Welcome to UnLtd @ Glastonbury! This year a team of 4 UnLtd staff will be pitching up the UnLtd Garden in the Green Futures field at Glastonbury. They will hearing pitches from potential Award Winners, talking to people about UnLtd's work and about UnLtdWorld. Throughout their stay at Glastonbury you can keep up-to-date on their progress several ways:
- Check out the UnLtd @ Glastonbury blog here
includes podcasts, video updates and continuous updates from the festival
- Check out the UnLtdWorld Glastonbury group page here
for up-to-date networking with UnLtdWorld members at the festival
- Read more about the Guardian and UnLtd Green Living Awards here
info on the Awards from the Guardian and UnLtd
Beck Dawson
The Marlborough Climate Change Pledge is making a positive difference to climate change by mobilising the local community to make every day changes to reduce carbon emissions. Individuals and local businesses make a personal pledge on issues such as transport, food, energy and waste, then take action and report back on the changes they have made. Before setting up the project, Beck organised a pilot event which 200 people attended in a local village hall to galvanise the community into action.
Debbie Scott Anderson
Debbie has set up the website, theglobalgardener.com that features information about how garden owners can look after their gardens in the age of global warming – it will encourage wise water management, water harvesting, and sensible planting. In conjunction with the website Debbie works with local garden centres to display more clearly how much water different plants need etc. In an age where limited water resources are getting much attention Debbie’s website will serve a need of knowing how to plant and water sensibly and it fits in very well with the government’s launch of the Climate Change Bill.
Jonathan Smith
Organic Futures is a ground-up movement led by young people who want to ensure the continuity of sustainable food, farming and rural life in Britain. Jonathan has been developing a network of interested people of all ages and levels of experience to become more interested and involved in organic farming. The project inspires and informs through information services, education from primary up to University level, training, inspirational case studies, technical and cultural events.
Community Reponse to Climate Emergencies
Theo Langton
Theo's project has established a community volunteer emergency response team that has dovetailed into the existing emergency plan and works as part of the cascade of responder groups in an identified emergency such as flooding. This has involved training local residents to a category 2 emergency response level including welfare, communication, local liaison with emergency and reconstruction services. The group carries its own equipment and internal first aid support and co-ordinates food and shelter. The community has been empowered to provide a direct, co-ordinated response to adverse environmental scenarios in the local region.
Self-built Homes Construction
Jackson Moulding
Jackson has developed a non-profit business structure for acquiring land and enabling construction of self-build homes. It began with 40 people signing up to the project which has been supported of Bristol City Council and has gone from strength to strength. This project represents a challenge to profit-driven property development making low cost sustainable self builds a real option for the community. Jackson also developed a toolkit to demystify land purchasing, planning and building systems to facilitate land-owner co-operatives. This toolkit provides mechanisms to secure investment into self-build projects which are owned, managed and built by the community.
The Bubbler
Sam Duby
‘The Bubbler’ is an innovate application of simple technology for the electro-deposition of minerals in seawater. Sam's idea is to grow ‘coral’ deposits on the coastline of Britain which will act as defence against coastal erosion, which is devastating the county of Suffolk. As an additional feature the process locks in carbon from the sea (three times more effectively than trees can), thereby giving it added value for carbon reduction.
Community Gardens in Hostels
Paul Pulford
Paul has created green spaces in hostels in Tower Hamlets and engage the residents in the process so that they can then garden it after completion. He has also introduced those residents showing a real interest in gardening to volunteering opportunities within Tower Hamlets and in addition teach them green woodworking skills for them to express themselves creatively through wood. At Providence Row the garden is much used by the residents creating a positive space.
Sunbooth Solar
Demian Boas
‘Sunbooth Solar’ is a mobile recording studio which provides digital facilities at any event across the South of England. Demian first worked on establishing working partnerships with festival organisers and an UnLtd award allowed him to take his ideas to the next level as the equipment he purchased allowed for better quality recordings so is now able to release live albums in partnership with the recording artists. In the winter his equipment will be used within Brighton and London Schools as part of an educational process which he is developing with a local music project.
Karen Janody
The Newspaper House will be an interactive public installation made from free newspapers found scattered in and around London. The House will be erected first in Gillett Square (Dalston) as a partnership has been formed between the parties involved. It will then be moved to two other London locations. The project has the potential to inform a large section of the general public about re-use, recycling and how discarded materials can be used in the future. She has provided clear evidence of the need and demand for the project and it will form a major part of London Sustainability Week.
Coffee Desktops
Adam Fairweather
Adam's aim was to produce a range of commercially viable products using the coffee grounds that are normally placed in landfills. The trial was set to run using the coffee waste from a local Pret A Manager and Adam identified five potential end products including a durable surfacing product, fuel pellets and an acrylic-type composite. An UnLtd award allowed Adam to test different processing and production methods producing products which he then tested on the market. Adam’s project aimed to counteract the 250,000 tons of coffee bean waste produced by the EU each month.
Small World Regeneration
Alison Marchant
Small World regeneration is a social environmental arts project covering five distinctive streets in E15. The project inspires and facilitates residents to create innovative artistic gardens in the vacant spaces in front of their houses. In the first phase of this project Alison worked with 50 households and approximately 50 – 200 residents. From there, Alison hopes the project will lead to the re-establishment of the local residents association.
Natural Community Wood Recycling
Richard Mehmed
Richard has established the National Community Wood Recycling Project which aims to set up a network of financially sustainable social enterprises that create jobs, training and volunteering opportunities for marginalised people. The project also recycles thousands of tonnes of timber which would otherwise be landfilled. Richard has helped establish 15 projects nationwide already.
Briony Greenhill, Cindy Rhodes
The Nag makes it easy for people to do one thing a month to make their lifestyles more sustainable. People who join The Nag receive one email a month playfully ‘nagging’ them to visit the website where they are taken step by step through a different low-effort, high impact action around a lifestyle theme such as food, energy or fashion. Short bursts of key information about each theme are provided, with links to some of the best learning sources for those who want to know more.The Nag was created out of a desire to make living more sustainably easy and accessible for everyone who wants to do more, but isn’t sure where to start.
South West Climate Network
Graham Ettles
The South West Climate Network aims to aid the flow of information on topics including sustainable living, bio-fuels, conservation etc and to aid the education of the general public in the measures needed to adapt our lifestyles in light of current scientific observations of accelerated climate change. It gathers information about the many diverse, sustainable living initiatives and projects across the south west into a central information database, and creates links between the many individuals working on eco-projects across the region. Graeme has produced a contacts directory and a newsletter, strengthening the ‘movement’ and giving voice to the growing numbers of individuals working and campaigning to promote action to slow climate change.
Dylan Keating
Dylan has established Community Supported Agriculture in Penzance, a community farming initiative where people contribute towards running costs, learn about the growing season and harvesting and receive cheap organic food in return. In the first year, the project involved 15 people in community farming in a designated field, the use of which Dylan negotiated with a local landowner.
Tristan Tudor
Tristan has developed a social enterprise which collects discarded wood, mainly from builders, re-cycle and sells it back to the community at about a third of the price of a standard retailer. Somerset Wood Recycling replicates the British Wood Recycling project, which backed Tristan in this initiative. There is enormous potential to develop the retail and production side of the project.
Food Cooperative
Jonathan Selman, Richard Price
The Parish of Calstock is an area with a rich tradition of horticulture. However, since the 1960s the number of green spaces has declined and local food production has decreased. Jonathan and Richard’s project aims to promote local community horticulture via a number of means including an information website, the creation of supply networks for local growers and an allotment programme for primary schools. This group have long-term plans for the project will include horticultural training for refugees and young offenders and a healthy eating centre.
Travelling Community Gardens
Sam Wingfield
Sam's project aims to create and maintain portable and semi permanent gardens for children within the travelling community with the means to move gardens to new sites. Sam teaches groups of children and parents about plants, trees and ecology through weekly sessions on 5 identified sites. She creates workshops for children at green festivals to publicise the project with a view to expanding to other parts of the country and encouraging travellers to develop new skills to provide possible sources of employment which are compatible with travelling lifestyle.
Community Events Toolkit
Shane Hughes
Shane has developed a free downloadable ‘community inclusion toolkit’. It is aimed at increasing the positive impact of festivals and events on local communities. The toolkit will help unite key stakeholders in setting targets and engaging the local community. There will be sections on how to call an open meeting, questionnaires for the community, development of an action plan, data collection and monitoring procedures.
Jonathan Elliot
Talk Action is a website that links individuals supplying skills, knowledge and educational programmes with organisations and public bodies seeking such services when they are in the process of organising events. The website acts as an introductory agency and brokering service and will also provide online resources such as “how to…’” guides and other relevant information to events organising.
The Gardening Project
Meena Chodha
The gardening project allows school children in New Cross Gate to learn and develop new gardening skills and to develop media skills which allow them to show parents and teachers the work they have done. As many children in the area have no gardens this an important resource for the nurturing of these skills.
