A Kinder way to change the world

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If you glanced at our home page without knowing anything about Kinder, our vetting framework or our Charity zone, you’d probably wonder what’s the connection between the topics we cover. From the future of aviation to meat alternatives passing by philanthropy and the charitable sector at large, we do write about an array of different, loosely-related themes.

However, there’s a strong, common thread running through all our articles and that is the question “how can we effectively contribute to a Kinder (=fair, sustainable and peaceful) world?

To an extent, it’s a question that echoes the mission of Robert Baden Powell, the founder of scouting: “Try to leave this world a little bit better than you found it.”

The key here is "a little bit". We’re not superheroes. Nobody is. And we can achieve the goal of leaving a Kinder world only if we work together. 

But how can we make this goal more tangible? What does it mean to work towards a Kinder world? For the United Nations, the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by all Member States in 2015, provide a blueprint to create the global society of tomorrow.

The goals are ambitious (“end poverty in all its forms everywhere”), all-encompassing (they range from economic growth to climate change), and awfully urgent (we’re supposed to achieve them by 2030).

Side note: Kinder-vetted organisation Restless Development says that we can’t even dream of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals on time if we don’t empower youth people. Support Restless Development to help young people lead in solving some of the world’s greatest challenges by donating to them via our widget 👇

So, we were saying...the Goals. The UN made a good job breaking them down in concrete, easy-to-measure targets. With the expression “Kinder World” we imagine, more or less, the world envisioned by the United Nations with the Goals.

Thing is, for us individual citizens, those goals and targets are still pretty abstract. That’s where the articles you find on kinder.world come in.

In a way, with our articles, we try to discover how we, global citizens, can help achieving those Goals in our daily lives. But, you may wonder, how to go about it? We have in mind two solutions.

1) Donating a part of our income to transparent and accountable organisations that are working, directly or indirectly, to achieve the Goals.
2) Raising awareness about how we can impactfully change our lifestyle to reduce the world's carbon footprint.

Let’s start from the first solution. As you may know, we devised a vetting framework to highlight organisations that are working on urgent problems in a transparent and accountable manner (if you’re part of a charitable organisations and want to know how we can help you, please have a look here). Now, through our articles on kinder.world, we’re gonna profile and promote the organisations that we consider particularly worthy of your donations. The idea is to help readers navigate the mare magnum of the nonprofit sector and maximize the positive impact of your charitable bucks. With our nifty widget and other similar tools you'll be able to easily donate to the organisation of your choice (just scroll up and try it out for yourself donating 2 € to Restless Development).

But, wait, before you run away thinking you have no money to spare on silly donations, consider that you can help save the world even without spending a single dime. Actually, you may even save some money along the way. All you need to do is adjust your lifestyle. 

Trains are way less polluting than planes. They're more romantic, too

Several studies indicate that ditching meat and avoiding air travel are among the most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Animal farming is notoriously bad for the environment (and, well, for the 56 billion animals slaughtered annually for meat consumption) and flying, according to a report published in October by the UK Committee on Climate Change, is nothing less than “the quickest and cheapest way for a consumer to increase their carbon footprint.” 

That's why we're rooting for meat alternatives like cultured steaks and plant-based burgers and supporting trains and other sustainable modes of transportation.

And that's why you may find an article about the new night train Amsterdam-Vienna next to a story about the future of philantropy. They're simply different means to the same end: making the world a Kinder place.

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