Sustainable Living Workshop - TTKD January Meeting

Next TTKD meeting Thursday 17 January: 

Sustainable Living Workshop

Our January meeting is all about you, come share your lifestyle choices and thoughts at this informal session.

• What do you do to try to live sustainably?
• What would you like to do?
• What hinders you from doing what you’d like to do?
• Is there anything local, State or National authorities could do to help you to make sustainable choices?

At the conclusion of the discussion we will compile a list of questions and suggestions to send to the relevant authorities.

Bring your ideas and some food (preferably locally sourced or home produced!) to share

Kenmore Library Meeting Room

Kenmore Village

corner Moggill and Brookfield Roads

7:15 pm for 7:30 pm start

light refreshments provided

Contact transitionkenmore@gmail.com for further information

Community renewable energy - locally owned renewable power stations

Community renewable energy is something we will hopefully be hearing a lot more about in the future. The idea, which is popular overseas, is for members of a local community to get together, combine their money and build a much larger renewable energy "power station" than they could individually afford. The proceeds from selling the electricity created then provide a return on investment.

The classic example of this in Australia is Hepburn Wind in Victoria where roughly 2000 people got together and installed a ~4MW wind farm. Recently another project has been announced for Sydney where a community scheme will put 400 kW of solar panels on the roof of the new convention centre in Darling Harbour. Helping drive this (and many other proposed projects) is Embark a not for profit group aiming to spur along community renewable energy by providing know-how and also seed funding.

Although community owned renewables are unlikely to generate a large percentage of the electricity we produce any time soon, they provide an opportunity for people who can't otherwise create their own electricity (renters, people living in apartments, home owners whose roof isn't suitable for solar panels etc etc) to get involved. Importantly they also allow the local community to own and benefit from their local renewable energy resource (whatever that might be) and for people to make money out of being green.

For a more detailed look at community renewable energy and it's benefits and possibilies, see this article in Renew Economy.


So what about in QLD? Well, recently Energetic Communities, which aims to develop community renewable energy in SEQ got up and running. Hopefully I'll have more to say about them in the near future.

Good on yer Dave

Now for a good news story. The ABC reports that winemaker David Bruer is on his way towards making his already organic winery carbon neutral. To do so he's persuing a number of strategies including lightweight bottles, carbon farming, revegetation and solar power.

Carbon neutral next step for organic winery

Best of luck Dave and I hope other wineries follow in your footsteps.

TTKD July Meeting - Responsible and Ethical financial management + a quick carbon price chat

Steve Putt is the Managing Director of Viridian Wealth Management Pty Ltd, a financial planning firm that specialises in strategic advice, and responsible investment.
Steve has 15 years experience in the financial services industry. He has a passion for sustainability, and believes that not only should be people be aware of what their money is up to, but that they can drive social change by marrying their personal beliefs with ethical wealth creation strategies.

His talk to Transition Towns Kenmore will cover his background, how Viridian Wealth Management Pty Ltd came to be, and some tips on finding out what you can do. Steve believes that most people are unaware of the companies they support with passive investment decisions, specifically through their superannuation.

He believes it is an important message to hear that people have choices in how they invest, which can drive social and environmental change.


After Steve has spoken and we have had a Q&A about ethical / sustainable investing, if people want we can also discuss the carbon price package.

When: Thursday 21 July, 2011. 7.30pm
Where: Kenmore Library

NOTE: New day! Meetings now on Thursdays

SMH: Start an industrial green revolution

"IT'S called carbon leakage and everyone's against it: the possibility that Australia could bring in a carbon price only to see jobs lost as industries relocate to lower-cost, dirtier countries overseas, with the unintended consequence that global greenhouse gas emissions go up instead of down."

So starts a great business day piece by Paddy Manning in the SMH a few days ago. On a topic that will be another carbon pricing flashpoint this year. Compensation for industry. Especially for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries (EITEs).

"The problem is, the carbon leakage argument has been misused. In reality, especially in sectors like aluminium and oil, we are turning into one of the brownest destinations around, with some of the oldest plant powered by the dirtiest energy, whooping it up under one of the lowest implicit or explicit carbon price regimes in the developed - or fast-developing - world.

We are in danger of being had. It's not at all about Australia losing jobs or investment or international competitiveness as we move to price carbon ahead of the rest of the world. It might have been that way in the '90s, when we first started debating the climate issue.

In 2011 the EITE compensation debate is often about saving certain industries the effort and expense of investing in best-practice plant and equipment to lower carbon emissions intensity."

The basic idea being that some industries calling for compensation are extremely polluting and inefficient due to an almost complete reliance on coal fired electricity and old technology. I guess a subtext here is that despite knowing since the late 80s that unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions were likely to be a bad thing, some industries have done nothing to clean up their act and are now demanding the government pay them to do so/ keep them afloat in a world where they can no longer pollute for free. On the other hand according to Grattan analyst Tristan Edis:

"Australia's steel makers, Edis argues, have invested in newer, efficient plant and have a legitimate case for compensation."

Overall the question we need to ask is:

"Should the Australian government be propping up industries that will fight to survive a fundamental realignment of our economy, or should it - at a time of record low unemployment and widespread skill and labour shortages - help workers shift into more competitive sectors of the economy?"

Foodconnect demonstrates the resilience of local food - business essentially unaffected by the floods

Listen to Foodconnect founder and local food visionary Rob Pekin talk on ABC radio about how Foodconnect was able to keep getting it's fresh fruit and veges from farmers to customers (including by boat and canoe when necessary) during the floods.

Pekin explains how the strong connections between local farmer, Foodconnect and local customer give it the agility and resilience to get food to people when the bigger players can't. Just one more reason to like Foodconnect, along with the benefits of getting fresh food from local farmers who receive a fair wage in return.

Listen here.

Green Buildings and Retrofitting - Helping the economy and the environment

With energy use in buildings making up a large amount of worldwide CO2 emissions (some 40-45% in the USA for example) it's no secret that making new buildings Green and Green retrofitting provides a clear path to combating climate change.

The benefits of such activities are obvious, using less energy and water means lower bills, less waste and less exposure to rising prices without even considering the environmental benefits. While there are productivity and physiological advantages of, for example: buildings schools that don't fry in the heat in a state like QLD.

Of course the question that everyone asks about Green buildings is: Won't it cost a lot more?

Well according to Gregory Kats and his new book Greening our built world the answer is NO.

Working with ~100 "architects, developers, green building consultants, and building owners" Greg and his team surveyed 170 Green buildings from schools to laboratories, residential complexes to offices and found:

Green buildings—designed to use fewer resources and to support the health of their inhabitants—are commonly viewed as more expensive to build than conventional buildings. For example, a 2007 opinion survey by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development found that, on average, green buildings were thought to cost 17% more than conventional buildings. But we found this widespread perception—that greening costs a lot more than conventional design—to be wrong. In fact, the green 170 buildings analyzed for Greening our Built World cost, on average, less than 2% more than conventional buildings; moreover, green buildings provide a wide range of benefits—both direct and indirect—that make them a very good investment.

So not only do Green buildings not cost much more, but because they create large energy savings that pay back multiple times over there are a good investment too.

More info and plenty of graphs can be found here.

Food Connect - connecting you with farmers, to provide sustainable, local food

Many members of Transition Kenmore are part of an increasing number of people from around Brisbane using Food Connect to provide them with fresh local fruit and vegetables.

Food Connect makes it easy to support local farmers, cut down on "food miles", eat food that's fresh (not stored for months in a refrigerated warehouse), expand your fruit and veges horizons with their wide range of produce and much of the food is organic to boot.

Food connect does it by establishing relationships with local farmers and then, every week, brings their fresh produce to the city where it is packed into boxes and sent to each suburb for subscribers to collect. Food connect also guarantees farmers a fair price for their produce, while maintaining affordability for their subscribers.

Food connect are more than just food suppliers though, they also work hard to decrease the city/country divide by running farm tours and profiling many of the farmers they work with. They have a great website where you can learn all about them, their philosophy, sign up and manage your account.

So, if you want to spend less at the supermarket and more on fresh, local food, making the change is just a click away.

Green Earth Festival - this Saturday 13th of March

This Saturday the Green Earth Festival is on in the city botanic gardens. There will be stalls from "green" businesses, NGO's and community groups (including Transition Brisbane), food, speakers, music and hopefully fine weather.

Some of the speakers look quite interesting including Tim Lang from Northey St city farm talking permaculture and Dr Sarah Lantz from the University of Queensland talking about her book Chemical Free Kids, as well as people talking on a variety of topics from animal rights to climate refugees.

The event runs from 10am to 6pm so plenty of time to go after the permablitz for people who have the energy. Here's the flyer, click on it to enlarge.



From the site:

"Green Earth Festival is a free, family orientated, community event which aims to stimulate awareness by bringing environmental, green, health and lifestyle, cruelty-free, recycling and sustainable issues into the public eye; encourage people to make simple changes in their everyday lives to help our environment and the world we leave for generations to come.

The festival will comprise live bands/performers, a second stage for demonstrations and speakers, a food zone, kids' zone, video zone, art and fashion displays, roving entertainment and many stalls to create a full-filled festival atmosphere strongly supporting the promotion of local grassroots communities, multiculturalism and the Indigenous people and their culture."

Supergreenme: A "facebook for greenies"

A love of nature and the environment lead sunshine coast man and former banker David Toomey to set up a "facebook for greenies" called Supergreenme.
Part eco-encyclopedia, part social networking Supergreenme provides a wealth of user generated information on environmental topics and the ability to interact with other environmentally minded individuals and groups from around Australia and the world.

Informative stuff on the site includes lots of "going green tips", reasons for living an environmental friendly lifestyle for everyone from small business to grandparents, and lots of eye candy in the way of videos showcasing natural beauty as well as user created videos.

David recently explained that increasing environmental awareness in people by developing their appreciation for the beauty of the natural world and its wildlife is a major part of the philosophy behind Supergreenme and I think this clearly shows in the website.

Looking at some of the other environmental and nature orientated groups on Supergreenme such as Wildlife Warriors Worldwide (a group founded by Steve and Terri Irwin to care for and protect injured and endangered wildlife) you are reminded of the breadth of the environmental movement and also of how the jobs of such wildlife defenders will become much harder if we allow climate change to decimate natural ecosystems.

Although Transition Kenmore is mostly focused on the effects of climate change and resource depletion on people, it's worth remembering that a love of nature and the environment is an important reason why many of us become concerned about the impacts of people on the natural environment in the first place. Perhaps before we realised the serious impact a changing environment could have on us too.
In our efforts to address issues like climate change we must ensure that we not only work with other groups whose main focus in the natural environment but that we also reach out to members of the public who care about the natural environment but have not yet made the connection between climate change and environmental destruction the same way people have with other topics such as deforestation.

Luckily for us, David Toomey and Supergreenme seem to have realised this already.
Check it out.

TTKD January meeting - Guest speaker: Sustainability Educator & Consultant Howard Nielsen

The first Transition Kenmore meeting for 2010 will be on Jan 20th and feature Howard Nielsen from NAC consulting and the founder of Green Streets as our guest speaker.

Howard will address ways to bring sustainable practices into our daily lives as well as talking about GreenStreets. We have previously described Greenstreets on the blog so check out the link if you want some background, but basically it is a website for individuals and businesses that mixes social networking with a monthly carbon footprint calculator to encourage communities (not just individuals) to live more sustainability.

Howard's business NAC consulting focuses on helping to build sustainable businesses.
"Nielsen and Company believes that the world goes around a whole lot better when people have a significant level of control over their own lives. We also believe that people respond best when what they CAN do is tapped into rather than what they or others think they CAN'T do. This is why we focus on some of the sustainability building blocks that enable this to happen"

Don't miss this opportunity to learn some positive actions for a sustainable future!

Also since it is our first meeting for the year, we'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on what they would like to achieve this year as well as any thoughts on the plans for 2010 we have already.

Wed 20th 7:30pm: Uniting Church Hall
982 Moggill Rd Kenmore

Sustainable businesses in Brisbane part 1: Biome and their blog "Accidental Greenie"

Every once in a while it's good to give a hat tip to other websites and businesses promoting a sustainable lifestyle. So here's an interesting blog to read and related eco-business to consider supporting.

Tracey Bailey who founded the eco-store Biome, which operates both online and from two Brisbane locations has a blog called Accidental Greenie where she writes about various "eco" topics and also gives information on some of the products biome sells.

We have previously profiled the reusable Onya weight bags that can be bought from Biome but the store also offers a wide variety of other eco-products ranging from jewelery to stainless steel water bottles, school supplies to skin care products. So if you are in the market for some mineral makeup, a bamboo cosmetics brush or some reusable sandwich wrap for your childrens' school lunches, this is the place to go.
Biome has stores in Paddington (part of the Paddington Green Precinct) and the city, plus online (which means they deliver).
On their website Biome claims their city store is the Greenest retail store in Australia, containing, amongst other things, a floor made from recycled tyres. Which is certainly an innovative way of putting the three R's into practice.

I recommending checking out both the blog and the store.


Note:
Personally I'd like to promote and profile other businesses especially those in the Pullenvale area where we operate (but also in greater Brisbane) that are either selling eco-products/ promoting a sustainable lifestyle and/or conducting their business in a sustainable manner. The more promotion and therefore custom we can give them the better.

If anyone has any suggestions please get in touch, or feel free to write your own profile.

Some pictures from Totnes, birthplace of Transition Towns

Recently, Marion Forrest from TTKD visited Totnes in the UK to attend a course at Schumacher College.
Following is her description of some Transition initiatives being undertaken in the Totnes area.

Transition Town Totnes is focused on creating a vibrant, local, resilient community. The movement, in my opinion, has been lucky to be associated with Schumacher College with its holistic teaching and out of the box thinkers as well as The Dartington Hall Trust which owns 1,200 acres of land and buildings thus allowing a relatively small community to be firmly in charge on the community land and infrastructure. That has enabled them to forge ahead and create their own future

Some positive outcomes which I saw in the Totnes area are:

Water wheels are being recommissioned to produce some local electricity


Greyfield Timber Business, a carbon and waste-neutral integrated wood business, is being constructed with of the main building and a kiln to dry the wood both being made with straw bale. It aims to be fuelled by its own waste and hopes to supply local markets with quality, locally sourced timber products.










A small low-carbon farm has sprung up on unused School ground and uses minimum tillage and low mechanization practices. It is now supplying directly into the local area a few boxes of food per week plus quality vegetables, fruit and cut flowers.


A demonstration Research Plot has been set up attached to the Schumacher College by Martin Crawford. Martin has 20 years experience of Organic Horticulture, Agriculture and Agroforestry and advised us that with climate change challenges ahead, he has found he can provide an abundance of food by growing a variety of fruit & nut trees plus perennials as understory but not necessarily with natives at all – just what can/might be grown with increasing temperatures on the way.
He is hopefully that in the future, with good plant choices and minimal cultivation we could feed ourselves. He has another much larger plot elsewhere in Devon where he also does research.


New businesses are being subsidized by the Darting Hall Trust until they can stand alone.


Can we learn from some of this here in Brisbane?