September 2011 Archives

Last Saturday I visited the Birmingham Vintage Festival, an intimate affair with stalls selling vintage, handmade and upcycled items, as well as arts and food stalls. The first Birmingham Vintage Festival was held in June in the Jewellery Quarter, and even though this second event was still quite a small affair, I envision it growing swiftly over the coming months.

A couple of weekends ago I also visited the well established Sutton Vintage and Arts Fair, which had an entrance queue round the block before the doors had even opened. The place was jostling with people hoping to find a vintage treasure; and with dozens of clothing and homeware stalls, visitors were truly spoilt for choice.

If you missed out on both of these events then don't fret, as there's yet another this weekend in the form of The Birmingham Vintage Fair at the Custard Factory, which will not only have stalls selling vintage and handmade goodies, but will also host a vintage tea party, vintage hair salon and live music performances.

The increasing popularity of vintage and second hand means that there are now many of these types of events across Birmingham, as well as a number of permanent vintage clothing shops, particularly in the Digbeth area of the city. This is a positive step in addressing the sustainability issues of our current consumerist culture.

Being a child of the 80's and 90's, I was brought up in the midst of a fairly throw-away culture, where fast food, cheap clothing and disposable items became the norm, leading to a particularly unsustainable and wasteful way of living. Cheap fashion now dominates our high street, with up to 90% of clothing being made and imported from other countries. Therefore, the carbon footprint not only includes the energy required in the manufacture of the item, but also transport emissions. Not to mention the separate issue of child labour and unethical working conditions abroad. Throwaway fashion and poor quality items that don't last mean that on average, each person in the UK now sends 30kg of clothing and textiles to landfill each year. Hardly sustainable living.

That's why it's great to see such a resurgence in the make do and mend mentality, with vintage and handmade becoming increasingly popular. There are even a number of groups in the city that are turning creativity into a social event, such as Stiches and Hos and A Crafty Beer.

So next time you fancy a fashion update, why not customise an item you already have in your wardrobe, source something from a vintage or charity shop, have a go at making it yourself from scratch, or even raid your mum's wardrobe - better for your pocket, and for the planet!

Written by Kathy Hopkin - a SusMo committee member

If you have previously rejected the idea of cycling into the centre of Birmingham, you are invited to join a "Bike Train" on Thursday Sep. 22nd to find out the advantages, and pleasures, of cycling - compared to driving and to taking a bus.

See map of the routes starting in Cotteridge, Fox Hollies, Kings Heath (Cocks Moors Woods), Quinton and Sutton Coldfield.

If you are already aware of the advantages and pleasures, you are invited to join the "Train" to give support, both moral and physical, to less experienced cyclists. To date, fewer experienced cyclists have joined the Fox Hollies route than the other four routes - so please consider joining Graham Hankins and others at the Fox Hollies Leisure Centre on Shirley Road.

The rides start at 07:30 to give people time to have a sociable breakfast, in front of the Council House in Victoria Square (hosted by the Council) before going to work, to the shops, to the Library, or wherever you like.

Why should you join the ride? Some good reasons are listed here.

Register online here.

The event is organised by Birmingham Friends of the Earth, Sustrans and Push Bikes to celebrate In Town Without My Car Day on 22nd September. ITWMC is European Union campaign for an increased use of other vehicles than the car. It has spread beyond the EU and, in 2008, 102 municipalities in 39 countries took part - no figures available for more recent events.

Download Bike Birmingham, Birmingham's Cycling Strategy 2011-2015, read about Birmingham City Council's new commitment to encourage more people to cycle more often, and try cycling yourself!

If you need advice or more encouragement, get in touch with Joe Peacock at Friends of the Earth (joe @birminghamfoe.org.uk), Yvonne Gilligan at Sustrans (yvonne.gilligan @sustrans.org.uk) or Graham Hankins at Pushbikes (g8emx @tiscali.co.uk) or contact me - Esther Boyd - at SusMo (sustainablemoseley @gmail.com).

I'm looking forward to the ride and to meeting lots of people at in Victoria Square for (my second) breakfast!

I have previously written about the contribution that behaviour change can make to reducing household carbon dioxide emissions. Yet we still tend to think of behaviour change in largely individual terms, partly because we are used to working with small groups of 'pioneers' or 'early adopters', often on a one-to-one basis.

Those of us who are trying to adopt new, pro-environmental behaviours and encourage others to do the same, often feel that we are cutting against the grain. This isn't because the people around us are too stupid or ignorant to follow us, nor is it because we aren't getting the message across properly. It's because pro-environmental behaviour isn't yet a social norm. The prevailing social norm on energy and resource use is one that we have inherited from the era of cheap and abundant fossil fuels, where people became used to jumping in the car, turning up the heating and leaving the lights on, because the environmental, social and economic consequences of doing so seemed very remote.

Connected, a recent book by the US academics Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, gives us some insights into the way in which new behaviours and attitudes spread through the population to become social norms. Essentially Christakis and Fowler argue that we are more likely to adopt a new behaviour or attitude when 'someone like me' does it.

As is so often the case, we have a lot to learn from the public health field. Christakis and Fowler use the example of the Framingham Heart Study which shows that people who adopt behaviour patterns that are bad for their heart (you know the kind of thing), are likely to have friends, family, neighbours or co-workers who do the same. Conversely, people who exhibit behaviours that are good for their heart, are likely to have friends who do the same. Clearly there must be economic influences on personal health behaviour, as there are on pro-environmental behaviour. People on low incomes don't have the same choices in terms of access to healthy food and the means to exercise. Economics doesn't determine everything, but Christakis and Fowler aren't arguing that we have completely free will either.

Can we apply Christakis and Fowler's theory to pro-environmental behaviour? I think that the 'someone like me' theory is valid for some of the easier to adopt environmental behaviours like recycling. When Birmingham City Council introduced widespread doorstep collection a few years back, it quickly became a social norm across the City to recycle, because people could see their neighbours doing so. Simple nudges are enough for entry-level pro-environmental behaviours but not for the more difficult changes to deeply ingrained habits. Here we need a more multi-faceted understanding of the interplay of economics and psychology and how they influence environmental behaviour. There are many psychological influences on environmental behaviour, and the more complex the behaviour change we are trying to achieve, the more complex the psychological factors become and the wider the pool of theories of behavioural psychology that we need to draw upon becomes.

The Four E's Theory (1) is a good model for understanding how we can influence environmental behaviour. We need to engage, encourage and enable people to adopt environmental behaviour, and to exemplify such behaviour.

Most approaches to pro-environmental behaviour focus on one or perhaps two of the Four 4 E's. It may be difficult for one single intervention to achieve all Fou E's. It is desirable to deliver carbon reduction interventions that bring all Four E's into play. The key, therefore, is to join up different interventions to achieve all Four E's. This way, we avoid 'insulation only' or 'solar panels only' or 'energy advice only' interventions that miss out on two or three of the Four E's. This is a key priority for forthcoming Green Deal interventions such as Birmingham Energy Savers.

A further valuable insight from Connected that is highly relevant to us is the section on how Barack Obama's campaign to win the Democratic nomination in 2008 depended not only on getting the most out of his supporters, but on linking his supporters to each other. He did this through the website www.my.barackobama.com which went beyond traditional forms of political organisation because by using social media, it connected people who were two or three steps removed from each other's immediate social networks. It introduced people to a 'friend of a friend' and to a 'friend of a friend of a friend.' Can we emulate this in influencing environmental behaviour? We need to connect early adopters with people who are open to new environmental behaviours but who are currently two or three steps removed from the immediate social network of the early adopter. Social media, which are now used by the majority of the adult population, are key to connecting early adopters and pioneers to 'a friend of a friend of a friend' who is willing and able to change. This connects early adopters with other segments, and spreads the contagion of pro environmental behaviour, helping it to become a social norm more quickly.

In the context of a Green Deal programme such as Birmingham Energy Savers, a social media approach to connecting people could be a vital part of a Four E's strategy for shifting environmental behaviour. That way, more and more people in Birmingham will be able to say that they know 'someone like me' who lives a lower-carbon lifestyle.

Footnote: (1) See http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb10589-securing-the-future-050307.pdf p27, and http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=EV0503_8291_FRP.pdf p69

Hello, I am Sarah Napier and this is my second blog for SusMo. My first blog was about the Home Energy Project which I worked on. Although the project is no more, there is a website with information for people interested in leaving a lighter footprint. I have been involved with SusMo for a year now, I joined as an intern to work on the Green Streets project.

SusMo is not just about solar panels and wind turbines, we also take an interest in the local implications of national news. As a planning graduate, the announcement this week that there will be some dramatic changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, made me sit up and take notice!

The changes mainly centre around the government's determination to encourage growth; they will make it easier for development applications to go through and free up land for much needed housing, which is clearly a positive. However, included in the allocation is some local authority and green belt land. In urban areas such as Moseley, the risk is that potentially polluting uses will be permitted in the poorer areas where the land is less desirable, and that larger developments leading to an increase in traffic and therefore local pollution will be approved.

As many of you are already aware, the greatly protested Tesco development on the old Metor Ford land went through despite much local protest. The outcome of these planning reforms will make this sort of outcome more likely. The community's grip on power and influence will slip, meaning that all the hard work gone into creating a local Moseley will be easily undone if a developer wants to buy up some land and plant something detrimental to Moseley spirit. Moseley's strength is in its community, which is supported and encouraged by local business, faith groups and organisations.

It is therefore more important than ever to fight for a sustainable and local Moseley, where people can shop, eat, work and play together as a united community. SusMo are determined to offer a voice for Moseley's environmental brethren, and the more people that are involved the better! Join our meetings, peruse our blog, send us your thoughts via email, and very soon... visit our new website!