Biomimicry in design

Greengaged at the Design Council brings together designers, thinkers, doers and makers for a week of talks and interactive events. I'll be speaking there with colleagues Michael Pawlyn from Exploration Architecture, Julian Vincent, Melissa Sterry and others for a day on 'Biomimicry in Design'. Email the link at the start of the article to register for this free event.

In November, Melissa, Johnn Grant and I will be speaking at Salford University on biomimicry and eco-logical design for business and social change.

Next week, at the Do Lectures, Michael Pawlyn will be joined by Tim Birkhead (the Wisdom of Birds) and 20 other top speakers for four days of theb best talks anywhere. Half a dozen tickets are left...

Searching for Green Heroes

Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales have started a quest to find some special people:

The search is on to find Welsh green heroes who deserve recognition for tackling sustainability and climate change.

Across Wales there’s great work going on that will lead to a more sustainable future. People throughout Wales are striving to make a difference to their environment and to their lives. It’s time to recognise their endeavours and encourage others to follow suit.

Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales has developed the Wales Green List. We are looking for 52 green heroes in Wales, whose ideas and dedication will inspire others.

Nominees can be individuals who have set up a project or business in their town or village, a staff member or leader of a company, a member of an organisation, a politician, an artist or a group. They could be tackling environmental or social issues in their own community, at a national or international level.

The Green List isn’t just about the obvious green leaders, but the individuals who are making a difference in their own way. And what’s really important is that every single one of these people will have an inspirational story to tell.

The deadline for entries is 14th September 2009. The Green List will be chosen by a panel comprising influential figures from business, the media, the voluntary sector, social enterprise and sustainable development.

Do you know of someone who puts their heart into making their community a better place, or who is living a truly green lifestyle? To nominate your champion of green issues, email walesgreenlist@sustainwales.com

How to apply
In approximately 300 words, describe the person you’re nominating, their achievement, and the inspiration or difference this has made. Please feel free to nominate yourself!

The Judging Criteria
The judges are looking for inspirational people living and working in Wales. Nominations will be assessed against the following criteria:

- What is/was the issue that the person was tackling?
- How do/did they go about championing sustainable development?
- What has changed as a result of the person’s actions?
- How could others learn from these efforts?

We are looking for individuals who deserve recognition for their work. The nominee may work as part of a larger team, but we want to recognise the one person that deserves most credit, not just the most senior member of the team. If you feel it important to nominate a whole group – for example a school, a community group or a business team – we want you to explain why this group as a whole should be recognised, focusing on what they achieved by working as a group.

Download the press release (english)

Download the press release (Welsh)

Alternatively, you can alert people to our website page - http://www.sustainwales.com/home/en/campaigns_greenlist.aspx

The Richest Room on Earth

A space deep beneath the ground, surrounded by metre-thick concrete walls. Airtight vault doors with electronic passwords protect access, with further heavy steel doors inside. Protective clothing is essential for access to the Richest Room on Earth.

The room is 50 square metres at minus 20c - a space that contains the seeds of 25,000 plant species. It’s humbling to share space with the richest biodiversity on the planet. Kew have a billion seeds in their care and have systems in place to protect them for a couple of thousand years. Maybe then, civilisation will know how to look after them in a restored natural environment.

Fellow Doer Giles Hutchings had invited me to spend the day at Wakehurst in Sussex, meeting the custodians of the Millennium Seed Bank, the impressive, knowledgeable and passionate botanists and scientists on a mission to collect and preserve for the future, seed samples from 25% of the plants on the planet. It’s a job of importance beyond words, with a ‘business as usual’ path that’s pointing towards the loss of half of life on earth by the end of the century. Careless.

Waking people to take action and reverse at least some biodiversity loss is going to take some doing. Doing like running Do Lectures next year at Kew Gardens, Eden and the Garden of Wales, and engaging hundreds of thousands, and a million or two more, on a journey of change a . Drop a line if you want to play and get involved. There’s a lot to Do.

Place-based climate change workshops

Home is where the heart is. It's a true for climate change and sustainability as it is for warm-hearted truisms on hand-made samplers or wall hangings from forgotten generations. I'm working with the Welsh Assembly's Climate Change team to develop and run four community-based climate workshops in the next few months that use place as the focal point for change. Events are running at:

Newport - November 12

Llangollen - November 18

Aberystwyth - November 26

Bangor - December 7,8 or 10, to be confirmed.

Email me using the form on this site or contact Usha.Ladwa-Thomas@wales.gsi.gov.uk

The main focus will be using 'home and heart' as the glue to hold together coherent and ambitious plans for change that bring together different strands of interest and professional practice. The events are a great opportunity to network, build plans and learn from others.

Do Lectures Founding Partners

We're in the process of recruiting our last half dozen Founding Partners for the Do Lectures. In return for £5k investment, corporate Founding Partners get to come to the lectures, get me and David Hieatt consulting / presenting for a day at an event of their choice, and get first refusal on ideas that come next.

If you're in the mood for supporting Do by becoming a corporate partner, get in touch right away. It would be great to talk Do.