Sustainable Bristol

Cooking Oil Power Sorted

by Paul Rainger

Posted on 5 October 2011 | No responses

South Gloucestershire residents, in the north of the UK’s Bristol city-region, can now recycle their waste cooking oil, helping to supply safe, clean, renewable electricity to the National Grid.

Across the UK, taxpayers foot an annual bill of around £15 million for cleaning up drains and watercourses damaged by household cooking oil that is often poured down sinks. YouGov research found that the most common way to dispose of oil is down the drain, causing Water companies to spend around £15m per annum clearing up 170,000 tonnes of used cooking oil put down the drain.

But now in South… Continue reading

Don’t be fooled by the sun

by Helen Burley

Posted on 30 September 2011 | No responses

The welcome return of the sun this week is just the latest spell of weird weather to have hit Bristol in the last 12 months – from heavy snow in early December to soaring temperatures in February. It’s perhaps no wonder that the apple tree in my garden is so confused it’s producing blossom again.

But while we can enjoy the unusually warm weather now (apparently we should thank the jet stream), there’s no getting away from the fact that autumn is round the corner and cold weather will follow.

Time then to take a tip from… Continue reading

How to cut your environmental impact while growing your business

by Paul Rainger

Posted on 26 September 2011 | No responses

Many old fashioned business leaders seem scared of making a commitment to reducing their environmental impact while their business is growing. They see the two goals as contradictory. But increasingly pioneering businesses are proving that this is simply wrong.

One such pioneering business leader, the co-founder of Commercial Group Simone Hindmarch-Bye, is speaking to businesses in Bristol this week at a West of England Carbon Challenge  and Bristol Green Capital joint event. Simone will telling her success story of how to embed green practice into your company, reducing carbon emissions while growing the business.

Commercial Group is… Continue reading

Working co-operatively

by Helen Burley

Posted on 23 September 2011 | 1 response

As the economy teeters on the edge of recession and businesses around the world struggle to secure credit, the UK co-operative sector has seen a healthy expansion, reporting an increase in turnover of 21% since the start of the credit crunch in 2008.

Indeed the shared-ownership model seems to be very much in vogue. Just this week the government launched a consultation on the possible mutualisation of the Post Office – which would give staff, customers and potentially local communities a stake in how the business is run.

Bristol has long been home to… Continue reading

Putting the SPark into World Green Buildings

by Helen Burley

Posted on 20 September 2011 | 1 response

The Bristol and Bath Science Park (SPark) is one of 25 venues across the UK joining this week’s celebrations for World Green Building Week.

The SPark One event, supported by Low Carbon South West and Forum for the Future, will be showcasing its sustainable design, including on-site renewables, with 200 sq m of solar PV, a solar thermal hot water system and biomass boiler.

The science park has been designed as a hub for the region’s science and technology businesses, developed by the Quantum Property Partnership,… Continue reading

Will Business embrace Lunchtime Allotments?

by Paul Rainger

Posted on 12 September 2011 | 1 response

Growing your own is all the rage. With long waiting lists for allotment space, we’ve seen veg beds spring up in parks, guerrilla growers taking over derelict land and even veg growing on supermarket roofs.

The beneficial effects of reconnecting which nature through growing are well studied, from healthy eating itself, through to general improvements in health, happiness and even productivity at work.

So, could leading business embrace Lunchtime Allotments as the next must have staff perk? Will tomorrow’s young generation of more values led employees see an hour lunchtime break to tend their veg as another key… Continue reading

Time to Bee Inspired

by Paul Rainger

Posted on 29 August 2011 | No responses

When I was little, honey was simple. It came in jars, bees made it and certain bears got stuck in their homes if they eat too much.

Today, in less innocent times, the sudden collapse of bee populations, and with it our whole food system’s reliance on their pollination services, have catapulted these amazing creatures into the environmental frontline.

Fortunately the bees’ suffering at the hands of our environmental degradation has struck a chord with the public. Beekeeping in Bristol, and other urban areas, has rocketed over the last five years.

Now HoneyFest, an… Continue reading

Measures to make the City move

by Paul Rainger

Posted on 25 August 2011 | No responses

Ask anyone what the least green aspect of Bristol is, and nine out of ten will cite the traffic. The city suffers from a higher than average car dependency. But September signals the latest in a series of low carbon transport improvements that are helping reverse this trend in recent years.

Three years ago, Forum for the Future helped launch a walking website for Bristol which is taking over 22,000 short car journeys each year off the city’s congested roads.

Over the same period, Bristol was named the UK’s first ‘Cycling City’, a campaign… Continue reading

Keeping Bristol firms at the forefront of the green economy

by Simon Billing

Posted on 12 August 2011 | No responses

The Bristol Evening Post featured Forum for the Future on its business pages this week, with a look at our West of England Carbon Challenge, which is now engaging one fifth of the total workforce across the Bristol city-region.

The Carbon Challenge is saving local firms money, as they improve their energy efficiency and cut carbon, and forms part of Bristol’s wider Green Capital Pledge for businesses at the forefront of the green economy.

Two of the new Carbon Challenge members have written recently about their experiences engaging their staff and cutting their carbon.

You can read how… Continue reading

Let’s move the Council to south Bristol

by Peter Madden

Posted on 2 August 2011 | No responses

How do we spread the growth, and share the benefits of city regeneration? Forum for the Future’s CEO, Peter Madden ponders this question in today’s Planet Bristol column in the Bristol Evening Post, and comes up with a radical suggestion :-

I’ve been thinking about what’s the best way to give a boost to South Bristol and help it improve economically. And I’ve come up with the answer: move the City Council there!

As you’ll know if you live or visit there, lots of parts of South Bristol aren’t in great shape. They… Continue reading

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