2015 was an amazing year for us!

Not only I quit my permanent job to give my time fully to our mission: creating value for life to positively impact many people with lifechanging activities, technologies and social services.

We also coached dozens of students, entrepreneurs and leaders. We managed to serve more than 5000 people, amongst them refugees, mainly families, women and children fleeing from war. I even started a new venture to help homeless people and refugees to match supply better with their needs!

We're proud to have been nominated as best responsible and sustainable small business. We builded a value chain management framework for reuse of food, key to partnerships in the circular economy.

For 2016 we continu our journey to make impact by enabling you to build your own venture and realize your dream. We've planned to 10x our revenues and our sustainable and social outcomes.

Shall we do that together? Join our community by subscribing at value4life.nl and to like our profile. And you can still claim your free gift; personal coaching by me in January and an invitation to our High Value Mastermind group! Click here: http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c32334df63a8f7810cd3a9b44&id=b40e835a3b

We'll also reorganize our company to make our activities more clear. Value for Life will have three divisions:

* Elias Consulting: Sustainability Advisory and Value Chain Management
* Elias Ventures: Impact Entrepreneurs, Startups and Investing
* Elias Academics: Knowledge, Coaching and Training

Wishing you a happy, prosperous and valuable 2016!

Even to this day, people deny global warming and climate change due to human activity. But there is a huge consensus amongst climate scientists that the average global temperature is rising (0,85 degrees since 1880). The carbon dioxid concentrations show unprecedented and dangerously high levels. Recently it was revealed that a temperature rise of one degree instead of two degrees will cause serious problems.

As a matter of fact, we are already confronted with extreme heat and cold we haven't seen before. These extremes in weather - read droughts, sea level rise, hurricanes, floodings - already cause great negative impact on earths most vulnarable people in developing countries which urges those people to flee, as is the case in Africa or Bangladesh. It is believed that one of the causes for the Syrian conflict is drought and scarcity of water. And we'll face more human conflicts in the future due to nature. It costs corporates and societies billions of euros to adapt and mitigate risks from natural disasters. For example, the Netherlands will spend 12 billion in higher levees in the years coming.

Not taking action is irresponsible. Even so is to get stranded in a discussion with climate sceptici. Changing our behaviour and economy is most needed. Lowering greenhouse gass emissions alone however, even to the levels of 1990, is not enough. We have to make path for innovative solutions, sustainable energy and a circular economy. Other ways of living and working. An economy that goes hand in hand with ecology. That's what the people walking the ‪Climate March call at. That's what needs to be the outcome of the Paris summit.

De appel komt uit Nieuw-Zeeland, en heeft dus een lange weg afgelegd om hier in de winkel terecht te komen. Zeker als voor het transport het vliegtuig is gebruikt, zal de carbon footprint hoog zijn. De CO2-uitstoot per appel is vele malen hoger dan een lokaal geproduceerde appel. Dat is onnodig, want een appel uit de buurt schaadt niet alleen het milieu minder, hij zal ook veel goedkoper zijn!

Wil je duurzaam voedsel produceren of inkopen en je klanten een echt duurzaam product voorschotelen, onderzoek dan de impact in de hele keten, verzamel informatie en vraag je toeleveranciers de duurzaamheid aan te tonen en hierover te rapporteren. Een tip hierbij is om biologische producten te kopen en die zoveel mogelijk lokaal te halen.