All of these guides are great for you, your friends, your roommates, your parents, your employers - anyone and everyone you know : ) Print them out on re-used paper, post them in a visible place, pick an easy target to start, and gradually add to your list!!

And if you're trying to get away from consumer-based holidays and birthdays, ask your family and loved ones to commit to one of these actions as a gift to you - bonus all around!

Remember to always continue making new goals, and have FUN as you change the world!

So, please ENJOY and let us know of any other ideas, resources or thoughts that pop into your head.

Oteshafy Your School - the Sustainable Schools Guide

Here's just a glimpse at all the ways you can Oteshafy your school. These are all Action Plans developed through Otesha presentations - so we know they're possible. We challenge you to add your own projects to this list, or try these ones!

• Calculate and reduce your school's ecological footprint
• Install low-flow toilets and/or toilet dams
• Improve your school's recycling program
• Replaced paper towels with green alternatives such as cloth towel
• Improve your school cafeteria: replace the disposable cups with non-disposable ones (this saves money too!), push for vegan and vegetarian options
• Replace the light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (cutting your C02 emissions by 1,300 pounds/bulb and saving money!)
• Lobby local businesses and the cafeteria to give discounts to people who have brought their own tupperwares OR give tupperware users a quarter to donate to a charity of their choice Implement a composting program (vermi or bin) - get a local business involved to donate materials
• Start a composting club and paint the bins into basketball nets to make it fun!
• Donate the older contents of your school's lost-and-found to the local thrift store
• Hold a bottle drive for charity
• Sponsor a foster child as a school Sell fair-trade chocolate to build a school in a developing country, or to support a charity of your choice
• Give a fun presentation to your peers about impacts of consumption (in an assembly or to your class)
• Write letters and give a presentation to the PTA about impacts of highly packaged lunches
• Raise money to build a well through Ryan's Well
• Write letters about changes students can make to your school newspaper or newsletter
• Make your school's hot lunch program litter-free
• Make a postering campaign out of used paper and bristle board about your issue of choice
• Make and sell notebooks made out of re-used paper
• Use your fundraiser to improve your school grounds
• Start a 'Culture Jamming Day' at your school - with cool signs, garbage art, inspirational messages, quotes and stats
• Read eye-opening stats over your school's PA system
• Start an anti-bullying campaign at your school
• Organize a litter pick-up competition with a cool trophy made out of re-used materials
• Start an environmental club
• Plant trees and/or a garden at your school
• Hold a "clothing swap" at your school
• Create a funky youth drop-in centre in your community
• Challenge your peers to get entirely no-garbage meals at the food court
• Make your school sweatshop-free!
• Get fair trade chocolate and coffee sold at your school
• Hold a "Living Simply Day" or "Sustainability Joy Ride" at your school
• If your school or group is having a conference - Oteshafy it!!

Oteshafy your Home - the Sustainable Home Guide

Whomever you're living with - whether it be your family, your friends, your roommates, or yourself - becoming aware of your immediate surroundings is the first step towards a more sustainable future. By looking at your choices, resources, and talents, you'll find countless ways to positively impact the world around you.

Here are some pointers for ways we can become environmentally friendly, socially responsible, energy- and cost-efficient, and happy in our homes.

Kitchen

• Reuse old jars and cans with lids to store bulk items such as grains and herbs (make fun labels too)
• Use the water left-over form doing dishes to water your plants (they like it!).
• Handwash dishes (generally uses less water and energy than a dishwasher)
• Save vegetable scraps for soup stock. (Great with miso)

Groceries

• Buy locally produced foods to reduce transportation emissions (it's all about the apples!)
• Buy organic to reduce the amount of harmful pesticides being released into our ecosystems.
• Buy from the throw-away/"reduced" rack at the grocery store - it's cheaper and you're saving the food from the landfill!
• Buy bulk and unprocessed foods to reduce packaging.
• Bring cloth bags to grocery stores and reuse plastic bags for bulk purchases.
• Buy at smaller, locally-owned businesses to support your community.
• Try eating vegetarian or vegan meals once a week, and move that number up as you fall in love with tofu : )
• Buy fair trade coffee, sugar, chocolate and tea whenever possible

General Household

• Replace your light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (four times more energy-efficient - and you'll save money!)
• Insulate doors and windows properly - use clear plastic to seal windows and use heavy drapes to minimize heat loss and drafts.
• Use eraseable markers on a white board to post house messages
• Use rechargeable batteries
• Buy environmentally friendly office supplies
• Make the thrift store your first stop for everything from couches, to "new" outfits, to toasters
• Put a "save our trees - no junk mail, flyers, or unsolicited mail, please" sign on your mailbox
• Put paper reusing/recycling receptacles in rooms where paper is used (i.e. bathroom, office, kitchen); use the blank sides for printing from the computer, making notepads or day planners, etc.
• Buy recycled or tree-free paper
• Reuse waste wherever possible
• Have a reusable items box and let friends or neighbours take whatever they'd use
• Keep a wacky garbage box for crafts and for making garbage art for the house
• Turn down your hot-water heater to save energy
• Clean windows and mirrors with vinegar solution (2tsp vinegar per 2 cups water). Shine with clean newspaper or a reusable rag (paper and natural-fibre cloth can be composted after being resued!)
• Car tires make good potato planters - just place seed potato in center of tire and cover with 15 cm of soil or compost. As plant grows, add soil to just below the growing tip, add tires as required (usually 5-6 will be enough). Once the last tire is full of dirt, allow plant to leaf up and flower. Potatoes are ready for harvesting when flowers die back and stalks begin to wilt. To harvest, brush dirt away as you remove tires.

Bathroom

• IN the back of your toilet, insert a "toilet dam", or plastic jar filled with a heavy rock and water, to reduce the amount of water used in each flush (most toilets use 24 L per flush) - or buy a low-flow toilet, which only uses 6 L per flush!
• Install a low-flow showerhead (you can also get ones that filter out chemicals such as chlorine), and have staggered showers (turn water off while you are soaping up, on again just to rinse)
• If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down!
• Plug tub while showering and use the saved "grey water" to water plants/lawn/garden; or, save it in a bucket and use it to flush the toilet.
• Use biodegradable, phosphate-free, sodium laurel sulphate-free soap, shampoo, and conditioner, or make your own.
• Use natural, non-toxic cleaners such as vinegar and water or baking soda.
• Cosmetics can be natural and animal friendly.
• Get a reusable toothbrush - the head can be replaced while the handle is reused.

Bedroom

• Clothing: buy clothes that are second-hand, locally-made, and sweatshop-free;, make your own out of old material; or buy organic cotton or hemp clothing. Organize clothing swaps with friends.

Garden and Lawn

• Conserve water by:
• Mulching the surface of the soil around trees and shrubs and garden beds - prevents up to 73% of evaporation of water
• Watering the roots, not leaves, to encourage deep root growth
• Planting tougher grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass or perennial rye, which are less water dependent
• Installing a rainwater tank to catch roof run-off
• Planting windbreaks such as hedges will reduce effect of winds, creating a micro-climate that requires less watering
• Avoid environment and health-damaging pesticides by:
• Rotating crops into different beds over three or four years to prevent build up of pests and disease
• Using compost to create fertile soil
• Using a concoction of equal parts chopped spearmint, onion, garlic, hot red chillies, mustard, lavender and rosemary, add a pinch of yeast and allow to ferment, then mix with solution of soap (biodegradable) and water and spray on pest-infected plant
• Use non-chemical fertilizers that will build and strengthen soil (e.g. remineralization through rock dust)
• Start a compost for uncooked food scraps, lawn clippings
• Gardens are great! Nothing is grown more locally or with more love.
• Keep animals away by securely closing and weighting compost and garbage lids
• Think of ways to use old junk to make interesting lawn ornaments or planters (eg. bathtub planter, tin can flower pots)

Transportation

• Have bike equipment handy for the whole house
• If you're getting a family car, consider a hybrid or other low-emission vehicle
• Encourage train and bus travel rather than plane to reduce emissions (cross-Canada train trips are fu-un!)

Money

• Pick a charity as a family or house and raise money together (or create a wacky incentive program based on who didn't clean that week!)
• Invest your money in SRI's (socially responsible investing)
• Consider switching your accounts to Citizen's Bank, or other ethical banks, due to their Ethics Policy

Enjoy consumer-free entertainment

• Have house dance parties
• Hold a talent shows
• Affirmation games (secret buddies that you leave special messages for, affirmation jars for random compliments, affirmation circles, etc)
• Skits and charades
• Hikes, exploring, and random adventures
• Theme parties with costumes
• Culture jamming and random acts of kindness
• Wacky mid-day energizers
• Wake-up songs for the house
• Homemade board games, namely "Clue" - was it the Uber Housemate in the Composter with the Recycled Spade?
• Collect random garbage and spin tales about it each night - who knew that that torn up running shoe was actually from a monkey-trainer gone crazy on too many unfairly traded bananas?
• Have a pot-luck
• Do house-wide volunteering days
• Hold a discussion-group on a topic of your choice
• Take days off together and apart!
• Infuse insurmountable amounts of giggles, singing, dancing, appreciation, growth, and inspiration!

Helpful Hints

• Reducing clutter helps in simplifying our lives and focuses the mind.
• Mirrors encourage us to visually evaluate ourselves, so remove or cover them and concentrate on what we are achieving.
• Have weekly house meetings with go-rounds and check-ins, conflict resolutions, and fun breaks!
• Positive language, focused on what we are capable of rather than what limits us, opens up possibilities and communication.

Written by Oteshaite Shoshanah Waxman with Tips from It's So Natural by Alan Hayes, as well as various internet sites on energy conservation in the home.

Oteshafy Your Office- The Sustainable Offices Guide
(Great for your or your parents' workplace - paid or volunteer)

Food

• Litter-free lunch policy
• Vegetarian or vegan day once a week (or always!)
• Company lunches at vegetarian restaurants
• Fair-Trade coffee, tea, sugar, tea - with mugs instead of disposable cups
• Soy milk for coffee drinkers
• When catering or take-out: vegan/vegetarian meals, made of organic, bulk, local foods,with minimal packaging
• Cloth bags in office for employees to use for groceries, and tupperwares for take-out

Transportation

• Bike friendly office (low-flow showers, secure bike racks, bike repair equipment)
• Complimentary or company-subsidized transit passes to employees
• Car pooling system/board
• Have company cars be hybrids or other ultra-low emission vehicles
• Hold a company biking or running day
• Encourage bus and train travel before air travel

Waste

• Office composter (vermi or bin)
• Get rid of garbage cans completely!!

Water

• Encourage reusable water bottles, not bottled water (not supporting the commodification of water)
• Grey water recycling (shower and dish water used to flush the toilet, water the plants)
• Low-flow showerhead on shower, staggered showers by staff
• Low-flow toilets, yellow-let-it-mellow policy; toilet dam to reduce water volume in toilet bowl
• Vegan and homemade office cleaners

Paper

• No junk mail/flyers sign for office mailbox
• Paper sorting into reusable, re-printable, and only recyclable
• Envelopes saved and reused
• Used wipe board with dry-erase non-toxic markers for office messages
• Large printing outsourced to companies using vegetable based inks, and 100% post-consumer paper
• Re-used paper notepads for all staff
• When needed: Tree-free paper and 100% recycled paper. Everything else can be printed on reused paper

Office Equipment and Supplies

• Re-fillable ink cartridges, re-burnable CDs, and vegan glue used
• Any other office supplies purchased from local thrift store or environmental office supply company
• Rechargeable batteries
• Used equipment for the office (phones, computers, printers, filing cabinets, projectors

Electricity

• Compact fluorescent light bulbs
• Solar panels/alternative energy
• Lights and computers off when not in office
• Energy-Star appliances, monitors, etc

Clothing:

• Inside out, re-printed company t-shirts

Fun!

• Weekly sustainability challenge
• Points system with a day off for "most sustainable employee of the month"
• Consumer free entertainment: Dance Parties; Talent shows; Affirmation Games (secret buddies that you leave special messages for, affirmation jars for random compliments, etc); Skits and Charades; Hikes; Theme Parties with costumes (from the local thrift store); wacky mid-day Energizers; homemade board games - namely "Clue" - was it the CEO in the Composter with the Recycled Bike Pump?
• Office-wide volunteering days
• Garbage art competition for office walls

Money

• Office-wide donation to a non-profit organization (company and employee contributions)
• Citizen's Bank, or Co-op for company and employee funds
• Sliding shares rewards for employee commitments to sustainability (employees with most "sustainability points" rewarded with additional shares

Organizational Sustainability

• Days off - lots of them!
• Frequent all-staff meetings with go-rounds, opportunities for input, and of course - fun breaks!
• Group activities out of the office with families invited too
• Affirmation and Good News board - wipe board for any staff to write any good news they have, or have heard, or a thanks to anyone in the office - all the warm fuzzies you ever wanted! Leave a section for inspirational quote of the day or week.
• Insurmountable amounts of giggles, singing, dancing, appreciation, growth, and inspiration

Oteshafy Your Conference - the Sustainable Conference Guide

The Otesha brainstorming machine came up with the following ideas to enhance the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of your conference. These ideas range from sustainable consumption, to sustaining your group's energy, to sustaining the change created by the conference. And some of them are just plain old fun!

You don't need to do them all to have a great conference, and you can definitely create your own ideas. These are just some of the incredible examples we've picked up from presenting at and attending innumerable out-of-the-box (and not-so-out-of-the-box) conferences through the years. So, take your pick and enjoy : )

Good luck with your planning, and please send us any new ideas or thoughts. And if you find you need a little inspiration along the way, check out the Engineers Without Borders 2004 Conference - it's guaranteed to give you hope!

Sustainable consumption

• Serve vegetarian meals on re-usable dishes (with a meat option if you feel this is necessary) - try to get it catered/donated from a place that uses organic food - hopefully local foods too! Consider having participants bring their own dishes if your venue does not have their own re-usable dishes
• If possible, contact a local Food Not Bombs chapter to provide food for one of your meals, and/or hold a hunger banquet
• Arrange for leftover conference food to be brought to a local soup kitchen instead of being thrown out
• Do as much registration online as possible to reduce paper (including mail outs)
• Have fair trade coffee, tea, hot-chocolate, sugar, etc with re-usable mugs
• Provide soymilk and vegan options
• Give sustainable prizes and thank you gifts (an acre of rainforest, low-flow showerhead, toilet dam, CFL, clothes-drying rack, a fair trade chocolate bar, organic garden seeds, donation to a charity of their choice, etc)
• Have participants and speakers calculate their ecological footprint, and offset it after they leave (contact Redefining Progress for some ideas on conference calculators).
• Have a transportation board on your conference website to facilitate car pooling, or group biking
• Give bus, train, and biking directions on the invite
• Invite local speakers and participants to reduce transportation emissions
• Give everyone cloth napkins from a thrift store so they don't have to use disposable ones (good as a hankie to blow their noses too!)
• Have everyone bring their own water bottle - have jugs of water and juice on the table with cups so as to avoid bottled water or pop cans
• Have bowls of fruits and other no-packaging snacks available throughout
• Have participants return their name tag holders for next year or bring old name tags from other conferences
• Print conference t-shirts on re-used, inside out, reprinted t-shirts (with the money saved, consider making a donation to an organization that fights sweatshop labour). If you think that used t-shirts won't fly - print on sweatshop-free, organic cotton tees
• Print all conference materials on re-used paper - or use tree-free paper or 100% recycled paper if "looking pretty" is super important
• Have participants make notepads out of re-used paper as an opening activity, then have participants use their notepad for their conference note-taking
• Have a composting area for food scraps, have local volunteers bring it home to their home composters
• Leave your venue more sustainable than you found it (get a sponsor to donate CFLs, low-flow toilets, composter, etc)
• Do a sustainability joy ride if applicable
• If the conference is held at a hotel, find the most sustainable one possible, asking for what measures they take to have the least impact
• Have participants bring their own soap and shampoo to avoid individually packaged hotel soaps
• Have participants bring tupperware to use in case they purchase take-out or fast food while they're travelling, or want to keep leftovers from conference meals
• Have everyone bring a reusable bag to carry any conference materials they may acquire
• Challenge participants to have staggered showers (turn the water on only to get wet and then again to rinse off) at the hotel, and consider skipping a shower on at least one of the days of the conference
• Encourage taking public transportation in the conference city if participants need to get around
• If you want to have conference mugs, give out conference stickers to stick on second-hand mugs (that they bring or you get from a thrift store)
• If the conference is only one day long, consider having it be a potluck
• Reduce your costs by holding the conference outdoors and/or camping
• Hold a Sustainability Games: split the group into teams touring a series of stations (garbage art contest, Adbusting skit-offs, etc), with the winner being awarded a sustainability prize of your choice
• Hold an Eco-Footprint Campout: have those delegates most dedicated to challenging how much of our footprint is based on our actual needs forego some of their luxuries for the night and participate in an Eco-Footprint Campout, in which tent and land space are divided up according to the different ecological footprints of different countries

Sustaining your group's energy

• As a conference planning team, put fun breaks into your meetings, and have a wacky sustainable outing together
• Have opening ceremonies every morning that include a wild energizer and music (hopefully the participants will bring instruments too!)
• Have crazy fun wake-up calls every morning to get people positive for the day

Sustaining the change generated by the conference

• During the planning process, invite participants to have input as to what content, speakers, and training they would benefit most from
• Have the development of concrete participant action plans be a part of the conference, and track and support these initiatives. Consider having people from the same region develop collective action plans
• Consider giving skills training workshops that will build participants' capacity to take action (potentially including public engagement, working with the media, and meeting facilitation)
• Have focus group discussions after each speaker to allow processing and fleshing out of new ideas
• Do a collective activity/challenge together: whether it be everyone writing letters to the prime minister, not showering for the week, or using their "spending money" to make a donation to a charity
• Have a forum for participants to learn from each other - best practices, lessons learned, etc - this can be achieved by splitting participants into smaller groups which meet every night to both share and process the conference

Sustaining the movement

• Work with other organizations to build on each other's knowledge and experience, and document your learnings for others to build upon
• Have scholarships/subsidies available for participants who can't pay the conference fees (or have a sliding scale)
• Extend your conference invitation beyond those people who come to every conference - try to get a wide range of experiences, ideas and backgrounds
• Consider doing a travelling conference! Taking your speakers/workshops on tour on bikes or a bus - thus reaching smaller communities and not just speaking to the "converted"
• Have a diversity of speakers - including very young and very old!
• When assigning rooms and sub-groups, mix everyone up so that everyone meets new people and cliques are broken down
• Create a listserve or web chat board for conference participants to chat afterwards and maintain their newly formed community

Having fun!

• Make "warm fuzzy" envelopes (used, of course!) for each program participant where people can leave other people thank-you notes and kind words
• Have participants contribute to the conference through their time (whether it be giving a workshop or helping in the kitchen)
• Put some hands-on creativity into the conference - whether through a talent show, or a theatre presentation, or a collective mural painting

Sustaining the Improvement of Conferences!

• Have a process (written and/or oral) for participants to give feedback about the conference and suggestions for next year (including improving its sustainability!)
• Add new ideas to this list for others by emailing info@otesha.ca!

Business and Sustainability in Argentina

For many people the word "business" brings the idea of massive production, advertisement, high buildings and exploitation of people; however, there is a new tendency in business that includes the concepts of water conservation, fair trade, energy efficiency, employees' wellness and local raw material. If business grows focused on the health of employees, community and environment, it will be producing and responding to a sustainable ethics, which values not just the product but the process.