All Our Futures

Had a really good day at the All Our Futures conference at the University of Plymouth today. There was a great programme of speakers and some very interesting information to take away - really inspirational stuff.

I'd been invited by the South West Design Programme, to help out on a workshop they were running. I was one of four designers drafted in to help create storyboards, as part of a problem solving exercise in the workshop. Each table had a specific problem to address, and 30 minutes to come up with a solution. Here's my table in action...



But the highlights were the presentations. There was too much to put into one post, so I'll give you a few highlights:

John Elkington
John Elkington is the man who created the term 'triple bottom line', and is global figurehead for sustainable thinking. There was a lot of interesting stuff - which I'm sure I'll come back to on future posts - but I'll stick to The Phoenix Economy. It's a report by Volans for the Skoll Foundation and it identifies 50 global pioneers in the business of social innovation. There are some challenging concepts to come to terms with, regarding what the future global economy will look like.

Marie Harder
Marie was looking at what we mean by 'design' and how we can apply it to processes as well as products. One of her messages, through a number of case studies, was that if you want to find the solutions for the big challenges in the world, start off by solving the small challenges. When you have a process that works, apply that to the big challenge. It sounds obvious - but makes things seem much more achievable.

Alastair Fuad-Luke
Alastair's presentation was the highlight of the day for me. Again, loads of things to pick from, but the concept of co-design was what really resonated with me. When you combine that principle with the opportunities that social media provides I think you'll find yourself in a really exciting place.

David Wheeler
David closed the afternoon, and left me with some really interesting thoughts to take away. His theme was the role that sustainable thinking has to play in the economic recovery (and that, arguably, there will be no long-term recovery without it). I'm no economist, but there were some really interesting ideas that I want to look at in more detail (and that's not a sentence I thought I'd ever type!). But what I found most interesting was his checklist for developing a green economy in the South West through sustainable business 'clusters' - more about this in another post I think. The other point I wanted to mention was the fact that company 'values' were identified as key to developing businesses ready to exploit the green economy. It's another example of the role brand can play in delivering financial value to business.

It was a great day, and one that leaves you feeling that there are solutions out there - but we need to implement them quickly, because time's running out very fast.

More of the green stuff

I came across this article on The Guardian site last week about the new ad campaign from Marks & Spencer. The campaign highlights their on-going commitment to their Plan A strategy, despite the current climate. According to the article, the £200m cost of implementing Plan A has already been covered by the savings made through energy and waste efficiency.

It's more proof that sustainability makes good business sense - whatever the economy is doing.

If you want to look at what your business can do to be greener, take a look at www.todayandtomorrowonline.co.uk for advice and useful links.

YouGen is on The Guardian website

The YouGen website - www.yougen.co.uk - has been listed on the The Guardian website - in the Green Your Home section. It's one of the Useful links on the left hand side. Take a look.



To find out more about the work we've done for YouGen take a look at this previous post, or to see some examples visit www.alderandalder.co.uk.

May Day Summit

I had a really good day at the May Day Summit in Bristol on Friday. There was lots of information to take in and some interesting opinions put forward. The Summit is part of the Prince's May Day Network, which is the UK’s largest group of businesses committed to taking action on climate change. The event in Bristol was just of a number that took place across the country. The main event was in London with the Prince of Wales and Ed Miliband , amongst others. In Bristol we had Jonathon Porritt, who was founder of Friends of the Earth and Forum for the Future, and is currently Chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission - so he knows what he's talking about! You can find out more about other May Day Summit events here.

The event in Bristol was down on the quay, a very nice spot on a sunny day. The day consisted of a number of presentations and discussion groups. There was a lot of interesting stuff, but the things that stood out for me came from Jonathon Porritt: We need to act now - the expression he used was 'Radical decarbonisation' - if we want to avoid the worst impact of climate change. And to put that into context he quoted Mark Twain:
'Twenty years from now will you be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do, than by the things you did?'

Some people I've spoken to recently have talked about the economy needing to be the priority during this recession, and environmental issues being less significant. With the UK economy predicted to contract by up to 4% this year you can understand why. But looking further into the future, the Stern Review estimates that with a temperature rise of 2ºC the global economy could suffer a 20% contraction of growth. It's like avoiding stepping in a puddle, but falling into a lake as a result - a short-term solution failing to prevent a long-term impact. And we should remember that it is now accepted that the Stern Review under-estimated the severity of the situation, and the temperature rise is more likely to be 3ºC-4ºC. So with that in mind Jonathon Porritt's call to action is all the more relevant... but is anyone listening?

I hope so. I really do. And to offer advice and guidance to businesses who do want to do something we launched www.todayandtomorrowonline.co.uk. If you want to take some action why not sign up to the Prince's May Day Network?

YouGen goes live!

The website is officially live - and looking good. The phase 2 development has been completed and the site's ready for business at www.yougen.co.uk. We've worked closely with Optix Solutions to apply the brand and the visual identity to the site. As well as the overall look and feel, this has involved developing all the various icons for the site, to help make the user experience as easy and intuitive as possible.



To learn a bit more about the project take at look at this previous post. To see some more examples of our logo design and brand development work, take a look at our website.

Carbon calculations

We've been doing some more work with Envision, to get a better idea of the impact our office has on the environment. We began working with them in 2007, when they helped us create an environmental management system and develop an environmental policy for our business.

The work we did with them was a great help to us when we set up Today and Tomorrow, an initiative aimed at helping companies to understand the benefits of putting the environment at the heart of their business. Visit www.todayandtomorrowonline.co.uk, to learn more about it.

The work we're currently doing with Envision is to asses our use of utilities and resources, to calculate our carbon footprint. So we're measuring our consumption of gas, electricity, water and paper in the office and we're also looking at our fuel usage from travel. When we've gathered the information we'll look at the various ways we can use it to add value to our business.

Dinner at Dartington

I had the opportunity to listen to some really inspirational presentations recently. I was at a Sustainability Networking Dinner at Dartington Hall and there was a very impressive list of speakers. There was a lot of thought provoking stuff about the challenges we face - from people who understand them; Charlie McConnell, Director of Sustainability at Dartington; Simon Hooton, Director of Strategy at South West Regional Development Agency; Guy Watson, founder of Riverford Organic Vegetables. But the one that stuck out for me was Gunter Pauli.

Gunter was at Dartington for the week, leading a course at Schumacher College. He's head of the Zeri Foundation, which is a collection of great minds looking for solutions to the challenges we face. But he's been involved in a lot of other things too throughout his career, including launching Ecover, the pioneer of environmentally friendly cleaning products. I wish I could remember more of what he said because it was really interesting stuff, but the one thing that has stayed with me was this: Change always happens on the periphery, not at the centre.

So for anyone who feels isolated or separated from what's going on - it doesn't matter. Whether you feel you're on the edge of things because of size or geographical location - it doesn't matter. That's where things will happen. And who knows, it could be you that makes them happen.

YouGen online brand preview

As part of their on going development YouGen have put some sample screens online, to show the work in progress. When complete the website will act as a hub for businesses and individuals interested in renewable energy solutions. Businesses will be able to create a profile for themselves, listing the services they offer, and include testimonials from happy customers. Take a look at a sample. Individuals can also create profiles and list the technologies they're interested in, as you can see on this sample. (Both the samples are just static pages, so no links work yet).



We have worked closely with Optix Solutions to develop the online brand, supplying the various grahics and icons you can see on the samples, and developing the colour palette. To learn a bit more about our work with YouGen, take a look at this previous post.

If you would like to see some more examples of our logo and branding work, visit our website www.alderandalder.co.uk, or give us a call: 01392 248107. We would love to hear from you.

A lack of energy

Read an interesting article this week about levels of renewable energy generation in Europe. A report published in Germany earlier this month stated that they produce 15.3% of their electricity from renewable sources, and almost 10% of their total energy needs. And what about Britain? Well, it's a bit like Eurovision... we're near the bottom of the pile, with 5% of our electricity and less than 2% of our total needs.

In Germany their renewable energy generation saved their economy £15 billion in imported energy and related costs last year. It also saved more CO2 than all the cars in Germany produce in a year.

The UK has committed to the EU target of 15% of total energy from green sources by 2020, but many analysts don't think that will be met. Germany's target is 20%, and it's well on course to exceed it.

If you want to find out more, and what can be done to improve the situation, visit Friends of the Earth.

Small and green

New data from a survey just released by Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank shows that 80% of the small businesses who responded have made changes to improve their green credentials. But what I found most interesting was that 62% of the business owners had made the decision to be greener based on their own principles, with only a third making changes to reduce costs. One surprise was that only 25% had a recycling scheme in place - that seems to be one of the easier things to implement.

Interestingly the survey was carried out last summer - I imagine some of those figures may have changed (and not for the better). I know a lot of people I have spoken to who provide environmental consultancy of some kind say that clients are now driven by cost. 12 months ago they were driven by principle (or customer / client perception).

If you want to find out more about greening your business and the benefits visit Today and Tomorrow. For some tips on what you can do in your business take a look at the Green Business page.