Earth day: celebrating 53 years of environmental activism

Driving positive action for our planet is nothing new. The first Earth Day was way back in 1970 – 14 years before Tim and I were born, yikes. The organiser's, EarthDay.org, mission is "to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide". Today, EarthDay.org claims to be the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 150,000 partners in over 192 countries. In short, it's a pretty big deal.

Read more about the history of Earth Day here, and check out the amazing video below of the original broadcast of CBS News Special Report with Walter Cronkite about the first Earth Day in 1970. "We are in a crisis of survival." says Walter Cronkite, 53 years ago. Sound familiar?

going beyond the 'every day is earth day' cliché

A phrase we're likely to hear a lot over the next week or so is 'Every day is Earth Day'. While of course that is – or should be – true, a few people seem to use it as an excuse to not actually do anything at all for Earth Day. But are these people really taking bold environmental action throughout the rest of the year? I doubt it.

Here at Avery & Brown, because bold climate action is core to how we operate as a business, we wanted to make sure we did something for Earth Day 2023 beyond just publishing some social media posts on the day itself. So instead, we're using it as a great excuse to do even more than we already do – which you can read all about on our Regeneration page and by browsing through all of our Outpost articles going back to February 2021 – and run a two-week campaign to educate, engage and inspire our networks and communities.

Keep reading to see what we've got planned...

Exploring this year's theme: 'invest in our planet'

For the first time in its history, EarthDay.org is continuing the important theme of 'Invest in Our Planet' for a second year.

"Acting as a continuation of last year’s well-received campaign, the theme is focused on engaging governments, institutions, businesses, and the more than 1 billion citizens who participate annually in Earth Day to do their part – everyone accounted for, everyone accountable." – Earth Day website.

Over the next two weeks, the Avery & Brown team will be exploring the theme by thinking about what investing in our planet means to us individually and as a business, and what we can do to take bold action. We will be publishing a minimum of five articles here on Outpost, and at least one social post per day across our channels – all links below.

Read all about the theme here and watch the short video below.

Supporting ecologi with its earth day campaign

This year, we are delighted to have been able to support our longest-standing climate action partner, Ecologi, with its own Earth Day campaign. We joined Ecologi when we incorporated the business, so we really have been using them since Day 1. (We're still just about on the Top 30 sparkly trees Leaderboard too!)

On Thursday 30th March, I travelled up to the world-famous Kew Gardens to film some content with the Ecologi and Enviral teams. It was a whirlwind visit and Kew Gardens had several filming challenges to overcome – namely the planes from Heathrow airport! – but nevertheless we got some great footage and it's part of a montage piece that includes a handful of other Ecologi members and sustainable business leaders.

Check out the video below:

joining business declares at 'the big one' in london

The day before Earth Day, on Friday 21st April, the Avery & Brown team will be heading up to London for The Big One; a nonviolent direct action that will see 100,000 people gather outside the Houses of Parliament in London to hold politicians accountable for the climate and ecological crises. (We have also been providing XR Waverley & Borders with some pro bono support to help promote the event and you can read more about that in this post.)

On the day itself, we will be spending most of our time with the wonderful Business Declares team and many of its other members. We joined Business Declares in January 2022, and it has been wonderful to see the movement grow, with an increasing number of businesses publicly declaring a climate and ecological emergency.

Those of us who will be at The Big One with Business Declares are a coalition of business leaders, business owners, and employees who want to see an end to new fossil fuels licensing. We want to see a just transition into a new fossil fuel-free era and are urging the government to shift its policy and direction to achieve this. We are ready to act now and accelerate our plans to achieve this transition - but we need the Government to create the conditions and environment to help us to take this action.

"If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year." – Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency..

It has been an absolute pleasure to be in the Business Declares WhatsApp group over the past few weeks. The energy and ideas in the group has been inspiring, and I enjoyed being part of the slogan sub-group. Keep an eye out for us if you're going to be at The Big One – there will be some big banners with 'Business Declares: Time for change' on it, among others.

I'd like to give a huge shout-out to Ben Tolhurst and the rest of the Business Declares team. They have been putting a huge amount of work and hours into organising what we'll all be getting up to on the day. It's amazing, and the team and I can't wait to be there and to meet so many of our (mainly) LinkedIn connections in real life for the first time.

There is a link to join the Business Declares - The Big One WhatsApp group in the long list of links at the bottom of this post.

A huge list of links to make the most of earth day 2023 & beyond

Avery & Brown's social channels: follow us on these so you don't miss out on all our Earth Day 2023 campaign content!

• LinkedIn (follow our company page) 🖤
• LinkedIn (subscribe to my Regenerative Business Diary newsletter)
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube
• nineteen eighty four (our twice-monthly, high-value newsletter)

Earth Day links:

• EarthDay.org – the main website where you'll find all the info you need 🌍
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube

Ecologi links:

• Our referral link – Fancy joining Ecologi? Use this link to get an extra 30 free trees in your forest 🌳
• Our Avery & Brown forest – we've planted over 12,000 trees so far

Business Declares and The Big One links:

• Business Declares – their website where you can learn all about them and apply to join ❗️
• Business Declares - The Big One WhatsApp group – for anyone who wants to get involved and join us at The Big One
• The Big One – the main landing page where you'll find all the information you'll need and to add your name

Additional useful links and resources:

• The Better Business Network – be part of an amazing community and surround yourself with other better businesses ✅
• betternotstop – if you're interested in becoming a B Corp and/or being a more impactful business, they've got you
• Small99 – guiding 1 million businesses to Net Zero by 2025
• Sustainability Events Calendar – find great sustainability-related events and list your own for free
• Avery & Brown's Regenerative Business Mind Map – new version dropping very soon, but here's the current one (free PDF)
• Avery & Brown's 2020-2022 Impact Report – keen to see what positive impact a small business can make in its first two years?
• How to take positive action for nature – a Twitter thread with over 40,000 views so far
• How Wolves Change Rivers – amazing YouTube video about trophic cascades and the interconnectedness of nature
• How Whales Change Climate – another amazing video about the impact of whales on our climate
• Climate Science Breakthrough – great videos of climate science translated
• The Awesome Anthropocene Goals – what's next after the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals?
• The Better Business Act – join to be part of the coalition for a cleaner, greener, fairer future for all