Guerrillas Bullish on the New Green Economy

Karma consumption award leasingrad photo
Image: Leaserad

Contemporaneous with the LOHAS Forum in the USA, activists and green thinkers came together for the third annual Karma Konsum (Karma Consumption) conference in Frankfurt Germany. A guerrilla action greening the Bull on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange raised attention for the event. (Unlike the persecuted barrel monster artist, Joseph Carnevale, the guerrillas kept their identity secret in the YouTube video (over the fold). This year, the first annual Karma Consumption Green Entrepreneur's Award was granted. And it is a model that we hope to see spreading.

Video YouTube

Guerrillas Green the Frankfurt Bull
The peppy video shared via YouTube shows the guerrilla "attack" on Frankfurt's Bull. The sign around the bull's neck reads "Green Economic Miracle." We wonder how the green will be recycled: surely demand for "Green Bull Bags" creates a market niche.

Bicycle Leasing Wins the Day
The honors for green start-up go to the firm LeaseRad. The company is based in Germany's reknowned green city Freiburg. The simple but novel concept is total "fleet management" for bicycles. Companies committed to green will lease fleets of bicycles like they lease cars today. Benefits for the businesses include healthier employees (lower insurance costs) and leasing costs that can be easily written off as expenses rather than depreciated. Each employee biking a 10km (6 mile) commute can save one ton of CO2 emissions per year, according to Leaserad (source quoted as the German Environmental Agency).

Congrats on the award, Leaserad. We wish you great success and widespread franchising.

More on LOHAS:
Better and Green (German)
The Pendulum Effect: Review And Prospects For Sustainability
5 of the Greenest Cities in the World to Visit
Ecocities of Tomorrow: A Visit to Freiburg