is the capacity for our human society to continue indefinitely within the natural cycles. It is about human needs and economic needs, within ecological constraints.”  (Watch this great video to learn more)
The last few months have been one of transition, as we looked at our vision and mission, and how we can best move forward. Recently, Canadore College joined as our flagship partner. We are so proud of all businesses that are a part of Earth in a Nest, and extremely excited to jump start our journey together in 2022. To date we are almost at 50 businesses, and pushing for 100 by March! Can you help us get to 100? We are working towards the following goals in the new year that we feel will help your business excel in your transition towards Eco-Age sustainable practices:
We have the opportunity within our community to demonstrate leadership and advance responsible stewardship here in North Bay. With the spirit of inclusion, small businesses can be a guiding light for sustainable change. What will your sustainability story look like in 2022? How can we help? Best wishes for a restful, safe and joy-filled holiday season, Hariett and Jessica The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference is underway and world leaders are coming together to accelerate action on the challenges of climate change. However, we believe that these challenges should not only be in the hands of world leaders.Throughout the summer we have built a membership of 33 small businesses committed to doing the same. Here at Earth in a Nest, we are aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN’s Global Compact Network and aspire to use these goals as a framework for small business to implement change at a community level. If you don’t know a lot about these goals, we’ve added a great video below to learn more! Using the Gap Frame structure we are able to identify and translate the SDGs into local business targets and strategies, focusing on the issues most prominent in our region. Here in Canada, our lowest scores are in biodiversity, carbon quotient, land and forests, oceans, as well as in equal opportunity for all Canadians. These results demonstrate the need for an Eco and Age friendly emphasis within our communities.  We believe that through collaboration, together small businesses can make a massive impact, increasing sustainability and inclusivity. Small business has the ability to be a catalyst for a culture shift within our society, with access to the customer base with whom to share their Eco-Age friendly best practices - promoting kindness, compassion, and respect for our Earth and people of all ages, including mature adults. Our job at Earth in a Nest is to make this transition easier for businesses, no matter their size, complexity, or current practices - and the first step to doing this is to learn more about them. Here’s what our businesses told us: Many are already working hard to implement eco-friendly practices. Some of best stats included:
This is fantastic news! And shows that these business owners are taking steps to stay ahead in regards to the consumer market. According to the Harvard Business Review, consumers (particularly millennials) are increasingly emphasizing the need for brands to embrace purpose and sustainability in their practices. One study showed that certain categories of products with sustainability claims show DOUBLE the growth of their traditional counterparts. Moving towards these practices is not only beneficial to the Earth, but also in the long-term economic sustainability of their business. But where do our businesses need to improve? Our survey showed the least common practices are:
Moving to age-friendly practices, we were awe-struck in the response to our survey! They reported:
The two areas in need of improvement include:
We hope to mobilize and empower even more to do the same. We want to thank everyone who has joined Earth in a Nest to date. We feel a great sense of hope for our community when we think about what we are creating together. We are a community of small businesses from North Bay willing to move towards and live Eco-Age friendly practices to better serve our clients and the Earth. We welcome your input, feedback, and creative sustainable ideas. Let’s grow a healthy Eco-Age friendly community together! The value of one, the power of the collective one. The value of one positive sustainable change, the power of collaboration. Last week we were lucky enough to sit down with Leeanne White with Moose’s Cookhouse, one of the restaurants a part of our initiative. We discussed their approach to working towards becoming a more sustainable, economic, social, environmentally-friendly business. Over the past year, their team has committed to creating a more age-friendly experience for all of their customers. If you’ve never heard of Moose’s Cookhouse, it is a local, long-time restaurant (they just celebrated their 26th anniversary a few weeks ago!), welcoming of all. Here you can come as you are, feel like you belong, and put away the worries of the world.
Despite the hardships of the ongoing pandemic, The Moose, with help from The Village at Canadore College, has diligently been planning and learning from the community about how to inclusively serve all ages and ensure an outstanding experience. Below are some of most valuable insights from our interview with Leeanne: What inspired you to begin working on making these changes? Before this project began we asked ourselves - “How can we all be accountable to a healthy community?”. We really believe that the private sector can play a role in contributing! Age-friendly practices are inclusive to all! We want our restaurant to welcome everyone, and the strategies or markers for wellbeing for older adults can include various other members of the population. Promoting these changes in our restaurant also has the opportunity to inspire our own clients to make similar choices in their lives - the potential ripple effect is really exciting! How are you going about making these changes? Currently, we are still in the planning stages. We really want to honour the voice of this population, so they are the ones driving the direction of the project. At the moment, we have released a survey to gather perspectives and feedback from the community. We would love more feedback, so if you’d like, please check out the survey here. What were some of the biggest takeaways from your survey so far? We have already learned so much and gained tremendous insight from our survey results. Our biggest takeaway so far is that when asked why people go out to eat - food was not the most popular reason! People go out to restaurants to see and be with others, the social piece of the experience was the most important! When we focus on the social aspect, it forces us to reimagine how we do business - it is much more about the relational experience rather than “good food out fast”. This feedback has inspired us to think about our own staff’s interactions with clients and how to improve this experience for everyone at Moose’s Cookhouse too. This was critical information and backed the purpose of our project even more - if people go out so that they can enjoy time with their friends and family, then we need spaces to be accessible for all. We continue to learn from the survey! Other insights include the possibility of adding smaller servings to the menu and the importance of language and how it can communicate important values. What suggestions do you have for other businesses looking to increase their Age-friendly practices? For us, the key was collaboration and learning. Our partnership with Canadore College helped to push us forward, and I want to say a big thank you to the Steering Committee at the Village for all of their help. The restaurant industry can be competitive. We would like to create a shift: to be more collaborative and have the ability to work together towards an age-friendly experience for everyone. Our endgame of this project is to walk through the process and come out the other side with a model that we can share with other small businesses in the area - positively impacting the entire community here in North Bay. Myself and the team here at Earth in a Nest are so excited to be partnered with innovative and committed businesses like Moose’s Cookhouse.
The time and effort their team has put into learning, planning and growing their age-friendly practices is phenomenal, and is fully aligned with our values. As their partnership with Canadore College last year helped drive them forward, we hope that we can provide the same support and guidance in helping all of our businesses move forward with Eco-Age friendly practices. We are still in our infancy, but have great plans for the very near future for the how-to in assisting businesses to achieve these goals. An economically thriving, but environmentally and socially sustainable business model is possible. We want to thank all the businesses currently on board, and continue to ask that you help us add others to this growing initiative! The power of our collective force is extremely exciting, and alongside our newly formed partnership with Canadore College, we are very nearly ready to make a big difference for our business community, and for the Earth. Did you know? Small businesses are 97.9% of all businesses in Canada Earth in a Nest. As we began developing the concept for this social enterprise, the image brought to life by artist, Liz Lott, helped to drive us forward.
Throughout our progress, our connection with this symbol has grown even stronger. And when it came time to choose the name that we wanted to share publicly, it felt only right to go with Earth in a Nest.
The meaning behind ‘earth in a nest’ is very powerful. Our Earth, compared to a fragile egg, is capable of offering its limited resources to everyone. We, humanity, are the nest - the care-givers of our planet. Sadly, many people believe the opposite - that the Earth’s finite resources are here to simply provide and care for us, infinitely. And that’s why we are in the position we are in now. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what the Earth can regenerate in that year. We passed that day July 29th, 2021. It is clear at our current pace, the Earth will not be able to sustain itself, or humanity indefinitely. While this is a scary thought, we have not reached doomsday yet. Despite the extent to which we have taken from this earth, we still have the chance to replenish it. A thriving life on this planet, within the means of the planet, IS possible. And it is essential that we move towards this for future generations to come. We believe we can move from simply reducing our negative impact, to making a positive impact- doing more good for the Earth- for the sake of our community and the fragile environment we live in. We hope you feel the same connection to ‘Earth in a Nest’ and it can become a symbol of our Eco-Age friendly business community. We are excited to announce that our website is officially live. You can have a look at it here. It’s worth repeating again: Small businesses are 97.9% of all businesses in Canada. We can all make a difference through collaboration. Let’s start the conversation and collaboration! Thank you, Hariett, Jessica and Alison During a visit to the Crystal Cave Museum earlier this week, I was struck by the following quote: "What can I do? I am just one person! said 7 billion people..." After the UN report released that same day announcing a 'code red for humanity', with climate change spiralling out of control, it was a welcome reminder and call to action.  Changing by the artist, Alisa Singer "As we witness our planet transforming around us we watch, listen, measure ... respond." What will your response be?
Here’s ours. Earth in a Nest is a vision and hope that small businesses can be the catalyst for ecological and age-friendly change within our community. We are serious about this initiative and the ‘why’ behind it: To create the nest that will carry our fragile world to a better outcome for both humanity and the Earth, from one to the power of the collective one. The only way to accomplish this is together. Alone we are each one small business, but together we have a large collective impact as we face the challenges of climate change. A collective that can make remarkable and impactful change in North Bay and beyond. Our group of businesses, institutions, and organizations, alongside the Village Impact project at Canadore, have the chance for collaboration that will lead to real progress. We have the opportunity to use what small business is best at - identifying problems that our clients are facing and creating answers that not only serve the community but also the planet. How can we serve our clients AND live more gently on the Earth? As we continue to build the ‘how’ of Earth in a Nest over the upcoming months, we can’t thank you enough for your interest and commitment to our vision. As always, we would love to hear what you are doing and invite you to share one or more of your Eco-Age Friendly practices. And in the spirit of growth, how might you implement one new item from our Eco-Age friendly checklist? Hariett, Jessica and Alison |
