Greetings!
Here comes a little update of the scene around here, including:
a dose of meat and mining Matereality (+ a Danone amendment)
meaning-making through story, including how I avoid completely losing my mind
an important reminder for any students of decolonial sustainability out there
Industrial Meat and Mining: what could possibly go wrong?
I’m conducting two Matereality assessments* in parallel: one on the largest meat company in the world, JBS, the other on the global mining company, Glencore.
It’s intense. (See also: ***...avoid completely losing my mind...*** below.)
If you like watching (intense) paint dry, you can follow along as I build the slides in the public square (JBS here, Glencore here). Or, for a more engaging way to experience these assessments, every Friday I share an update in my Medium Shorts (subscribe here). I am conducting stakeholder interviews for the JBS assessment this week, so expect a few goodies in the next weekly recap.
Here’s a taster of the findings so far: The Easiest Way to Avoid Greenwash.
Updated Danone Matereality
I received additional disclosures on Danone that I missed in the assessment published last November. I created a quick update video to explain the newly added information, which actually underscored the existing findings, but I was glad to have that clarification nonetheless.
Making meaning through stories galore
I am continuing to share what I learn along the path to Industrial Healing (a concept I explain in What is Industrial Healing?). For instance, late last year I wrote a piece that I’ve revisited a lot recently: In How to Stay Motivated When Everything Feels Bonkers I offer a cheat-sheet to ***avoid completely losing my mind*** while staring in the face of industrial reality (and inviting it to fundamentally shift). I may ultimately tattoo this one on my arm.
I shared a piece at the start of the year, Five Easy Steps to Great Running, that got accepted by Runner’s Life so that was kind of fun! I kind of think running is life (along with everything else) so it’s been neat to engage more with runners on the industrial stuff.
Mind you, earlier this week I shared a piece about skating! In Humiliating, Harrowing, Humbling, and Helpful this beginner’s mind (and body...) waded into a rink full of highly skilled hockey players and lived to skate (and run) another day.
By the way, I continue to make my stories available behind the paywall. So you can access (and share) everything for free, and you can receive notification of new stories here. Of course if you’re enjoying the reading and you have some loose change, you can sign up to access every writer on Medium for a small monthly fee.
Decolonize yourself?
Possible Futures, a Global South women-led group of wayfinders, has opened a new cohort for the Intro to Decolonial Sustainability course. As a guest coach in the program I can say that what students share in their testimonials is not random fluff. This program is not for the faint of heart — and it’s one of the most useful things I’ve experienced in relation to the necessary industrial shift.
Registration closes soon – do not delay if you are hoping to get a spot!
***
Oof. That all feels like a lot. Back to the creation station for me. Meanwhile, thanks for joining me on the journey.
Yours in connectedness,
Lorraine
* You can find out about the basic principles of Matereality here. (That’s also where the banner art featuring Cleaving Archer was first introduced.)
