Cisco recognizes 25 Canadians over the past 25 years

This year, Willa was presented with another challenge - to do something meaningful to celebrate Cisco's 25th anniversary.

Her response - The 25 Transformative Canadians project. This awareness campaign celebrates 25 living Canadians who have made a difference. This time she partnered with the Globe and Mail newspaper. Readers were invited to nominate Canadians who fit this description.

Click through to see four videos of nominees who in particular have worked to help save the planet.

Photo credit: Devin Lund

David Suzuki: People are realizing that this is something we can’t ignore. The problem is if we keep lumbering environmentalists as those treehuggers, it ain’t going to work. First of all, we have to embrace the corporate sector, which means getting in bed with some nasty people.

We are not going to make it just as individuals; if we don’t have the corporate sector working with us than we can forget it.

Photo credit: Devin Lund

In the making of her webisode, we got an insightful opportunity to sit down with Willa Black and environmentalist David Suzuki, to learn more about how One Million Acts of Green came to be.

Their thoughtful words on an incredibly successful project demonstrate even their surprise at the power of the human network and the amazing effects that come in numbers. Check out our campaign page to learn how to act on your ideas!

We at GreenHeroes are looking forward to the year ahead with more webisodes and take action campaigns to get you involved.

Between now and mid-June we will be introducing you to more GreenHeroes who acted on their ideas to bring about environmental change.

We start the year off with webisodes that show how corporate responsibility and green initiatives can go hand in hand.

January 3 - Willa Black - Willa is a Cisco executive and inspiration behind the successful One Million Acts of Green that in 105 days had Canadians reach the goal of 1 million Green Acts to help the planet.

This week’s episode, “The Power of an Idea”, is all about putting ideas into action, something which Bill Lishman is quite famous for! Have you got an idea that you want to take flight?

Sure, it can be overwhelming to think about “saving the planet” from environmental destruction, but these GreenHeroes have found ways to make simple changes as part of a much bigger picture; that’s what GreenHeroes is all about.

Photo credit: japrea (Flickr)

When it comes down to it, Jane Goodall is all about the animals. For over 50 years, she has devoted herself primarily to the conservation of chimps, but her repertoire of conservation efforts and campaigns now extends to all endangered animals.

It was fitting then that on TV the other evening was an episode of The Nature of Things, hosted by another of our GreenHeroes, David Suzuki. The featured episode was For the Love of Elephants, a documentary shot on location in Kenya, telling the story of orphaned elephants in Africa.

At a 2008 speaking event at McGill University, GreenHeroes team member Aviva heard David Suzuki speak about the connection between the environment and the economy:

“Ecology and economy have the same root word – ‘eco’, and it means ‘home’...What we have done is elevate the economy above ecology. We think if the economy is doing well we can afford these basic things…but we are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves.”

- Dr. David Suzuki

And it seems to us like business and government leaders are taking note of this underlying interplay of the environment and economics.

Slowly but surely, as a society we are recognizing an abundance of opportunity to make changes to the way we do business, for positive economic and environmental benefits.

Does all this mean an end to your sushi dinner? Definitely not! There are still plenty of viable options for eating fish sustainably, and it's now easier than ever to figure out exactly how to do it.

A collaboration of Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the David Suzuki Foundation, Ecology Action Center, Living Oceans Society and Sierra Club British Columbia, Sea Choice has published free, user-friendly sustainable seafood guides.