Closing the loop on waste

Over the next couple of months, I've have the pleasure of working with the folks from InterfaceFLOR on two events that aspire to recalibrate innovation, creativity and conviction for action with insights from nature and biomimicry. 

On June 8, Net Impact are hosting a workshop on 'Tomorrow's Natural Business', that I'm speaking at with Ramon Arratia, Sustainability Director at Interface,  Atos Origin's Global Director of Sustainability Solutions, Giles Hutchins and BCI team member Louise Carver. Further details from Net Impact.

A month later, on July 5th, Tomorrow's Company are hosting a senior level workshop on Tomorrow's Natural Business, with BCI's Denise DeLuca, key players from Interface, co-chaired by Atos' Giles Hutchins and Tomorrow's Company's Tony Manwaring. If you're interested in taking part in this event, contact me.

Final Hay on Earth short list

Projects selected for the 2011 Hay on Earth Green Dragon's Den are listed below; the Hay Festival site is buzzing and there's already a high level of excitement about the forthcoming workshops and competition. For the Green Dragon's Den entrants who didn't get through, commiserations as well as congratulations are in order as every single project submitted had clear sustainability benefits; a few lacked the spark of innovation that was needed, a few lacked the leadership asked for and a couple, racing for the extended deadline places, were simply too late to be considered.

The Welsh Government's new Minister for Environment & Sustainability, John Griffiths, visited Friday's Sustainable Development Charter workshop, and we're hoping to see him back at Hay this Friday to congratulate the winners. 

The short listed projects are:

Clever Stuff (31 May)

Sustain IT (The ARC Project)
Rebound Books (L’Arche Brecon)
Packet In (Bron Afon)
Cleanstream (Cleanstream Carpets)
The Wood Shed (Crucorney Energy Group)
Zero waste in a box (Cwm Harry Land Trust)

Food to fork (1 June)

Revolution Forks (Bridgend)
Riverside Mobile Shop (Riverside)       
Food for the Future (Blaenau Gwent)
ACE Rainwater (Ashfield Community Enterprise)
FEAST (This is Rubbish)

Home and hearth (2 June)

Low Carbon Communities (Sustainable Wales)
Informed Energy Descent (EcoBro)        
Watery Heat Snake (Llangattock Green Valleys)   
Tŷ = Welsh Tree Squared (Coed Cymru)   
The One Million Person Sharing Plan for Wales (Bid and Borrow)
                       
Connecting Communities (3 June)

Blaen Afon Flower Gardens (Bron Afon Housing Assn)     
Making Litter Pay (Llangattock Green Valleys)  
Living Diaries (Kirsty Morris)
Open Swansea (ThinkARK/Wales Coop)
Pots, tubs, troughs and tucker (Co-operative group)

Getting it wrong

Handy insights from Seth Godin 

When you are truly living on the edge, walking on the moon, perhaps, or caught in the grip of extreme poverty--there's no room at all for error. It's a luxury you can't afford.

For the rest of us, though, there's a cushion. Being wrong isn't fatal, it's merely something we'd prefer to avoid. We have the privilage of being wrong. Not being wrong on purpose, of course, but wrong as a cost on the way to being right.

As you gain resources, the act of being wrong goes from being fatal to annoying to a precious opportunity, something that you've earned. You won't advance your cause or discover new truths if you're obsessed with being right all the time--and so the best way to compound your advantage and accomplish even more than you already have is to set out (with relish) to be as open to wrong as often as you can afford to be.

Hay on Earth Dragons' Short List

After some tough consideration, and a good sift through some exellent entries, the following projects have been short listed for the Hay on Earth Green Dragon's Den 2011:

CLEVER STUFF

* Sustain IT
* Rebound books
* Cleanstream carpets
* Packet In

FIELD TO FORK

* Feast
* Revolution with forks and trowels
* Riverside mobile food truck
* Food for the future
* Ace rainwater harvesting

HOME AND HEARTH:

* Informed energy descent
* Watery heat snake
* Low carbon communities campaign

CONNECTED COMMUNITIES

* Open Swansea
* Making Litter Pay
* Blaenavon Flower Gardens
* Living Diaries

Congratulations to all those who have been shortlisted, and comiserations to the projects who, whilst putting excellent ideas forwards, didn't reach the innovation or leadership criteria that the panel needed. 

Short listed projects: further information will be sent out in the next 48 hours on what the next stages involve.

Non short listed projects: you'll receive a few lines explaining why your projects didn't make the cut on this occasion.

Green Dragon's Den Tickets: short listed projects will already have seats allocated; if you want to bring other folk along, be sure to let people know that they need to get their free tickets from the Hay box office online / phone before the event to be sure of a place - the Hay team are expecting all four days to be sold out.

Well done all - some great proejcts all-round. Now - onwards and upwards.

Wellbeing and tourism

Wellbeing and Tourism Conference, Cardiff: Dr William Bird, Intelligent Health

Defining the topic as about people, place and purpose. When purpose gets lost, in retirement for instance, health deteriorates quickly. When all three are lost, chronic stress develops. I'm thinking "this connects well to Covey's work on motivation, and could be strengthened by the addition of learning. 

Take an hour to equal 1000 uears, then from Monday to Friday is 100,000 years. 9 minutes ago the industrial age started and our bodies haven't caught up with the design that's needed. Our mitochondria convert oxygen and sugar into energy; chronic stress damages our mitochondria and can lead to an increase in free radicals, releasing Cortisol. People suffering from chronic stress will die earlier, with anxiety and depression contributing to poor health. 

If we get people, place and purpose right, energy starts to flow in the mitochondria and leads to longer life. Being in tranquil place slows the ageing process and reduces the chances of dementia, heart disease and stress. We need to help people understand how to access the energy and benefit that's out there.

Ellaway and Macintyre (BMJ) showed that people living near green spaces had lower obesity. A study in the US showed a 6kg increase in weight for boys living away from green areas.

Physical activity - Fitirex Treatment - 30% lower death 35% less type 2 diabetes, 35%  lower risk of hip fracture, 80% less risk of osteoarthiritic disability. If Fitness and Exercise was a drug, everyone would be prescribed it.

In a family, great grandfather could roam 6 miles to play footy or a mile to swim. The grandson is only allowed to roam 300m from the door of the house - too cocooned and unable to explore the world around them - giving children freedom is to important. Without freedom by the age of 12, children are unlikely to learn how to feel free in nature. 

Intellgent Health are using swipe cards to incentivise people to take the first steps out of their ususal path - nudge therapy does work.

In nature, and with friends, blood pressure can drop in as litle as three minutes - in traffic or pedestrian malls, it stays the same. In Chicago tower blocks, some areas of housing estates had lost both trees and greenery, whilst other areas kep them - in areas with no green, coping mechanisms and domestic violence were signicifantly worse.

A Lancet study mapped income levels vs income in terms of death - for the very wealthy, access to green space is not dependent on where you live - in middle income, very green environments showed a trend, whereas for the poor, the differences were huge - differences between wealthy and poor in 'very green' spaces were not huge, whereas in areas with little green, they hadn't changed in 15 years.

Natural England developed the Natural Health Service, creating both supply and demand, by getting green space into buildings - in a Melbourne children's hospital, the park continues right inside as far as the children's rooms.

How do we get the energy through?