Ben Jelen is an extraordinary singer-songwriter with a passion for the environment. This passion is infused throughout his music - check out the video of his single “Wreckage” below - and his life - his tour is carbon neutral. We’re thrilled and delighted to have Ben join us today and share his thoughts on FIJI Water, the Ben Jelen Foundation, recycling, and what we can all do to help care for our planet. Ladies and gentlemen, here’s Ben Jelen…

FIJI WATER

What interests me most in Fiji water is that they are a carbon-negative company — this means that their net activities actually reduce carbon emissions!! - how is that even possible?

To understand, I imagined a world without Fiji water, where their company had not existed. In this world, there was no effort to replant old rainforest. In this world there was no profit set aside to offset carbon emissions — no money put into offset programs that plant trees and build infrastructure for clean energy. In fact this world had the island of Fiji exporting timber, depleting the beautiful Sovi basin. Fiji water shows us that any company, even one that is up against a literal ocean’s worth of emissions can still have a positive impact on the environment. It takes real dedication and I applaud them for setting this example.

Taking advantage of new advances in green technology, Fiji water fits into my philosophy on Environmentalism - they are targeting a way of operating cleanly, realizing it takes time to get there, so starting now. Fiji water is not abandoning their business, but taking something that is part of the problem and turning it into a solution.

It is in this train of philosophy that I have started the Ben Jelen Foundation. As a musical artist consistently writing and talking about these problems, the foundation has been an amazing outlet for me, and a real way of helping with the environmental issues out there, focusing on solutions rather than problems. We kicked the foundation off at South by Southwest earlier this 2008 and it was a great success - since, I’ve continued to raise money - the money will be donated to the four following areas, with the specific recipients changing from time to time.

• Education: Local (New York) education of teens on environmental issues.
• Political: Donations to groups that lobby for environmental protection at the political level.
• Humanitarian: Give to those worse affected by climate change.
• Investment: Continue the long process of investing in clean energy infrastructure.

We’re excited to partner with Fiji water, talk about the issues and watch our progress - Something we can all help out with now is to recycle all plastics. Once the product is in our hands we do also have the responsibility of ‘completing the cycle.’

Please enjoy the video for my song “Wreckage” - This song is about hope, that the choice of taking care of our planet is very much in our hands. I’m so glad to see companies change the landscape from the inside out, its exciting and real!

For any more info, visit www.benjelen.com/foundation

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, Community, Conservation, Packaging, Recycling, Transparency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.