1% for the Planet at work

The Hay on Earth Sustainable Innovation events that the Hay Festival's Andy Fryers and I started four years ago were funded through TYF's 1% for the Planet voluntary earth tax scheme, through which we give one percent of all revenue to environmental charities.

From small beginnings, the event has grown well. This year's workshops attracted four times more than last year, with much greater publicity:

The Defra-sponsored SD Scene featured it here 

The Daily Telegraph, with a circulation of 840,000 mentioned the event in their dispatches from Hay

Radio 2 star DJ Chris Evans mentioned it two or three times to his 9.5m listeners

For 2012, we're looking at running Hay on Earth as an 11 day event that will run through the whole event, combining elements of it with the Do Lectures, with more ideas, more innovation and the possiblity of a bigger dragon's den pot too.

From little acorns...

Telegraph article on Hay Festival eco happenings

Geofferey Lean is the Daily Telegraph's environment correspondent, and for the next 10 days, he's esconsced in the Green Room at the Hay Festival, reporting on all things green and eco that are happening on the festival site and across Wales.

He wrote a good article on Saturday with a lovely headline "For the greenest nation, look west"

The Telegraph's equivalent of the Guardian's comment is free has the predictable range of neocons, deniers and voices of reason, some of whom are more than happy to dismiss the stories in Lean's article as insignificant - small though they may be, many of them are positive starts to something bigger and more worthwhile.

The Green Dragon's Den is running Tuesday-Friday at the Hay Festival, insterspersed with some excellent music and comdey.

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)

Hay and Ivy

Yesterday I had the pleasure of chairing the Welsh Assembly Government's launch of their new Sustainable Development Charter at the Hay Literary Festival, which was given a neat lift by Revel Guest's comment that it was the most important of the 500 or so events on at Hay this year.

Our discussions on Friday, and next week at our Hay on Earth workshops will be focused on defining the 'Real 10' goals that will be needed to step up to the opportunities of the future. What percentage of employees would I want engaged in understanding the need for radical change? How about 85%. What percentage of managers need to have carbon and ecological measures in their performance targets? 100%. How many businesses that get support from government will have to demonstrate capability to reduce carbon emissions dramatically? All.

There was a lovely article on nature on the BBC website this week, looking at the way ivy sticks itself to walls. An extract from the article is pasted below; my thoughts on how this might be relevant to making change are in italics.

First, the plant makes initial contact with the object it will climb. It's important to know what 'making contact' actually means for the organisations or individuals that we're trying to connect with. How we know that they've noticed?

This then triggers the second phase, when the plant's roots change shape to fit the surface of the structure they will climb. Perhaps communication or information exchange consciously change once a relationship is established.

The roots alter their arrangement to increase their area of contact with the wall. More people are introduced by both parties to increase the width of the relationship so that it no longer depends on just a couple of people.

Small structures called root hairs grow out from the root, coming into contact with the climbing surface. Specific actions start to happen that make the relationship more permanent - more depth to the knowledge that connects both parties.

The plant then excretes a glue to anchor it to the substrate. Contracts...

Finally, the tiny root hairs fit into tiny cavities within the climbing surface. Filling our opportunities that lock the relationship solidly against disturbance.

There, they dry out, scrunching into a spiral-shape that locks the root hair into place. Physical structures such as working in each others' office space, locks the relationship into place.

The ivy's attachment is further strengthened by hook-like structures that grow on the tips of the root hairs. Personal relationships strengthen the business relationship



Hay Greenprint

The Guardian Hay Festival kicks off in a couple of weeks, with their valuable 'Greenprint' series of talks and discussions, described by author Mark Lynas as "play[ing] a crucial role in raising awareness and stimulating debate about the key sustainability issues facing the world"

Read on for programme details of the 27 May event

10AM GUARDIAN STAGE £4
Chris Hope
Cambridge Series: Climate Change
Chris Hope of Cambridge University, contributor to the Stern review and lead author of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, tackles the current climate change issues
and sets out where the priorities should be.

11.30AM GUARDIAN STAGE £4
Mark Lynas talks to Andy Fryers
What Have the Greens Got Wrong?
Has ideology blinded the mainstream environmental movement to solutions for some of
the major problems facing the world? Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees and High Tide,
discusses why he has changed his views on the big issues including nuclear power, GMOs
and organic food with Andy Fryers.

1PM GUARDIAN STAGE £4
Will Anderson and Sunand Prasad talk to Alok Jha
Designing Sustainable Homes and Buildings
Is it possible to build homes and workplaces that are environmentally sound, affordable
and a pleasure to live and work in? The former President of the Royal Institute of British
Architects (RIBA) and Senior Partner of Penoyre & Prasad LLP, and the author of Homes
for a Changing Climate are in conversation with Alok Jha of the Guardian.
Sponsored by RRA Architects and Oakwrights

2.30PM GUARDIAN STAGE £4
Spencer Wells and Tristram Stuart talk to John Vidal
Food for Thought
It is time for a change in attitudes towards food production and consumption, in the
industry and in our own homes. The author of Pandora’s Seed looks to a historical
examination of our cultural inheritance for the solutions while the author of
Waste spotlights the wastefulness of modern societies. In conversation with the
Guardian’s Environment Editor.

4PM GUARDIAN STAGE £4
Annie Leonard talks to Jo Fox
The Story of Stuff
The journalist and film-maker tracks the life of the stuff we use every day, revealing the
often hidden impacts of our production and consumption patterns. In conversation with Jo
Fox, Deputy Director of The Bigger Picture at Sky.