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?

Counting what counts

There's a small group of biodiversity specialists, friends and collaborators who meet occasionally in Wales to discuss ways of germinating a little more sanity in this mad world. I recently asked them to mull over a few questions about priorities for education, government and change - their responses are below:

Making the Outdoors Everyday
Our proposal is that every child gets an experience of nature every day as part of normal, everyday educational practice. Our underlying assumption is that through being allowed and encouraged to be outside on an every day / everyday basis, Wales would grow generations of people for who knew  through lived experience that biodiversity is important (just as we currently "know" that economics is important... even if we are not experts in exactly how economic systems operate). We think there would be multiple immediate benefits from this, ranging from greater levels of physical activity, through to eco-therapeutic effects, ecosystemic knowing and cultivating a broader context from and through which we are informed and make decisions.

We would push it further and say that ALL education in Wales, irrespective of subject, age or stage needs to include learning outdoors on a daily basis in ways that are fun, enjoyable and deeply experiential. This means including teachers and educators, NGOs, police (and challenging the perceptions of young people outdoors are a nuisance). We believe that this movement is necessarily transdisciplinary and that it landowners, farmers, gardeners, biologists and so on. We believe that this movement is necessarily transdisciplinary and that it gets to the heart of the matter of us as a species being a part of the natural world and not apart from it.

In terms of the Sustainability Innovation event, we would like to challenge young participants to come up with the implications of this movement relative to the three themes of waste, travel and food. We want to hear from young people themselves what their imaginations tell them about all the ways kids and be and learn outside every day.

In terms of the PhD students, we want to see large scale longitudinal research into making the outdoors everyday. We also want to see appreciative inquiry examples of where this work is already being done
well in Wales and across the world.

In terms of the WAG projects, that could seek to embed practical innovation for sustainability into the everyday curriculm, we ask: why wouldn't you want this? And how will WAG use it's collective imagination to make a move on this front.

Game on.

New sustainability Institute announced

It's with a mixture of excitement and anticipation that I pass on news of the creation of INSPIRE in west Wales to drive change and transformation on sustainability. Exciting times lie ahead - here's the press release:

The University of Wales Trinity Saint David is delighted to announce that its new institute for sustainability- INSPIRE (Institute for Sustainable Practice, Innovation and Resource Efficiency) - will be led by Jane Davidson (currently Minister for Environment and Sustainability in the Welsh Government) in partnership with Peter Davies (Commissioner for Sustainable Futures in Wales) who is already a Professor of Professional Practice at the University, and Andy Middleton (Managing Director TYF).

Last month the University called for expressions of interest from external agencies and individuals involved in sustainability to assist in the development which will be up and running from September.  INSPIRE will support embedding sustainability within the University’s curriculum at all levels as well as engaging with the widest number of organisations to develop sustainable practice across all sectors in Wales and further afield.

Professor Medwin Hughes, Vice Chancellor said, "I am delighted to have been able to secure such high quality individuals to lead the new institute. The University of Wales Trinity Saint David is committed to promoting the sustainability agenda in higher education in Wales and to work with all sectors to actively support the sustainability agenda."

Jane Davidson said, "Sustainability needs to be at the heart of how we do business, we cannot continue to use more resources than our one planet can support. I am privileged to have been invited to lead this new phase of the work at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, particularly in light of its existing partnerships with the further education sector and schools as well as the future merger with Swansea Metropolitan University as part of the creation of the dual sector university in South West Wales”.

Peter Davies added, "I am delighted to be able to play a part in the creation of this new institute in south west Wales, particularly as it provides opportunity to work with partners to develop exemplars of rural sustainability in practice".

Jane Davidson continued “I commend the University of Wales Trinity Saint David for the step it has taken in establishing the institute and am confident that its work will enhance the reputation of the University."

Andy Middleton said "INSPIRE will become a focal point for practical innovation in the areas of sustainability that make real difference to the performance of government, community resilience and long term success of business"

The University received some 50 expressions of interest from organisations and individual who are active in the field of sustainability and INSPIRE will be collaborating with them to develop its portfolio so that it can make a real difference to communities in Wales and beyond.

Professor Hughes concluded “The University sees its role as a catalyst in bringing together agencies and individuals who can transform the lives of individuals and communities, particularly within the region of South West Wales.

Wales Sustainable Business Summit (3)

Steve Howard, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ikea.

It's impressive to see what the Welsh Assembly have done so far, and it bodes well for the future. Ikea comes from southern Sweden, a tough area full of boulders - people are used to moving rocks before you can plant crops. At my first Exco meeting last month, I noticed how everyone has a Smalland story. We're now a $31bn company with the same vision to make life better for everyday people. Great products at least cost with lowest impact.

How do I approach the world? Growth may be on a pause in western Europe, but the world is on a rapid century of growth in a 'majority poor world'. By 2030, 5bn people should have disposable income; over the next 20 years we inrease the number of consumers by 3,000,000,000

3.6bn live in cities. 6.3bn by mid century. China is building the equivalent of the total floor area of the USA within the next 20 years.

It's getting harder and harder to get the materials we need. The west needs to decarbonise agressively and all growth needs to be zero carbon.

We're making dematerialised tables, made for 10 euros that performs like one for $100, with 85-90% less material

Incandescent bulbs are 98% inefficient; LEDs are 7 times more ineffiecient - they're still giving off heat and waste energy. Induction hobs...we used to chase whales to boil down blubber for whale oil lamps. Gas hobs burn gas. Ship it around by pipes and let it burn around the side of the pan - wasteful like whale oil. We took down the price of induction hobs by 40% and increased sales by 400% in one year - they're twice as efficient as gas. It's this kind of step change that we need.

 Ikea's Uk stores are recylcing at 86%; we have a team of people looking at how we close the loop and take materials back - there's a big commercial opportunity with better product development. It's easy to say 'recyclable' but we need to ensure that it actually ends up being recycled'

Where's the risk for wind farms, in perspective when you look at the impact of Deepwater Horizon vs making energy from fresh air. Wealth will be defined by the strategic assets of water, air, land, soil as we move into the 21st century.

Ikea own the wind farms that produce our own electricity. By 2020, onshore wind is likely to be the most effective way of producing energy in Europe. We're also looking at solar pv - we have very large flat roofs; the bar might be lower in terms of ROI, but our investment still needs to make money.

70% of our product range is in forests - we have 16 foresters working for the company. In the last 50 years of the forestry industry, different species become popular as they are exploited before the next one comes on line.

Sustainability for us is about people too - our 135000 co-workers and 700m visitors are of key importance to us.

In the world of cotton, there's a debt cycle that sees 60-70% of crop value being paid to the suppliers of pesticides - so we've worked with farmers and NGOs to look at new ways of making change happen. Every product has a story - we want every story for every product to be good.

If you want your products to be incrementally less bad, I'm your wrong person"

Wales Sustainable Business Summit (2)

Jane Davidson, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing

I've been making sure that our policies enable the things that we're able to do best in Wales. Businesses can and do contribute to our policies and actions in Wales. What does it mean to make SD our central organising principle? We must have a positive vision to take it forward, with an understanding of what a sustainable Wales will look like as we create new sense and opportunities.

SD is much more than an environmental agenda - it's about a better quality of life for our own and future generations, delivered in a way which delivers social justice, enhances the cultural environment whilst living within environmental limits. We will take our share of resource use down to within One Planet's worth of resources within the lifetime of one generation.

Moving towards a zero waste society in Wales by 2050, with every local authority having statutory waste composting targets. I've seen many green jobs being created by recycling.

Simms recycling in Newport is the largest in the UK, and reflection on Wales' commitment to being a low carbon nation. Energy and the way we use it is critical; 80-90% reduction in fossil-fuel based fossil fuels are essential by mid century.

Through your commitment and care for communities, resources, energy and environment, you can make a difference to your business as well as the future.

The SD Charter has over 50 leading businesses in Wales, ranging from PwC to organic dairy cooperatives, working together. They'll do this by:

Future prooofing - e.g. M&S' Plan A 180 actions by 2018 because it's the right thing to do, and customers want it

Early leader advantage - as a small nation we can provide

Future markets - low carbon technologies have huge opportunities to tap into a $3tn low carbon market

Waste, energy reduction works - £43k to £27k cost in waste cost, with an extra £40k from re-sale of waste at Sharp in Wrexham

Consistency of reporting on CSR can create long term benefits for customers and sustainability.

Environmental awareness will take you into an area of making different decisions. Greening the workplace saves money and attracts new employees.

Wales' SD approach and long-term clarity, generally supported by all parties within the Assembly will give confidence to locate and grow in Wales.

We recognise that the Assembly Govt needs to set big targets and deliver on carbon reduction and behaviour change, with an extra £5m of funding over the next three years. We will take climate change into account in all of our decision making.