It was an historic moment as Jamie Cullum took to the stage in the Place du Casino for the Red Cross Summer Concert on Friday night, watched on by the Princely family.
After many years at the Sporting Monte-Carlo, the event this year took on a new name and a new location. Under the starry summer sky in the Place du Casino, guests gathered for what was the first major concert in Monaco since the pandemic began. It was also the first time the redesigned Casino Square has been transformed into an open-air entertainment venue since it was unveiled in 2020.
Prince Albert II of Monaco was joined for the occasion by his sister Caroline, Princess of Hanover, Pierre Casiraghi, Andrea Casiraghi, Charlotte Casiraghi-Rassam and Gareth Wittstock.
Among the guests was legendary singer Dame Shirley Bassey, the 84-year-old looking effortlessly chic in a black trouser suit.
Art works by acclaimed artists Laurence Jenkell and Nick Danzinger were offered in support of the charity. Red Cross Summer Concert featuring Jamie Callum by Palais Princier/Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer
The Red Cross was established in 1948 by Prince Louis II, and the gala has been an opportunity to showcase its ongoing daily action among the most vulnerable over the past 73 years.
The missions of the Monaco Red Cross are to save lives and prepare the general population for disasters, to support all people in need without discrimination and to lead awareness-raising and preventive actions in the humanitarian sector. It acts both nationally and internationally.
It is supported and guided by HSH Prince Albert II.
Video by Palais Princier/Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer Shirley Bassey at the Red Cross Summer Concert by Palais Princier/Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer HSH Prince Albert II and Caroline Princess of Hanover with Mr and Mrs Gareth Wittstock, Charlotte Casiraghi-Rassam, Andrea and Tatiana Casiraghi, Beatrice and Pierre Casiraghi by Palais Princier HSH Prince Albert II and Caroline Princess of Hanover with Frederic Platini, Pierre Dartout, Jean-Luc Biamonti and Bettina Ragazzoni-Janin by Palais Princier HSH Prince Albert II and artist Laurence Jenk by Palais Princier Café de Paris all dressed up for the Red Cross Summer Concert, by Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer Photo by Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer Photo of Jamie Cullum in concert by Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer Photo of Jamie Cullum by Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer
“OMD is about changing One Meal a Day to a plant-based dish, and it is enough to make a huge difference to our water and carbon footprint, as well as our health,” says American environmental advocate, author and former actress Suzy Amis Cameron.
Who is Suzy Amis Cameron? Before becoming an environmental advocate and going plant-based, Suzy had a career working as a model and actress since the age of 17. She appeared in many movies including the award-winning Titanic with Director James Cameron. She soon fell in love with and later married James, and focused on raising their family of five children. In 2012, the Camerons decided to change their eating habits and become completely plant-based. With James and Suzy’s strong sustainable values, they believe it is impossible to identify as an environmentalist while eating meat. They are literally walking their talk and letting everyone know about it.
Meanwhile, Suzy and her sister Rebecca founded Muse School, now Muse Global School – Calabasas, which is the first school to become 100% solar powered, have zero waste, and have a 100% plant-based lunch program for the students. The school has now emerged into Muse Virtual, a K-12 online school which drew national and worldwide recognition for its innovative approach to education, fostering graduates who become bold leaders who are engaged with the world around them. Along with meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, they implement the three R’s: Recycle, Reduce and Reuse by growing their own food, composting, reducing water and producing their own energy. Muse Virtual reduces their carbon footprint while teaching the children how to help and not harm the planet. This school is the future. Suzy, leading the way with her plant-based movement, is the author of the book The OMD Plan, in which she invites her readers to swap “one meal a day” to save their health and save the planet. This book is a fun read and offers quick and easy steps to follow, including healthy meal swaps, recipes, shopping lists and more. Monaco Life: What prompted you to start eating plant based?
Suzy Amis Cameron: On 6th May 2012, I watched Forks Over Knives, and it blew me away. I had a friend that had been plant-based and he had been telling me for about nine months: “You know Suzy, you’ve got to watch Forks Over Knives.” So, one day while I was on the treadmill I grabbed it and put it into the DVD player and after about 10 minutes I had to get off the treadmill. I was so gut punched that I had been lied to, and advertised to my whole life that we needed to eat meat to be strong and we needed milk to have strong bones. It’s completely the opposite of that. Once I finished watching it, I went up to the house to find Jim and told him we were going to watch a movie tomorrow. From the time we sat down with a couple of the kids, to the time the movie finished, we didn’t say a word. Afterwards, Jim said, “We shouldn’t have any more animal products in the house”.
The following day, the whole kitchen was completely cleaned out. That’s just how we roll. So, what happened after you immediately decided that you were going to stop eating all dairy products and meat?
Then we decided that everybody else in the world needed to do the same thing. We really learned the hard way; we got up on our soap boxes and started preaching because we felt so great. We had so much energy and we had all the science behind it. Jim has cancer, heart disease and diabetes on his side of the family, and I do too. We wanted all of our loved ones to know about it. We made up gift bags with DVDs, books and vegan snacks and shipped them off to everyone. Well, it arrived like a bomb. No one wanted to hear about it. People thought we were crazy and that we were on to some weird California thing. People would see us coming and would want to turn around and run away because that’s all we wanted to talk about. We were like born again vegans.
Watching Forks Over Knives was a huge tipping point for Jim, but it also put me on this trajectory of my new purpose in life.
I had been working with the largest environmental NGO in the United States for about a decade and learned about the environmental issues, from dead zones to biodiversity loss, deforestation, ocean acidification, melting glaciers, I mean everything that you can ever imagine, but no one had ever said a word about animal agriculture.
It wasn’t until we had watched Forks Over Knives that Jim started giving me books, maybe two or three at a time, and talked to me about how devastating animal agriculture was on the environment. Suzy Amis Cameron How was going plant-based at Muse School received by the students and families?
Once we decided that we couldn’t call ourselves an environmental school and still be serving animal products, it took 18 months to educate the kids, teachers and parents on why we wanted to become a vegan school. We had a speaker series with a new speaker every month, either a doctor, a climate scientist, an athlete, an author or a chef, and they spent the day talking to the children about plant-based lifestyles in a developmentally appropriate way. In the evenings we would have adults and families come and offer them a glass of wine and beautiful plant-based meals. After 18 months, in the fall of 2015, we opened our doors and were 100% plant-based. We immediately lost 50% of our kids overnight. We thought we had done everything right. Where did you get the name for your book, The OMD Plan?
One day, our head of school was very frustrated with the families and said: “You can give the kids what you want for breakfast and dinner, but at school it’s one meal a day. It’s OMD”. So that’s where OMD came from. How did you manage to pull it together and what are you most proud of with this project?
The good story that comes out of that is we quickly regained our enrolment and we surpassed it and started having families move to the area from all over the United States and quite a few people from Europe.
Muse became the first plant-based School in North America and potentially worldwide because no one raised their hands and said they were first. That was a feather in our cap and also pushed us over the edge for something called the ‘Green Restaurant Award’. We beat the number one green restaurant by 600 points because we were solar powered, and the water and carbon footprint of being plant-based is so much lower than animal products, which became our pledge for OMD.
The whole premise of OMD is one person changing only one of their meals a day to a plant-based meal for one year saves two hundred thousand gallons of water and the carbon equivalent of driving from Los Angeles to New York (4,500 km), so the savings are astronomical if you think about it.
Meanwhile, 80% of all diseases are caused by the exploitation of animals. So, if we want to avoid pandemics in the future and stay healthy during pandemics, being plant-based is absolutely the way to go. Now more than ever people are shifting to a new state of consciousness, and are aware of the fact that change is needed for the future of our planet. How do you feel about society’s consciousness of our planet since the outbreak of Covid-19?
We were only able to hypothesize what would happen to our planet if we took millions of cars off the roads and if we quit flying so much. Now suddenly we have seen fish in the Venice canals, Los Angeles’ air quality was the best in the United States during the lockdown, Beijing’s air cleared up. It gave us the window into “What if?”. Also, because pantry food lasts longer, more people were eating plant-based than they realised, by using tomato sauce or beans and rice. Why was it important for OMD to suggest easy food swaps and nutritious recipes?
The beauty of OMD is it’s not about being perfect, it’s an invitation to dip your toe in and just give it a go.
You can try different recipes and there are so many easy swaps to do. For breakfast, you can use oat, soy or almond milk for your cereal or coffee instead of cow’s milk. For lunch, you can add tomato sauce to your pasta instead of a meat sauce. You can make a grilled bean and veggie burrito instead of a beef or chicken burrito. There are so many easy tricks you can do, and the book is full of ideas and recipes. How did the students and children react to the shift to eating plant-based meals and practices like recycling?
We took the 18 months to transition and did it in a way where we used plant-based Meats, Garden chicken and we had Burger Day where we had Beyond burgers and things like that. Because it is an environmental school, there is a thread of sustainability that goes through absolutely everything that they do. The campus itself is sustainable. The paint is 0 v o c, the borders around the doors and the windows are made from recycled wood.
It’s 100% solar powered, our water usage is low, and we have zero waste. If you come on site with a single-use coffee cup you will probably have a child come up to you and say that doesn’t belong here. You will not find a single plastic bottle. How many students are enrolled at Muse School?
We had about 230 students pre-Covid, starting from two years old all the way through to 18 years on two campuses. Because of Covid, we are now Muse virtual, and we have kids from around the world. Tell us about some of the school programs.
We have a very robust seed to table program, so the children learn how to plant, grow, harvest, prepare and then compost. Some parents say: “My kid doesn’t eat anything green, so good luck”. But there’s this positive peer pressure thing going on. So, they show up kind of pale and their eyes are a little bit dead, but within a month into they’ve got rosy cheeks and they’re eating green beans off the vine. Kids will say “hey man, look at this carrot, isn’t it great?”, and some kids say, “I don’t like carrots”, but they encourage the others to try it.
We started getting calls from parents asking things like how to plant a raised bed garden, or how to compost. So, we created an entire program to teach parents how to do composting and put in gardens and how to cook plant-based meals. We still have an online cooking show that we do with our chef. Suzy Amis Cameron Parents are always concerned about making sure kids get enough protein. What can you say about that?
It comes up all the time. People ask if their child’s brain will develop properly, will they be getting enough protein. The bottom line is that there is a protein obsession around the world. People think that we need two, three or four times the amount of protein than we actually need.
If a child is eating a very colourful diet, then they are getting the right amount of protein. If they are eating lentils, beans and chickpeas and lots of grains, they’re getting enough protein. If a parent is nervous about it, they can make a smoothie and chuck some plant-based protein powder in it. Kids love smoothies. Now, there are many options. In 2012 when we went plant based, there were not that many options.
Now, a large part of my job is to create and change the supply chain and people’s consumer behaviour patterns. The plant-based industry is the largest growing sector in the food industry. In the last three years, it has grown astronomically by 250 per cent. Even the meat industry is investing in plant-based alternatives, and the dairy industry is investing in plant-based milks. It’s not a trend anymore, it’s the future of food.
The bottom line is we can not feed the planet and humankind with animals. It just won’t work with the amount of land and water that is needed to grow one pound of meat, which is about one acre of land.
We were able to calculate here on our farm that we can get one tonne of meat per year or we could get thirty tonnes of vegetables. It is the same amount of land but with a quarter of the water – a one to 30 ratio. As the founder of the plant-based ventures Verdient Foods, Cameron Family Farms, Food Forest Organics and Plant Power Task Force, what can you tell us about animal agriculture and what it’s doing to our planet?
What people don’t realise is that animal agriculture is the leading cause of greenhouse gases and climate change, more than all transportation combined. It accounts for 14.5%, compared to 4% for jet travel
Animal agriculture is a huge problem, not only because are the animals suffering, but also our health.
After writing OMD and working with the brain trust of doctors that I was so grateful to be able to work with, I discovered that only about 4-5% of diseases are genetic. The rest of them are created by what you’re eating and lifestyle.
Colin Campbell’s 40-year research project called The China Study looked at what everybody was eating. Peasants were eating a plant-based diet because they couldn’t afford meat, and they were the healthiest in the country.
The people who lived in the affluent areas were the ones that had cancer, heart disease, diabetes and autoimmune issues.
They call it the affluent disease. As you know, I am an animal advocate and I am concerned about species extinction, which brings me to my next question… What do you believe is the biggest reason for loss of biodiversity and species extinction?
Making room for animals/cows to graze and/or clearing spaces to grow corn and soy to feed the animals. It is mind-blowing how many forests are cleared to feed these animals. The Amazon is a perfect example. They clear massive amounts of rain forests to grow corn and soy, and 80% to 90% of it goes to feed animals. Imagine how many people that can be fed from this corn and soy?
It’s all about the burger. Biodiversity loss is the result of people’s taste buds, because we’ve been told our whole lives that we need meat and dairy, meanwhile they’re clear-cutting forests left and right and centre in the Amazon. In your opinion, how can we motivate people collectively to make a change? The OMD Plan invites people to change one meal a day, and to have flexibility by being able to just dip your toe in and try one plant-based meal a day. It’s an invitation into a whole new way of living and you don’t have to be perfect.
When I was on my book tour, people would say, “Don’t take away my burger away, don’t tell me what I can eat it”. People get very territorial because it’s comfort food, or tradition or cultural.
But when I started explaining that this is just changing one meal a day, all of a sudden everybody relaxed and started saying “ok that sounds easy, I can do that”. In my interview with Oprah, she said: “well that’s graspable, I can wrap my brain around that one”. Then people realise that after they’ve had a plant-based meal, they don’t fall into a food coma and have that mid-morning or afternoon dip, or they don’t have indigestion.
Typically, what happens is people will try one meal a day and then they’ll feel so great that they’ll transition to two meals a day.
So many people say, “I don’t know what I can do for climate change” or “there’s really nothing I can do as an individual.”
But with OMD, every time you put food on your plate, if it’s plant-based, you are helping your health and the environment. If you’re putting animal products on your plate, you’re hurting your health, the environment and the animals.
Local private bank CMB Monaco has announced that it will continue to allow its employees to work from home even as Covid restrictions are being lifted, giving workers flexibility and lessening overall stress.
CMB Monaco was one of the first banks to react at the start of the pandemic by creating a telework programme so that the chain between clients and bankers was unbroken. The vast majority of the bank’s 265 employees were working in this manner throughout the health crisis.
Now that the worst seems to have passed, the bank has decided to carry on using this method of working in a post-Covid environment, extending the offer to 64% of their employees to work from home one or two days per week.
The decision to embark on this experiment was based on several factors. First, the bank’s clientele became accustomed to communicating remotely with their financial advisors. This new comfort factor has allowed the bank to give customers the same experience and service, but now in a different way.
The second is that employees have found telecommuting to be more productive and generally less stressful. Commutes take their toll mentally and eliminating them a few days a week has been found to boost concentration, making for an overall better work-life balance.
The final reason is in line with the philosophy of the Principality. This is the environmental impact of fewer commuters on the road. The reduction in pollution caused by employee’s cars as well as the lessening of road traffic combine to be a significant benefit to the environment.
CMB’s Chief Executive Officer, Francesco Grosoli says he is “convinced that we are facing a radical change and a key turning point. It is utopian to think that we can and should go back to business as usual before the pandemic.” He added that, “We have been able to reinvent ourselves and even achieve excellent results in a tumultuous and unprecedented period. It is now up to us to reinvent tomorrow’s world of work together.”
Get a glimpse into one of Europe’s most tumultuous and least explored treasures with the exhibition ‘Belarus: History Through Art’ at the Espace 22 Gallery this summer.
The Eastern European nation of Belarus has a long tradition of music, dance, literature, and art, though it has been mostly overshadowed by its western neighbours. The country that gave the world Marc Chagall has much to offer on the cultural front, and with the new exhibit coming to Espace 22, ‘Belarus: History Through Art’, they are definitely ready to show the world the wonders of this centrally located European country.
Running from 30th July to 9th August, the show will feature paintings, sculpture and photos which present striking architectural features of the country’s buildings, interesting cultural snippets and the general beauty of the landlocked nation that has only existed in its current form since after World War II, when it became one of the 51 founding members of the United Nations. Belarusian folklore through proverbs collection
The free event will see 20 exhibitors, some native Belarusian and others who have adopted the country, including Paris-based award-winning photojournalist Paul Dza who travelled recently to Belarus to cover recent events in the country. His photo of soldiers posted in front of a government building is particularly haunting and shows a stark contrast with the lovely, welcoming modern building in the background. He will be displaying a collection of his photos from his time in the country.
The event’s organisers, Pavel and Natalia Bairstow of Bairstow Monaco Consulting, are gearing it toward not only introducing the public to the art of the country, but also to raising awareness about what life is currently like there.
The country has been under sanctions due to human rights violations and the violent repression of civil society, democratic opposition and journalists, as well as to the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk on 23rd May 2021 and the resulting detention of journalists Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega.
Mr Bairstow has told Monaco Life that as a result, “several artists and photographers had to send in their art from Belarus because they physically could not travel as Belarus is under travel sanctions from the EU because of the elections and the grounding of the Ryanair plane.” The artists specifically asked to remain anonymous out of fear of government retaliation.
Amongst those who are able to freely exhibit are Olga Yakubouskaya, whose works are symbols for the return of peace, and Ekaterina Zagorodniaya, whose pieces contain traditional proverbs and outfits.
Top photo by award-winning photojournalist Paul Dza
As part of Monaco Art week, Monaco start-up ArtPeople has launched a digital platform for connecting collectors and buyers in a whole new way.
The ArtPeople digital platform is giving art lovers an online alternative to viewing and buying pieces, highlighting the extraordinary growth of this once-niche market of the art sales world.
Founder Jeremy Biermann, architect and art enthusiast, started ArtPeople after designing numerous exhibition stands for galleries at international fairs such as Design Miami/Basel, Masterpiece London, and PAD London, collaborating with his wife Deborah who worked for a prestigious auction house and ran a gallery in Monaco.
Jeremy saw a gap in the art world that was expounded by the restrictions the pandemic imposed on face-to-face meetings and travel, and created ArtPeople to fill in that blank spot.
“In the digital age, our professional experience has allowed us to understand the most important element in this market: trust, in particular between collectors, dealers, specialists and service providers,” says Jeremy Biermann. “Our mission was to make the art world prosper in a new digital reality where Internet users do not limit themselves to consulting information but actively contribute to its creation.”
Member collectors have access to a directory of services in addition to the pieces themselves that include finding framers, insurers, experts and transport companies, whilst art world professionals now have the ability to reach out to collectors and service providers at an unprecedented level to increase visibility and expand their markets.
Based on the LinkedIn model, users of the platform can also share their experiences and opinions, complete with rating systems, and can create and schedule online or real-time events, make appointments, and create their own profile.
Monegasque company Fintech KeeSystem, which specialises in digital tools dedicated to wealth management for independent companies and family offices around the world, is extending its shareholding with Ebene, the Luxembourg-based holding company of the Dalmaz family.
Pierre Dalmaz’s family holding company Ebene has just acquired 75% of the shares of Monaco-based Fintech KeeSystem from Chairman and Founder Pierre-Alexandre Rousselot. Rousselot will continue to manage and develop KeeSystem with their new partner’s support.
Founded in 2009, fintech KeeSystem was a pioneer start-up of MonacoTech, the incubator created by Xavier Niel, Monaco Telecom and the Prince’s government, to meet the needs of wealth managers while preparing the expanded digital world of the future.
Since its inception, KeeSystem, Monaco’s first wealthtech, has continued to expand to other major financial centres in Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Russia and Brazil, and today boasts an annual turnover of roughly €2 million.
The company seat remains Monaco-based while operations are carried out in Switzerland, where they digitise the daily management of independent wealth management companies and family offices to streamline operations.
Their software is said to improve management efficiency in terms of services provided, profitability and development of user activities. It is a digital asset management solution known for its qualities and ease of integration and allows users to consolidate and analyse in real time all the securities portfolios deposited in client’s banks. This gives them a visualisation of the cash flow and the exposure of their portfolios.
“KeeSystem’s mission is to empower each user quickly, in order to capitalise on the investment as quickly as possible,” says Pierre-Alexandre Rousselot, founder of KeeSystem. “To do this, we ensure the transfer of skills through various educational supports, such as training, workshops and tutorials.”
The wealthtech industry is a fast-grower, with the sector more than tripling since 2016 from $2.8 billion to $9.3 billion at the end of 2020.
Ebene, for its part, operates in four areas of activity in France and internationally, which are IT consulting, IT publishing, expertise in industrial and real estate assets and hotels.
“I am very satisfied to welcome KeeSystem to the Ebene Group,” Pierre Dalmaz, President of Ebene, said of the merger. “It has a successful financial solution benefiting from the latest innovative technologies which will enable wealth managers and family offices to be more efficient thanks to the management of their assets, provided by KeeSense. This technology fills a proven need to bring these structures directly into the digital world. Prospects will be reassured about the longevity of Kee System, which backs on to the Ebene family group, which achieves a booming turnover of €100 million.”
The feeling is clearly mutual, with Rousselot adding: “I am happy to join the Ebene Group to be able to accelerate the development of KeeSystem with its team which already has extensive experience in this field. KeeSystem already has a solid foundation of about 30 customers and KeeSense meets their needs very well. Our desire for growth should be driven by the potential of the wealth management market. Our goal is to triple our turnover and the number of clients internationally over the next five years in countries where wealth management is most active. I look forward to this new challenge.”
Photo of KeeSystem Chairman and Founder Pierre-Alexandre Rousselot
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