Sustainable Bristol

Europe’s Future Green Capital?

With all the excitement in Bristol about BIG Green Week (have you booked your tickets yet?), Sustainable Bristol has been a bit slow with the news that Bristol has been shortlisted to be named the European Green Capital in 2014.

Bristol is the only UK city to make the shortlist, competing against the Danish capital, Copenhagen, and the German city of Frankfurt.

To reach the shortlist, Bristol was scored on 12 different areas, including local transport, nature and biodiversity, waste production and management and the local contribution to global climate change.

Bristolians are being encouraged to back… Continue reading

BIG Green Week challenges nation to inspiring green action

A spectacular line-up of internationally renowned speakers and celebrities is aiming to attract visitors from around the country to Bristol’s BIG Green Week in June. Their mission to inspire the next generation of great green ideas through a fun-filled nine days of one hundred events.

Festival tickets are now available, along with the full programme for all the 9^th to 17^th June’s events at www.biggreenweek.com.

Highlights include Vivienne Westwood, Bill McKibben, Deborah Meaden, Caroline Lucas, Kevin McCloud, The Eden Project’s Tim Smit, Great British Menu’s Prue Leith, Comedian Nathan Caton, Jonathon Porritt and Scrapheap Challenge’s Robert Llewellyn compering the… Continue reading

Get your Green Pass to a festival of fun…

With less than 100 days to go until the start of BIG Green Week (9-17th June 2012), initial details of the programme have been revealed – and Green Passes, offering discounts throughout the festival, have gone on sale.

A Bristol trio of carnival musicians marked the launch of the Green Passes at Colston Hall, the headquarters for the nine day festival, which celebrates Bristol’s role as an innovative sustainable city, and includes a packed programme of events with speakers, art, culture and entertainment.

The Green Pass, priced £10, gives festival visitors advanced booking, up to 20% reductions on… Continue reading

Bristol BIG Green Week passes on sale soon

Ten pound ‘Green Passes’ for Bristol’s BIG Green Week 2012, providing advance booking, discounts on ticket prices, and other local benefits will go on sale in March organisers have announced. For more details follow @biggreenweek on Twitter, check out Big Green Week on Facebook, or sign up for the newsletter on the BIG Green Week website here.

The UK’s festival of environmental talks, art and culture is taking place in Bristol between 9th to 17th June.

Jointly organised by Bristol Green Capital and Forum for the Future, supported by Bristol City Council,… Continue reading

Retrofit Central

Bristol could be fast-becoming the retrofitting capital of the UK. Already home to Bristol Green Doors and Refit West’s whole-house refurbishment scheme, retrofitting in the city has just received another boost with projects in the city securing cash from the government’s Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF).

One of the recipients is Future Fit Bristol, a project being run by the Knowle West Media Centre, re:work and Tree of Life offering the local community the opportunity to have up to half a day with a qualified local builder installing energy saving measures in the house.

The Continue reading

Bristol first UK Council to become Renewable Energy Company

Bristol City Council, the UK’s leading green city, has announced funding to develop its own renewable energy services company – a first for British local government. The new prioject will establish a citywide energy services company to spearhead renewable energy and energy efficiency projects worth up to £140 million and helping to create 1,000 green energy jobs in Bristol.

The broad range of low carbon projects planned in Bristol will inspire similar cities in the UK and across Europe to look at ways to accelerate deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy schemes. Although the focus is mainly on solar energy, the Council is… Continue reading

Big Green Week Programme Details

Bristol’s BIG Green Week 2012 outline programme details reveal a packed schedule of world class talks, art, and entertainment.

Peter Madden, Chief Executive of Forum for the Future, who helped develop BIG Green Week said:

“Bristol’s BIG Green Week is a celebration of green ideas and action which aims to challenge and motivate people to engage with the sustainability issues we face. It is also a fantastic opportunity to hear some world class speakers, get involved in some fun activities and enjoy the buzz in one of the UK’s greenest, most dynamic cities.”

And organisaers of the nine day… Continue reading

Deal or no Deal? (The Green Deal, that is)

The potential felt enormous, the excitement was palpable and the outcomes were uncertain… You probably wouldn’t guess that I was describing the atmosphere at a government consultation workshop that I attended before Christmas. But that is exactly how I felt after the day spent with the UK Green Building Council, representatives from DECC and nearly 200 experts and leaders from across industry. It followed the launch of the much anticipated ‘Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation Consultation’ giving just a few short days to digest the 236 pages and 24 supporting documents.

While I’m not suggesting that the success or failure… Continue reading

Bristol Big Green Week’s outline programme released

Britain’s leading green city, Bristol, will be hosting the UK’s festival of environmental talks, art and culture in June.

The outline programme, released today, for Bristol’s BIG Green Week 2012 which runs from 9–17 June – reveals a packed schedule of world class speakers, art, entertainment and family fun, kicking off with a celebration of local food with the UK’s biggest ever Farmer’s Market on Saturday 9 June, followed by a Sunday showcase for electric vehicles.

From Monday to Friday (11-15 June), BIG Green Week will host a daily stream of speaker events to explore the latest green thinking, including… Continue reading

Failing to feel the heat in Durban

The UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa – where I’ve been for the last two weeks – seemed a long way away from Bristol’s real-world endeavours to green the way we live and work as a city.

Given the weaknesses of the deal agreed in Durban, this distance is perhaps a good thing. Politicians in Durban may have failed to agree on the kind of emissions cuts needed to keep global warming within the supposedly safe limit of 2 degrees, but we still need to shift to a low carbon economy – in Bristol and around the… Continue reading