Updates
Pete mentioned that the building industry was kicking back against being accused of having too high a carbon footprint with a preference for demolish over refurbishment, the building industry felt it was using a lot of recycled material by smashing up walls into hardcore – not ideal at best downcycling. In future it is key that more materials are recycled and preferably upcycled, retrofit / refurbish happens rather than demolition. The other big trend is going to be factory built housing which is purely assembled on site, this will result in far better performance with a highly engineered product both structurally and thermal performance.
VAT currently does not encourage deep refurbishment, with 20% on retrofit but only 5% new build. Should this be a letter to ask Rishi Sunak to remove this annomolly?
Having a Smart Meter allows you to get people interested in how much energy they are using, like Fitbit does for fitness.
David is looking forward to wine in cars based on wide adoption Prince Charles’ bioethanol for his Aston Martin, more practically now has a Smart EV Charger so the car is only charged when the sun is shining from solar panels.
Kate there are now some media items (TV/papers) encouraging people to repurpose/reuse – for example “Money for nothing” where stuff is taken from the tip they are upcycled, whereas “Repair Shop” concentrates on momentos.
Guardian fashion is starting to focus on reducing consumerism, showing not just new but with 3 items – Buy it, Rent it and Thrift it.
Reuse of cloth at end of life is good. The challenges for global justice and poverty is cheap clothes produced under unexceptable conditions, it is likely that as clothes are kept longer then people will pay more for better clothes. Making the textile industry circualr will create new markets which will create new jobs too.
Jenny – Natasha’s law came into force on 1st October requiring all shops to provide ingredient lists on all foods, this is impacting our Coop food share – Stokesley aren’t giving us the waste bread / pastries as this would require 1 hour extra work – labelling products; Great Ayton still giving bread.
Action: Simon will contact Coop Foodshare to follow up on Natasha’s law.
Earthshot Prize – https://earthshotprize.org/london-2021/ – the BBC have lots of encouraging information – horrendous scenes of mountains of waste – https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p09w80wb/the-earthshot-prize-repairing-our-planet
Waste – How much food is being wasted due to no pickers etc., also likely to mean less UK growth next year. The situation with pigs – due CO2 issues and lack of abattoirs.
Wendy: New Scientist had a good article on the contribution of packaging in terms of shelf-life, with thoughts around smaller packaging – CO2 less from packaging than from wasted food, need to do – https://www.newscientist.com/question/reduce-food-waste/. Important that you consider the “Life Cycle Analysis” LCA of products, so when cereals go soft you can dry in oven, small amount of energy versus energy needed to make prepacked.
Simon – I attended “Community Energy England – Now and Next” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1fLIJId36A – when talking to government use “community” which is considered to be not political, whereas social/society is! A lot of the meeting was about getting the finance and financial tools – Synthetic PPAs (power purchase agreements), REGOs – Renewable energy generation origin certificates, private wire / microgrid otherwise little about technology.
I am sitting in on some the sessions at The University of Manchester’s – Climate Action Festival https://www.manchester.ac.uk/climate-festival/, for example 1 ceramic cup needs to be used 400 times to uses energy of 400 polystyrene cups, a lot of discussion of carbon capture, (use) and storage (CC(U)S), how net zero should be taught to all students from classics to nuclear physics, importance of nature corridors for resilience, solutions must not exacerbate differences – just transition.
Next week is the Ethical Consumer Week – https://www.ethicalconsumerweek.com/ – 7 days of talks on different topics.
Eileen – interesting paper (attached) on Macroeconomics and Climate action we must assure justice for all, with a Green economy, this is from work of a European think tank.
COP26 – Alok Sharma going around saying “Paris promised” now “Glasgow must deliver”, John Kerry saying Glasgow will surprise
Feedback from Stokesley Stall on 25th September
Caught the people going into the Methodist chapel tea morning, plus a number of people in the street.
Waste – Coop soft plastics recycling game changer to empty bins, need to reduce waste, practical example of making gift bags from magazine pages.
Food – banana curry, bag cookey – gave away onions / peas, hessian sacks
The North Yorkshire Rotters came and supported us too.
Plans for 6th November COP26 day of action
Work underway to produce local maps with climate change actions undertaken which will be placed in the Globe in Stokesley, the Discovery Centre in Great Ayton and the Hub in Hutton Rudby.
Other suggestions were: Actions for people to take; Green your money – Ethical Investment – https://www.ethicalmoney.org/, Positive Investment – https://positiveinvest.org/, Abundance – https://www.abundanceinvestment.com/, Sustainable Unit Trusts, ShareAction – https://shareaction.org/; Connecting up reduction/reuse/recycling…
Actions: All – suggestions for 6th November COP26 Day of Action
Festival of Thrift – Kirkleatham September
As well as stalls of either local or upcycled things, advice on greening, talks on environmental issues, lots of performances – last 2 people surrounded by plastics, dynamic acrobatic dance around oceans dying and Dandyism: NE dance troop – Great outfits from second hand clothes
AOB
Saturday – One Northallerton / One Planet – focus on climate change, Keeping warm – CAB fuel / insulation
Warm baby project – Facebook: Asylum seekers. Squares for blankets for the homeless
New Afghans arrived in Middlesbrough – Kabul no canned food – so didn’t know what to do with them
Climate Action Stokesley and Villages 