We can accomplish this by reuniting a global community of citizens who believe that supporting brands that are engaged in environmental stewardship by sponsoring nature cleanup projects (far beyond window-dressing), is the way to drive lasting change to our great outdoors.

We have literally hundreds of remarkable pre-planned cleanup projects waiting around the globe, thousands of volunteers praying to get our “go-ahead” emails and some stunning, measurable results only hours away.

We need only one thing. People.

Hundreds of thousands.

So in 2010, if you’d like to take part in some action to get our outdoors cleaned up, I am asking you to do one thing. Spread the word.

It’s not about your money. It’s not about giving hours of your time. It’s not about your identity.

It’s just saying, by joining, that you believe the outdoors needs to be cleaned up. And if a brand makes this possible, all they need is a “thumbs up”.

Simple, but powerful.

So, my promise to you for this New Year is this: the more people that signup, the more your playground is going to look, smell & feel better!

Ping me anytime at mail (at) laneo (dot) org

From all of us at Laneo, we wish you and your family, joy, peace and health in 2010.

Andrew Paterson, Founder

The Wandle Trust is a UK Environmental Charity that was founded in 2001, dedicated to restoring and maintaining the health of South London’s River Wandle and its catchment. Their primary work is holding community river cleanups on the second Sunday of every month, up and down this unique urban chalkstream – pulling out everything from shopping trolleys to shotguns, and improving the environment for birds, fish, insects and local people. They also help to re-engage children with their home environment through their annual Trout in the Classroom Project, which has featured for several years in succession on the BBC’s London Newsround. Additionally, they engage, involve and communicate with local people, to generate empowerment, ownership and sustainable community stewardship for the River Wandle as well as, build partnerships and work on facilitation to form strong, sustainable partnerships with other strategic organisations concerned with the health of the River Wandle, and facilitate the achievement of common goals.

The cleanup took place between 11 am and 3 pm on Sunday 13th December 2009 and saw 44 volunteers pulling rubbish from a section of the River Wandle in Merton. After a comprehensive health and safety briefing everyone got stuck straight in. They hadn’t run a cleanup at this location before, so there was plenty of rubbish including three motorbikes, the remnants of several bicycles still padlocked together and a car seat! There was also so much carpet that you would have thought the river bed was underlain by it rather than gravels and they tried to reserve judgement on where it might have come from – despite the large carpet store nearby!

In total they pulled around 15m3 of rubbish, weighing approximately 3 tonnes, from a 50 m stretch of the river, check out their blog for more details > Merton Cleanup.

The Wandle Trust is exceedingly grateful to ORIGINAL BUFF and LANEO for sponsoring this event. It means that they can fund further cleanups along the River Wandle and get more local volunteers involved, making the river and its surrounding environment an even more pleasant place to enjoy in the heart of London.

For more information on the Original Buff® Environmental Stewardship program, please go here > Buff/Environment

Next stop on the Original Buff® European Cleanup Tour will be near Barcelona (Spain) in a few weeks, check back here to our Blog and on Facebook and Twitter for more news !

Association OSE is a French NGO that was founded in 1990, it’s mission is to clean the Seine waterway and tributaries through waste collection on the banks and leading fields, floating debris, stagnant water waste and especially, picking up trapped waste in difficult-to-access wooded and overhung areas. OSE also organizes information fairs to increase awareness and they develop educational activities in partnership with local schools to include young people in their events.

Around 90 people attended the cleanup with many new volunteers from all over the Paris region. Starting at 08h30, participants gathered at the docks in Ivry and proceeded to collect waste hidden amongst the foliage along the shoreline and soon landed upon a huge pile of garbage that had accumulated over the months that took close to an hour to clear! Then the group moved down to Villeneuve St.Georges where the barge ” Le Silure” was waiting with 4 one-ton skips in it’s hold that were filled without difficulty containing non-hazardous products such as beer bottles and soda cans, plastic bottles and detergent containers, polysterene and even shopping carts and the team finished the morning around 11h30 – proud to have left the Seine cleaner and anxious to move on to the next project in the spring.

Thanks to the direct support of Original Buff®, the repetitive action of Association OSE has a considerable effect on the cleanliness of Seine and continues to influence thousands of bordering citizens to take daily action to keep our outdoors beautiful!

For more information on the Original Buff® Environmental Stewardship program, please go here > Buff/Environment

Next stop on the Original Buff® European Cleanup Tour will be near London (UK) in a few weeks, check back here to our Blog and on Facebook and Twitter for more news !

Buff® is the brand of an innovative, useful, comfortable, fun, multi-functional garment that will keep off the sun, wind or cold. It can be worn in loads of different ways: as a scarf, cap, headscarf, facemask, balaclava, headband, wristband… and as many other ways as you can think up. Buff® is a versatile article that can be worn during any sport or outdoor activity, even as a daily clothing accessory. Original Buff S.A. is a company established in Igualada, a small city 60 kms from Barcelona where its headquarters, design, production, printing, publicity campaigns and packaging are all carried out. Founded in 1992, Original Buff currently exports to over 45 countries through exclusive distributors.

Original Buff® has decided to support Environmental Restoration worldwide by funding measurable actions through the sale of a new environmentally friendly product: Wool Buff®. 1% of sales of this innovative product will be used to fund Environmental Cleanup projects around the world, selected and managed by Laneo which should equate to between 10 – 15 hands on, community organized cleanup projects sponsored annually.

Laneo is extremely proud of this eco-collaboration because it demonstrates just how much a brand, such as Original Buff®, by communicating it’s core values in participating directly in environmental cleanups can contribute substantially to answering one of the issues that is cherished by their customers; restoring our outdoor playground!

We give a “thumbs up” to the Original Buff® Management Team for their outdoor values, their company’s environmental stewardship and their confidence in our concept.

We’ll be keeping you updated on every Original Buff® sponsored cleanup event in the upcoming months on this blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Please help by spreading this news by clicking on the “AddThis” bar on the bottom right of this post!

What we needed was a simple page to outline what LANEO is, how to get involved and for those that are interested gaining support for their cleanups, how to get in touch with us, while we’re working on the new site.

Our “West Coast” Team (who you’ll be meeting soon) came up with this nice simple design and we really like the “before” – “after” effect when you mouse over the FACEBOOK & TWITTER logos. We’d like to point out that the simple fact of signing up as a “fan” or a “follower” really shows our partners that you want to “take action” and that in itself, could literally have the same effect as the photos, as you’ll soon see !!

LANEO is an innovative organization with a simple mission: We’re cleaning up the planet.

So come on – join us, together we’re going to make a difference !

Andrew Paterson / Founder

Now it’s time to take an exciting leap forward. Laneo has been lucky to have an incredible group of supporters who jumped on board right from the moment we launched. These are our premier members and sponsors, and we can’t thank you enough! We’ve also got a great behind-the-scenes team that continues to make this all possible.

And while we have some terrific partners, notably LOOK CYCLES, ORIGINAL BUFF & GOLITE, many other colleagues in a wide variety of corporations, especially the outdoor sports industry, have been a little slower to embrace Laneo’s innovative business model. We’ve offered these companies an opportunity to not just talk the eco-friendly talk, but also to walk a path that will truly serve the planet.

So now it’s time to step back, recover and prepare for the next phase. Before year-end 2009, we’ll be back in action and looking better than ever. We can’t say much more, but get ready for more tools, more hands-on experiences, and more opportunities to make a real impact on the world around you. We’ll be ready to regain our position as the worlds premiere online eco-outdoor community, taking action for our planet.

In the meantime, there are lots of ways to keep up with Laneo. You can attend, plan or participate in Laneo Camps in Europe and around the world. These are hands-on projects for the planet developed and run by people just like you!

You can also check us out on Facebook, Twitter, or through the Laneo Blog.

Most of all, we want to hear from you. Please send your comments, photos, ideas and suggestions. Whether you’re an outdoor enthusiast, an eco-minded company, an environmental organization or just someone who’s simply excited to help restore and protect our beautiful planet, Laneo is designed for you.

Drop me a line anytime at mail (at) laneo.org.

Sincerely,

Andrew Paterson
Founder, Laneo

Laneo & Mountain Riders Cleanup from Andrew Paterson on Vimeo.

We’re asking the Outdoor Brands we all admire to show some real outdoor leadership during the largest annual Tradeshow in Europe by joining Laneo to gather garbage and restore the shoreline of beautiful Lake Constance during the evening of Saturday July 18th. Last year we collected 1.2 tons of waste in this protected shoreline zone for endangered plants and animals – and recycled 85% of the rubbish – with only a handful of participating brands, this year we hope to do more.

Plus, we’ve got additional backing as we’ve been endorsed by the Lord Mayor of Friedrichshafen and the 2009 OutDoor Show Commissioner with a special notice on their website here > SUPPORTING PROGRAMME.

We hope some brands will even invite their customers along and especially, give their teams some real outdoor motivation. We provide the organization, security and refreshments and ALL the proceeds benefit local cleanup initiatives, a great tribute to the town and people of Friedrichshafen that host this enormous event every year.

We’re hoping that some delegates are going to want to get outside, breathe some fresh air and feel proud of their brand and themselves; after all, what’s the use of talking green without taking real action?

For more news, follow this blog, the LANEO CAMPS and TWITTER !

The upcoming cleanup is being held at the stunning BAIA DE CASCAIS on the western tip of Lisbon on Saturday May 30th.

We discovered this organization early this year and immediately signed on as partners. The people behind this growing community, especially our friend Gabriel NEVES, are examples for society; they devote an enormous amount of their time (as volunteers) to not only pursuing their environmental goals of restoring underwater habitats but also, bringing more and more people to understand that damage is taking place in places “they can’t see” (under the surface of the ocean). For those that can’t get their minds around Scuba Diving (they do this for free), the Divetek team makes sure that they “bring the ocean back to them” in form of underwater videos and “land events” to show and teach people what’s happening and of course, getting them involved in fun events like the one this week-end.

We were scheduled to go down and DIVE with them and meet the rest of their team and our Portuguese LANEO Members but sadly, last minute priorities came up here in Paris and we were forced to call in with a “rain check” :-(

PROJECTMAR will be widely promoted on our upcoming website and we’ll be going down to take part in the event in August in PORTO COVO so stay tune for news on this weekends event and the upcoming one’s – you’re going to be VERY impressed with what you’re going to see !!

For more info and live coverage of the event, check out their website here > http://www.projectmar.eu

Boa sorte para a equipa maravilhoso PROJECTMAR este fim de semana !

This year LANEO is a supporting partner and we’re proud to be sponsoring and especially, TAKING PART in these events (more info on this blog and especially in the upcoming NEW website !!). We’ll be doing some interviews with participants and organizers, especially Jeremie PICHON, the man not only lives and breathes true outdoor mantra but is one of the chief architects and eco-energizers behind this very successful organization that is doing wonders to the French Alps !

These are fabulous events and last year more than 2,500 people took part and removed over 30 tons of garbage, “discovered” after the snow melted :-( So, if you’re looking for something to do with family and friends in absolutely stunning scenery and want to feel good about your outdoors, check out the ACTION CALENDAR and signup for an event !

MOUNTAIN RIDERS works with the actors of mountain stations to promote alternatives for sustainable development and the development of sustainable tourism. The association works with professionals (ski lifts, providers, merchants, industrialists), elected officials, tourism offices and town / city halls because change is only possible with dialog among various levels of decision makers and collective action. Their goal is not to moralize but to inform and make change happen through a number of solutions and actions such as: Booths at events, School events, Themed conferences, Waste collection, Green Guide for Sustainable Development Stations mountain etc.

Check them out on their website http://www.mountain-riders.org and ping us under this post or on TWITTER if you plan to attend, we’d love to meet up and spend some time with you !