Inspiring a Sustainable Future for Oxfordshire

23 April 2005

Over 130 people attended the Sustainable Oxfordshire event on Saturday 23 April: they included community activists, local business, staff of Oxford’s two universities and representatives of the City and County Councils.

As well as being an opportunity to hear from a distinguished line-up of speakers, the day featured music, dance and works of art sourced from natural materials. Richard Dudding, Director of Environment and Economy at Oxfordshire County Council, presented recent findings from the 'Oxfordshire 20:20' project, showing how Oxfordshire will develop in the future and the challenges it faces. Brenda Boardman from the Environmental Change Institute introduced 'The 40% House'—how carbon dioxide emissions from houses can be reduced by 60% by 2050.

Miche Fabre Lewin sourced and prepared a remarkable lunch, using local and fair trade ingredients, which proved a great catalyst for networking.

Ideas for further networking were one of the important outcomes of the day. Eka Morgan, Oxford Inspires' Food and Environment Coordinator, said: "This event was about maximising the environmental efforts of everyone in the county. If Oxfordshire plays to its strengths of environmental activism, scientific innovation and academic rigour, then maybe there will be a way through the challenges the county faces."

The presentations are available at: www.brookes.ac.uk/eie/susox.htm except for the following speakers, who gave presentations without slides:

Robin Murray, Director of RED, The Design Council's Innovation Unit spoke about Zero Waste and how to see waste 'not as a problem but a resource'. This is not just 'another good idea' he said, rather a 'fundamental change of system' in our thinking and our acting. He began by suggesting: "There is nothing like the idea of incinerating large quantities of waste to get people inspired and energised, even if it remains a bad idea actually to install it!"

He stressed that it's more sensible to make positive use of everything we throw away, rather than focusing on targets for the reduction of waste sent to landfill. This applies just as much to business waste, which creates 75% of our waste, as to domestic waste. Robin laid out 5 principles:

a) Separation of materials, so that each can be dealt with in the most appropriate way.

b) Rescue all waste from being 'invisible', especially water waste and sewage, so that we can all see and know how to use it positively.

c) 'Information intensity', e.g. bar-coding anything and everything, developing a system by which the emissions and waste output of every single factory, warehouse and home can be known and available.

d) Incentives—e.g. in the Brazilian city of Curitiba the 100% use of waste has become so successful that people can now be paid, in the form of annual prizes, for making their waste available in the most appropriate ways.

e) A flexible, open, and decentralised system—a far more local, small-scale approach which can bypass excess administration/transport/accounting. Robin cited the new Toyota factory in Derbyshire, which has reduced its waste to 3%.

Adam Twine, an Oxfordshire farmer, told the story of his plan to build a wind-farm, first conceived and worked on with friends in 1991, and of the long struggle with the planning system and authorities, which is still by no means over. His story, 'An abridged diary of everyday windfarm folks' can be found here: www.yes2wind.com/weblog.html and more information about community owned renewable energy can be found here: www.energy4all.co.uk.

The event was organised by Oxford Inspires, the Environmental Change Institute (Oxford University) and the Environmental Information Exchange (Oxford Brookes University) and generously supported by Oxfordshire County Council.