Posts Tagged ‘behaviour change’
Adelaide’s Urban Orchard: DVD
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on April 7th, 2011
Source: Friends of the Earth (Adelaide) via Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network
Tracing the history of food gathering and production on the Adelaide Plains, from the Kaurna Aboriginal nation to present day backyard gardens, An Urban Orchard is a celebration of growing and sharing good food.
In the inner southern suburbs of the city of Adelaide, South Australia, local residents meet to share the bounty of their backyards. Around the table of the ‘Urban Orchard’ produce exchange, people from diverse backgrounds share their knowledge of food production and preparation. While deceptively simple, the exchange is a rich opportunity for building community, reducing waste and powerful element in emerging local food systems, where the talk is more often of ‘food metres’ than ‘food miles’. Focusing on the emergence of homegrown fruit and vegetable exchanges, the film follows the journeys of local gardeners involved in the exchange and offers inspiration for other communities to build more just, sustainable and local food systems in their neighbourhoods.
Check out the Urban Orchard trailer here, and visit the Friends of the Earth’s website to purchase a copy. DVDs cost $15, plus $5 postage.
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Access to Local Produce: How To Improve Affordability of Non-Industrial Food?
Posted in Movements, Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on April 5th, 2011
Source: Grist
Image: fishermansdaughter via flickr CC
From “The omnivore’s other dilemma: expanding access to non-industrial food” by Bob Comis:
A couple of years ago at a farmers market, a woman approached my stall, a little apprehensively. She looked old and beaten down. Her face was weathered and worn. Her hands looked rough and gritty. But, it was clear that she was younger than she looked. Her clothes were poor. Her jeans were worn thin around the knees and had faded spots of dirt here and there on her thighs. Before she even said a word, I imagined a life of hard work and hard times for her. She came over to the stall and without looking up at me started looking over the meat case, and then after a moment, she fingered the edge of the price sheet for a moment and then picked it up to take a closer look. As she looked, I waited, without saying anything, wondering how things were going to go. I had long ago stopped stereotyping people. Yes, I had imagined a hard life for her, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t willing to pay half a day’s wages on pasture-raised, local pork, or grassfed lamb. I’d been surprised by too many people to make that mistake again. She carefully placed the price sheet back on the table and placed the small orange wee-bee little pumpkin paper weight back on top of it.
Then for the first time, she looked up at me. I smiled. “Hi,” I said. “Hello,” she said, and then as we looked at each other silently for a moment, I was taken very much by surprise. Her eyes quickly welled up with tears; one slipped out and slid slowly down her cheek. She raised a hand up and wiped it off. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “It’s just … it’s just that I am so frustrated.” I didn’t say anything. It was clear that she wanted to speak her piece. After a moment, still with tear-filled eyes, she said, “You know, I want … ,” she wiped another tear away, ” … I want so badly to stop eating grocery store meat. It’s terrible. Terrible for you. It tastes terrible. It’s all full of crap, hormones, drugs, and God knows what.” I nodded. “But this,” she said, sweeping a hand over the meat case, “I just can’t afford it, any of it.” “I’m sorry,” I said, a little uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed.
I looked away from her, around the rest of the farmers market. The people at the market were not monolithically well off, or white. It was not just soccer moms and exuberant well-off foodies. But, it was close. I didn’t know what to say. I had often been confronted by people over the price of my meat. “That’s ridiculous!” “So expensive!” “Phhftt!” One old lady even said, “you should be ashamed!” Little did she know that I already was, always had been. I had set out in farming with a mission, to offer ethically and ecologically raised meat at the lowest price possible, low enough even for people like the woman standing in front of me at that moment. But, I quickly discovered that this was a pipe dream.
I couldn’t sell pork chops for less than $7.00/lb. and keep the farm going, and even at that price, my wife would still need to continue subsidizing the farm. The low-volume, direct market system makes it impossible. The costs are simply too high. USDA slaughter and butchering alone doubles the cost of getting the animal to market. A lamb has $3.00/lb. of small-scale, local slaughter and butchering in it! A pig, $2.00/lb. The woman standing in front of me had no idea how angry and frustrated I was. She had no idea that her tears were my tears.
I had set out to make meat broadly affordable, but instead, I was selling exclusive, high-priced meat to the well-off.
Read the full article by Bob Comis on Grist, to find out more about scaling up and calling for a commitment from supermarkets to local food.
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Transport Measures Which Change Travel Behaviour: Evidence Review
Posted in Research, Tools by Kate Archdeacon on April 4th, 2011
Source: Eastern Region Public Health Observatory (ERPHO) via Victoria Walks
This review of the evidence of travel change behaviour can be used:
- to help make the case for new investment, in bids or business plans.
- to inform any re-assessment of existing programmes so that decisions can be based on the best evidence of effectiveness and value.
- as a benchmark to compare the effectiveness of local programmes with published evaluations and evidence.
- to encourage more sharing of evidence about what works.
- to act as a focal point for new evidence, with annual updates.
Key messages include:
- Travel behaviour change measures can provide very high benefits compared to costs, when measured by WebTAG, the Department for Transport’s method for evaluating transport investment.
- Changing how we travel can reduce the need for expensive infrastructure.
- Behaviour change measures can be implemented much more quickly than infrastructure projects.
- All measures achieve genuine carbon reductions (from 5kgs to 1500 kgs per person per year).
- Greater impact is achieved from careful targeting of people likely to change their behaviour combined with multi-measure programmes across age groups.
Source: Eastern Region Public Health Observatory (ERPHO)
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Garage Trail Sale 2011
Posted in Events, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on March 31st, 2011
What if all the garage sales in your area were held on the same day? You could plan your route and visit heaps of different sales easily – maybe even with a bike and a trailer.
The Garage Sale Trail is about sustainability, community and fun. By getting people together to turn their old stuff into someone else’s new stuff, the day not only proves that second hand items can still have value, it keeps rubbish off the street, removes clutter from cupboards, stops a bunch of new things being brought into the world (along with the environmental impact that creates) and gives everyone good reason to meet the neighbours and have a good natter at the same time.
The Garage Sale Trail is on Sunday April 10 all around Australia – check out the map to see sales in your area or add your own. The site also has a free app to let you navigate easily on the day using your phone.
http://www.garagesaletrail.com.au/
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Peter Harper: ‘Zero Carbon Britain 2030? in Sydney
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on March 30th, 2011
Zero Carbon by 2030 – Britain’s dream or reality?
Technology says we can. Science says we must. Is it time to say we will?
SPEAKER: Peter Harper, Centre for Alternative Technology (UK), Coordinator Zero Carbon Britain
Two public lectures by UK scientist Peter Harper, from the Centre of Alternative Technology (CAT), in Wales on ZeroCarbonBritain 2030 – a plan offering a positive realistic, policy framework to eliminate emissions from fossil fuels within 20 years. Zero Carbon Britain(ZCB) brought together leading UK’s thinkers, including policy makers, scientists, academics, industry and NGOs to provide political, economic and technological solutions to the urgent challenges raised by climate science.
Governments and businesses seem paralysed and unable to plan for a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy. ZCB shows what can be done by harnessing the voluntary contribution from experts working outside their institutions. The ZCB report,released in June 2010, provides a fully integrated vision of how Britain can respond to the challenges of climate change, resource depletion and global inequity, with the potential for a low-carbon future to enrich society as a whole.
During lectures in Melbourne and Sydney, Peter will explore how we can ‘Power Down’ demand in the built environment, transport, land use and institute behavioural change, then ‘Power Up’ the energy system with renewables. He’ll outline the key thinking behind the report, including why a low carbon economy is an investment in the future, and look at the ways sustainable community based and multi-lateral initiatives will concurrently inform a global energy infrastructure.
Sydney, Tuesday 19 April, 6.30-8pm, Vestibule, Sydney Town Hall
Please register your attendance by Friday 15 April to amrit.gill@britishcouncil.org.au
Presented by the British Council, VEIL (Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab), Banksia Environmental Foundation, Key Message and the City of Sydney.
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Using Price to Improve Recycling Rates
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on March 30th, 2011
Source: guardian.co.uk via Awake
What’s “rubbish”? Image: haemengine via flickr CC
From “A small town in Germany where recycling pays” by Leo Hickman:
A car towing a trailer full of construction waste pulls up at the weigh-station by the entrance gate. Weiss wanders over to inspect the contents. “This weighs about half of tonne. If will cost €270 to dump it as it is. Or if the car owner sorts it into separate types of waste — timber, paper, plasterboard etc — it will cost him just €17. That, in summary, is our system. We provide a major incentive to recycle.”
The citizens of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse take their recycling very seriously. So much so that there is even a collection point at the recycling depot for dead animals. “People bring their dead dogs here,” says Stefan Weiss, one of the town’s waste managers, as he steps into a refrigerated shed and opens the lid on a wheelie bin containing a deer’s head recently deposited by a local hunter. “All these animals get rendered down at a nearby facility for their fat. It then gets used to produce things like this.” Weiss pulls a tube of lip balm from his pocket.
Located in the south-western state of Rheinland-Pfalz and set in the heart of Palatinate wine-growing region, the predominantly middle-class, medieval town of Neustadt boasts the best recycling rates in Germany. Over the past 30 years, the town has nurtured and refined a system that means it now recycles about 70% of its waste – 16% higher than the state target. By comparison, UK recycling rates average about 40% – up from just 5% in the mid-1990s.
The reason for Neustadt’s success is simple, says Weiss. “It’s all about providing financial incentives and education. We don’t charge citizens anything for the recycled waste they leave out. And the less waste you put out for incineration – we’ve had no landfill in Germany since 2005 – the less you pay. Having no incentive to reduce waste is poisonous to your aims. We have a separate, visible fee that is intentionally not embedded within a local tax.”
For example, the majority of Neustadt’s 28,000 households opt for a 60-litre bin for their non-recycled waste. This is collected once a fortnight and costs the household €6.60 in collection fees. If a household opts for a 40l bin, the fee falls to €5.30. Conversely, if they opt for a 240l bin (the standard wheelie bin volume in the UK), the fee rises to €24, or €48 if they want it collected weekly. If they produce higher than expected waste due to, say, having a party, they can buy special 60l plastic sacks for €3 and leave them out by their bins for collection.
Temporary Occupations for Urban Renewal
Posted in Models, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on March 25th, 2011
Renew Newcastle was founded to help solve the problem of Newcastle’s empty CBD. While the long term prospects for the redevelopment of Newcastle’s CBD are good, in the meantime many sites are boarded up, falling apart, vandalised or decaying because they are is no short term for use them and no one taking responsibility for them. Renew Newcastle has been established to find short and medium term uses for buildings in Newcastle’s CBD that are currently vacant, disused, or awaiting redevelopment.
Renew Newcastle aims to find artists, cultural projects and community groups to use and maintain these buildings until they become commercially viable or are redeveloped. Renew Newcastle is not set up to manage long term uses, own properties or permanently develop sites but to generate activity in buildings until that future long term activity happens.
Renew Newcastle has been set up to clean up these buildings and get the city active and used again.
Find out more about the project and the collaborators (snapshot below) on their website http://renewnewcastle.org/
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“Green Demolition”: Localised Redistribution of Materials
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on March 21st, 2011
Source: Change Observer
From D-Build: A sustainable model for the second life of buildings by Maria Popova:
Materials science has been one of the fastest-growing frontiers of innovation, particularly in the realm of sustainable design. Yet there seems to be an odd disconnect between our desire to reinvent tomorrow’s materials and our failure to intelligently address the life-cycle of today’s. This is precisely what Syracuse-based project D-Build is trying to change through a new model for materials reuse and upcycling in building deconstruction, using principles of design thinking to change the afterlife of architecture. An alternative to both traditional demolition, which can be costly and dangerous, and traditional deconstruction, which is time-consuming and requires a large workforce, D-Build uses a hybrid process called “green demolition.” A building is cut into pieces of manageable size and processed on the ground by a tight, efficient local crew. The site then serves as a hub for connecting buildings, people and businesses, offering a peer-to-peer marketplace for users to exchange materials salvaged from deconstructed buildings and sell industrial design products made with these upcycled materials.
This time-lapse footage captures D-Build’s fascinating, nearly ant-like deconstruction process.
Read the full article by Maria Popova on Change Observer.
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Peter Harper: ‘Zero Carbon Britain 2030′ in Melbourne & Sydney
Posted in Events, Research by Kate Archdeacon on March 18th, 2011
Peter Harper is the Research Director of the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales UK and one of the three coordinators of the Zero Carbon Britain (ZCB) 2030 project.
ZCB 2030 is a positive, realistic vision for an energy progressive society free from fossil fuels. At a time when governments appear to be paralysed and unable to act, ZCB 2030 has demonstrated that alternative plans for the future can be developed through the cooperation and good will of volunteer researchers and experts. ZCB 2030 completed its three years of work in mid 2010, presenting the plan to the UK parliament. It provides political, economic and technological solutions to the urgent challenges raised by climate science.
“The great transition to a zero-carbon Britain is not only the most pressing challenge of our time, it is also entirely possible. The solutions needed to create a low-carbon and high-wellbeing future for all exist, what has been missing to date, is the political will to implement them.” Dr Victoria Johnson, New Economics Foundation
Peter will deliver lectures about the project in Melbourne on April 13 and in Sydney on April 19. These lectures will be surrounded by other smaller events to examine the ZCB plan and to compare its approach and conclusions to that for Australia being developed by Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) in the Zero Carbon Australia project.
In Melbourne: BMW Edge 13th April
In Sydney: Sydney Town Hall 19th April
More details will be announced here as they become available.
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Beyond Food Miles: Some Types Of Food Take More Energy
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on March 17th, 2011
Source: PostCarbon Institute
Image: renatamiyagusku via flickr CC
From “Beyond Food Miles” by Michael Bomford:
NOTE: The following article is concerned strictly with the energy equation of the food system and is intended to stimulate questions about how best to grow, transport, store and prepare (ideally local) foods. There are many reasons to favor local food, including supporting local economies and building local food security.
A locavore is “a person who endeavors to eat only locally produced food.”[1] What better diet could there be for an energy constrained world? After all, feeding Americans accounts for about 15% of US energy use,[2] and the average food item travels more than 5,000 miles from farm to fork.[3] It seems obvious that eating locally will go a long way to reducing food system energy use. Yet cracking the case of America’s energy-intensive food system demands that we look beyond the obvious.
A local diet can reduce energy use somewhat, but there are even more effective ways to tackle the problem. Single-minded pursuit of local food, without consideration of the bigger picture, can actually make things worse from an energy perspective.[4]
If you realize you’re spending too much money, the first thing to do is figure out where it’s going. Cutting back on pizza won’t make much difference if you’re spending most of your money on beer. Similarly, the first step in reducing food system energy use is to figure out where all the energy is going. That’s what a team of economists working for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) did last year, in a report called “Energy Use in the US Food System“.
The report contains some surprises. Transportation is the smallest piece of the food system energy pie. Even farming isn’t a particularly big contributor. The big energy users turn out to be food processing, packaging, selling, and preparation. Our kitchens command the biggest slice of the pie, using twice as much energy as the farms that grew the food in the first place.
[...]
Read the full article by Michael Bomford at the Post-Carbon Institute for more information and access to the end-notes included above.