Sustainable Bristol

Communities

A society in which we are reconnected with each other and our natural surroundings and living in integrated communities in which we celebrate diversity and value individuals and community invovlement.

Bristol Green Doors shortlisted for SW Green Energy Award

by Helen Burley

11 October 2011

Bristol Green Doors – the innovative Bristol project to raise awareness and share experience of eco-refurbishment – has been shortlisted in this year’s South West Green Energy Awards, in the Best Community Initiative category.

The first ever Bristol Green Doors weekend in September 2010 attracted visitors from across the country, keen to learn more about people’s experiences of retrofitting their homes – and a second big event is now being planned for a follow up weekend in spring 2012.

Visitor feedback suggested many were planning on carrying out energy efficiency work in their own homes – or thinking about installing solar panels.

The Bristol project faces stiff competition from across the south west region, with three other projects from Devon and Cornwall also making the shortlist. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Bath on 9 November.

Bristol Green Doors co-ordinator Dan Weisselberg said:

“We are absolutely thrilled to have been nominated for this award. Bristol Green Doors is all about bringing the community together to share knowledge and experience so that we can help each other make our homes warmer, more comfortable and fit for the future.”

Householders interested in opening their homes as part of the 2012 Bristol Green Doors weekend should register here.

 

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Don’t be fooled by the sun

by Helen Burley

30 September 2011

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 nature and get ready for winter… and where better to start than at home?

Tackling household energy use is well-recognised as a key priority, not just for Bristol, but across the developed world. With energy prices rising, it makes sense to minimise household energy use as much as you can – and making our homes more energy efficient makes carbon sense. Our homes are responsible for some 27 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions.

You would then have expected Bristol’s Centre for Sustainable Energy’s (CSE) offer to provide loft insulation to 1,000 homes in Bristol to have been welcome news.

But surprisingly, takers were slow in coming forward.

Maybe Bristol’s lofts are already well-insulated – although that doesn’t seem likely. Maybe the people who need insulation didn’t hear about the offer? Maybe the weather was too warm?

This is just one incident, but the principle is important if the government is serious about implementing its Green Deal. If people don’t accept free measures, it seems unlikely that they’ll be up for a Green Deal loan – even though the costs are not upfront.

Getting the message out on energy efficiency is a challenge – but it is one that Bristol is embracing on all fronts, with a host of local initiatives reaching out to communities to show them that they can benefit.

From encouraging simple affordable measures, through to running training courses and more advanced workshops.

CSE, for example, has launched a draught-busting scheme, designed to get volunteers sharing tips on how to draught-proof doors and windows with their friends and neighbours. Anyone getting involved gets £20 of free draught-proofing kit.

More in depth advice is available through the MakeyourhomeEco short courses which are running at CREATE and St Werburghs Community Centre in October, designed to enable householders to make cost-effective changes to their own homes.

Perhaps when the temperature drops, the message will start getting through?

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Working co-operatively

by Helen Burley

23 September 2011

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 a number of successful co-operatives, from Bristol Credit Union to the Bristol Wood Recycling Project. And the emphasis on local ownership and control has made the model attractive to a growing number of sustainability initiatives.

Later this year, Bristol Energy Co-operative, will open up its membership with the aim of developing the city’s green energy economy, putting solar PV on community buildings.

The Community Farm at Chew Magna, one of the projects helping feed Bristol – is a Community Benefit Society – a not-for-profit entity which exists for the benefit of people, rather than its members.

Mutually-owned businesses have thrived in the UK for generations – and indeed the first co-operative was created in Rochdale in 1844. Co-operatives world-wide now represent some 800 million members and employ 100 million people. In the UK, there are more than 5,000 co-operatives with an annual turnover of £33 billion.

Even putting the precarious nature of the global economy to one side, it seems there’s a lot to be said for a business model that puts shared ownership and “co-operation” at its heart. Co-operatives can opt to focus on aims, not just profits – they are accountable to individual members, not corporate investors, and at the local level, can focus on the needs of a particular community.

According to Ed Mayo, the secretary general of Co-operatives UK: “The values of shared ownership, shared wealth and democratic control appear to provide resilience in the face of economic adversities.”

The United Nations has declared 2012 the international year of coopertives as an international celebration of how co-operatives build a better world.

As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “Co-operatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility.”

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It’s the government’s big ‘Ideah’

by Paul Rainger

21 March 2011

It’s the government’s big ‘Ideah’, says former environment secretary John Gummer. It’s not the NIMBY’s charter that some fear; oh no, it’s the very beating heart of the Big Society – “I Decide the Environment Around Here”.

Yes, the Localism Bill is on its way through the British Parliament, en route to heralding the biggest change in planning policy since the Second World War. At least with the Bill’s publication in December, some sense of what Localism might really mean in practice has emerged. But will it end up being a force for good in shaping, rather than breaking, sustainable communities? The truth is, right now, nobody really knows.

Certainly the public sector managers I speak to cling, almost limpet-like, to the ‘opportunity’ offered by Localism, amid the otherwise stormy waters of financial cuts. So can we collectively shape this agenda for what we want – a positive force for sustainability?

Here are some quick thoughts to stimulate your thinking:

• ‘Community-led’ neighbourhood developments could be a springboard for eco-builds, likely to be much more attractive to local people than bog-standard housebuilder estates. And if both the councils, who are required to provide technical support as neighbourhoods draw up their plans, and the government, who are promising funded sources of help and advice for communities, include an embedded requirement for sustainable development, so much the better.
   
• The community ‘right to bid’ for and to ‘nominate’ neighbourhood assets/services has so far focused on the obvious things like libraries, shops and pubs. But what about that bit of unused or derelict land asset that would make an ideal community allotment? How about the rural village that replaces its virtually non-existent bus service with its own demand-responsive shared transport? (a sort of community Whipcar) Could the ‘infrastructure levy’ invest in community-owned renewables that provide the community with an income to help maintain these assets over the next 25 years?
   
• If we can’t use the ‘general power of competence’ as a licence to innovate, we may as well give up now! Green bonds anyone? Public services delivered by a low-emission integrated travel network? How about a charter for acceptable DIY traffic-calming in council-designated 20mph zones, as some communities have already tried for themselves in Bristol?

Of course you can probably think of lots of examples that would be really bad for creating sustainable communities too.

So will the bill end up being a force for good or bad? That depends on all of us, and what we do to innovate and to really push the boundaries.

But it could be great fun. Let the battle for localism commence!

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Good Living Guide to Green Bristol

by Paul Rainger

05 November 2010

About eighteen months ago I was enjoying a coffee with Bristol publisher and green guru, Alastair Sawday, chatting about ideas for books celebrating Bristol’s large green movement. So it’s with enormous pleasure that next month sees the publication of the first of two books doing just that.

Bristol – A guide to good living is a handy-sized guidebook that showcases the good living and green activities happening right across the city-region that help make Bristol a UK leader when it comes to sustainable living.

Its 224 pages take the reader on a journey through vibrant neighbourhoods and micro-communities, each one overflowing with green ideas and enterprise, and includes tours, case studies, directory listings and a pull-out illustrated map.

Publisher Alastair Sawday says, “The guide is intended to help others share the genuine pleasures of sustainable living by joining projects or getting involved in events. Community orchards, holistic health centres, micro-energy production, waste and recycling initiatives are just some of the things already happening – and not in a niche kind of way. Now it’s all mainstream.”

Peter Madden, Chief Executive of independent sustainability experts Forum for the Future, who wrote the afterword to the book says, “Bristol is home to some of the most exciting and fun environmental initiatives in the world, and is increasingly getting an international reputation for sustainability. This guide will show both residents and visitors why Bristol is such as great place to live, work and play.” 

The book aims shows that making changes in your life to live more sustainably doesn’t have to be difficult and you could make a profound difference to the future of your city and the planet.

Bristol – A guide to good living, is a joint venture between Alastair Sawday Publishing and the Bristol Green Capital Momentum Group. It is available from 18th November in Bristol book shops and retail outlets, priced £9.99.  

For more information visit www.goodliving.org.uk

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Resilience requires communities

by Paul Rainger

22 October 2010

Last winter, my snow covered path became an icy death trap for several weeks, in common with all the other roads in Britain. Why people didn’t just go out and clear their own streets should serve as a big white warning sign to local authorities trying to plan for more resilient services to adapt for climate change. Most people, divorced today from any functioning local community, simply waited for the Council to come and do the job, who of course, totally overwhelmed, did not.

Successful resilience to adapt to a changing climate will require us to rebuild our sense of local community. In this context, a new film looking at some European eco-villages makes interesting viewing. They are just some examples of low impact living projects around the world. And they can be housed within cities, like the St. Werburghs self-build community here in Bristol.

Of course this degree of shared community living is not everyone’s cup of tea. But survey after survey shows everyone is desperate to feel a greater sense of local community where they live.

Rediscovering that community is where the real challenge for resilience planners lies. Get that right, give me a shovel, and we will clear our own snow. Equip us with some basic emergency flood equipment and we will look after each other as neighbours, without waiting for a centralised response which overwhelmed may never come.

If the challenge of adapting to a changing climate creates healthier, happier local communities, that at least will be something to be grateful for.

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Habit Changing Impacts

by Paul Rainger

22 September 2010

This month I spoke at a showing of the film ‘No Impact Man’ in Bath. The audience discussed how we in the UK could live in more environmental ways.

In the film, No Impact Man Colin Beaven and his family, confront the issues in an entertaining full-frontal attack. Living in Manhattan eating only local food, with no electricity, and no toilet paper.

But Colin’s extreme journey highlights some of the barriers we all face when making the collective changes our communities will have to make to live more sustainably. I believe some simple steps can help lead to greater behaviour change.

Sometime change is easy.

I take two sugars in my tea. That was an established fact on one rare day in day in my youth when I made a cup for myself. It tasted terrible.

That was when my Mum confessed. Sugar was bad for us, so over the past few months she had been secretly reducing the dose. Our whole ‘two sugar’ family have been a ‘no sugar’ family ever since.

So, reflecting on our discussions in Bath, here are five, totally unscientific, small steps that I think can help get people on the path to lasting wider behaviour change for better living.

1) Replace one, short weekly car journey you make, by walking or cycling instead.

Studies show we habitually overestimate the time it takes to walk somewhere, and underestimate the time it takes to drive. By relearning the walking habit, you will start to overcome this barrier, and before you know it waking around your neighbourhood will be as natural as it is easy and healthy.

2) Start enjoying ‘Meat Free Mondays’.

Eating less meat is, for most people in the UK, the easiest way to reduce their carbon footprint and improve their diet. Use a good vegetarian cookbook. You’ll find the veggie dishes are much more varied and interesting than the rather bland ‘meat and two veg’ staples, and before you know it your meat consumption will be way down.

3) Get a weekly local veg box delivered.

Start enjoying locally grown, seasonal food. You will rediscover vegetables you would never buy for yourself in the supermarket, and you will reconnect with the changing seasons. Before you know it you will be scouring the local parks and fields picking your own free fruit and making your own jam.

4) Make your own Christmas presents.

When I first gave homemade jam for Christmas, I wasn’t sure what reaction I would get. I needn’t have worried. Friends are so much more appreciative of the personal gifts than any of the old expensive stuff I used to routine buy without thought. Suddenly I don’t need or want all that consumer stuff.

5) Get a home energy meter.

You can even borrow one from many UK libraries. Apart from the family fun and games trying to switch everything off, the visible awareness of your home energy use it brings will turn you into an energy efficiency, low carbon champion before you can say ‘sustainable living’.

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Dig Bristol: Engaging the city on a food journey

by Simon Billing

17 April 2010

Bristol has an ambition and strategy to create a world leading food gardening city. The Bristol Food Network provides a structure for all the city groups who contributed to the strategy to work together to engage more people in producing food sustainably on land in and around the Bristol city region.

Urban food growing is a first step in achieving a more resilient city food system, and a good way to raise awareness among city people about sustainable food from spade to plate.

The Dig Bristol strategy also aims to align community food groups with other food interests across the city by buying into the common strategy.  The community food groups will act as hubs for re-skilling in food gardening and developing engaging communications to get more people and more land under food production.  Through this initiative, more people will be engaged in growing fruit, vegetables, nuts and herbs in private gardens, school, hospital and church grounds; public land; regenerated waste ground; parks, allotments and small holdings.

Forum for the Future, one of the groups who have contributed to the development of the Sustainable  Food Strategy, is preparing the project on behalf of the Bristol Food Network.  For more details, please contact simonbilling@forumforthefuture.org

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