the people's supermarket...

Staying with the foodie theme from my last post, I thought I would talk a little about what could be the future of shopping.

Independant shops? Hopefully. Farmers Markets? I should hope so. Growing your own? Practical for some, but not others. Urban farms? They are coming, but not just yet.

So, what could be the immediate future from our food shopping experiences?

Supermarkets.

Yep. You heard me right. Supermarkets, but not as we know it.

We have become conditioned to shop for everything at one place - cramming our little cages on wheels with essentials every week before we drive home to consume (or throw away...but that is another post). The supermarket is just the way most of us do our shopping. Fact.

Even though many of us try to grow our own, support our local producers and frequent our farmers markets, many of us still use the supermarket model as our main shopping experience.

So if you can't beat the supermarkets, why not join them.

And this is what a few enterprising souls have begun.

Park Slope in New York is a 25yr old co-operative with around 6000 members, who give up 2hrs 45mins per month to work in the supermarket (cashier, cleaner, shelf replenishment etc) in return for wonderfully sourced, local, often organic produce at hugely reduced rates. With (little) wages to pay, the community are actively pocketing the mark-up savings in the lower prices available. If you do not do your shift, you have to make up with double the time next shift, and if you continue to flaunt the rules, sorry, you are out.

This can sound a little harsh, but this kind of model can ONLY work with full communication and trust between all members. Sounds great to me.

It also looked great to Arthur Potts Dawson (who also set up the London eco restaurant Acorn House), who has taken this seed idea and translated it into London's first version of the American model, in Holborn, called The People's Supermarket.

The basic premise is the same - pay your £25 membership, sign up to your 4 hour shift and you are a member - AND part owner - of the People's Supermarket. This entitles you to hugely reduced core produce (large lovely loaf £1.85 to 'regular' shoppers, £1 to members) and 10% reduction on your overall bill.

But being a part owner of the supermarket also means that you are entitled to a say in what is stocked, where from, and how the whole kit and caboodle is run. An ideal situation really - cheaper stuff, a nod to the 'big society' and a say in keeping that local raspberry yoghurt you have come to love as well as the larger decisions.

Not everyone will like the idea of working four hours to qualify for the benefits, but (having worked for a big supermarket to pay my way through university) it can be fun.

And in a time of gloom, surely a few more pennies in the bank, a few more local bits in your belly and a few new friends in your phone can only be a good thing?

The greenest olympics ever?

It seems as though February has passed my by without so much as a howdi doodi, and I was appalled to see just how long it has been since my last post.

I have not been on holiday. I was a little ill, but nothing too serious. I have just been stupidly busy.

So there you go. Guilt removed.

I have been doing something instead of blogging though, and given that it only happens once every four years, I have excused myself from other duties to partake in the goggle box.

The Winter Olympics. As an avid snowboarder, this is bliss. Halfpipe (well done Torah), Boarder cross (haha, no slip ups with badly timed grabs this year eh?) and then there is everything else. Alpine events, skating, skeleton, curling, hockey......ah - wonderful times...

But this W.O. has caught my attention for other reasons. For a massive, massive event, it is really trying to improve it's green credentials, and I do not mean by being the first resort to try the 'no snow' look.

And here is a little run down of some of the pimped greenie elements...

Medals - although a tinchy amount, the range of gold, silver and bronze medals have been produced this Olympics using some recycled elements reclaimed from defunct computers. Up to now, all medals have been made using virgin mined ores, so this little symbolic action is a step in the right direction.

The Village - as you can imagine, there are huge amounts of accommodation required to house the myriad of athletes, coaches and support teams travelling to the Olympics. But utilising the opportunity to really do something good, the nine new buildings commissioned for the village were so uber eco friendly that they actually set a new green standard for North America. Heat recovery systems draw energy back from exhaust heat and even the ocean, and the usual suspects of solar panels and green roofs make the podium.

The Richmond Oval - this stunning skating venue utilises timber that has been affected by the Mountain Pine Beetle and is possibly the largest timber clear span roof in the world, with an area covering four and a half football fields.

The Vancouver Convention Centre - this building also sports a stunning roof of over six acres in area and is blanketed in over 400,000 native plants who sit in a pesticide free, chemical free compost system.

There are also a vast series of temporary and permanent small scale buildings and shelters that have been commissioned to be both beautiful and top notch on the eco scales.

Plus the world's largest hydrogen powered bus fleet is currently ferrying people about the venues.

So, the bar has been raised big style for London 2012. Can we become the greenest Summer Olympics ever?

the really big apple...

I found this little story via Treehugger and I just had to share it with you all.

Can you imagine the amount of food thrown away every day by New york residents? Can you imagine 270,000 lbs of grub?

Many of us can't, and so to illustrate the point City Harvest of New York filled an empty subway train with the equivalent amount of green apples and flooded the otherwise empty platform.

The images are quite amazing - click here for the video.

It would have been magic with stacks of people on the platform though. I suppose that was a little too far to stretch the Health and Safety regulations, and if London's Victoria Line is anything to go by, people would have just climbed in on top of the apples anyway and waited for the train to move on.

Visually amazing and shows exactly what could be utilised for many in need. City Harvest aim to rescue and redistribute 25 million pounds of usable grub in 2009. Amazing.

(and as Treehugger pointed out, no apples were harmed in the making of the event - here is how it was done)

Up the Freegan generation!

green apples, fondant fancies and earl grey tea...

Have you ever done something and immediately forgotten about it as you never thought anything would arise from the seed?

I have.

But every now and again, something does spring up and makes you so happy your head goes light and excitement and pride fills your every thread of being.

And so it was with a section of our week - Tuesday was the day we were heading to London to pick up an award I never even thought we would be shortlisted for.

We were going to London to pick up our Green Apple 2009 for Environmental Best Practice.

This award was based on our efforts at the Royal Horticultural Society London Plant and Design Show in February 2009 - our little eco front garden - 'the electric urban orchard'.

So in true eco fashion and dressed in some of our finest, we boarded a Southern train and rolled up to London Victoria to attend the awards ceremony which was held at the awe inspiring House of Commons.

Once through the very intimidating security system, we wandered through sections of the House (occasionally interrupted by security personnel who asked if we knew where we were going - we didn't a lot of the time). At one point we ended up by the Parliamentary florist, who is housed in a bottom section of one of the gate arches, and I could not resist the urge to pop my head around the heavy oak door and ask further directions.

'If you get to the river, you have gone too far' was the reply, 'so turn left before you get there!'.

We did, and found where we were all congregating - a lovely little section next to the House alongside the River Thames.

Greeted with tea, sandwiches and cakes, we instantly regretted the horrible plastic offering we had bolted before we entered. But, so as not to be rude of course, we had a lovely cup of Earl Grey tea (with milk) and a couple of perfectly cut finger sandwiches and one of the tiny, Alice-in-wonderland style cakes. The looked beautiful and tasted even better.

Once we had all congregated, the awards began, and it was truly humbling hearing the size, scale and commitment of many of the projects who had also gained an award. We felt very proud yet as if we didn't deserve to be there.

One project had saved £750,000 and thousands of tons of CO2 by adapting a few changes, another organisation had planted 50,000 broad leaf trees and another had created a whole toad habitat in wales to prevent them needing to cross a main road.

It was incredible to see and hear about all of the inspiring projects, and it was fantastic when people also wanted to hear more about what we do at the office.

After we had been presented with our award, we did a little more networking and ate another posh sandwich or two, then wound our way back to the south coast with our Green Apple nestled in our bag.

Well done to everyone who was presented with an award and thank you to the Green Organisation for putting it all together. We met some wonderful people and came away inspired and enlivened by all of those we met.

to tax or not to tax...

Births, deaths and taxes.

Three things I was told you can be sure of in life.

Of the three, only one could be described as even vaguely positive, so when someone pops up to recommend an increase in taxes, well, they are not going to be popular.

But what if it is argued that these taxes could decrease our carbon emissions, thus aiding our environment? Would we agree? Would only the staunch dark greenies agree, or would we all be up in arms screaming that we cannot pay any more for our energy as we can't blinkin' afford it in the first place?

Would people be afraid to keep themselves warm in the winter for the fear of the letter plopping through the door with too many noughts to be funny?

But on the flipside, would we have increased renewable energy development and a strengthening of the whole green energy market through larger consumer support and increased tax breaks and government grants?

A very large argument with many different points. Read a little more about it here.

I went to Chelsea and did some recycling...

Ah, yet another Chelsea posting.

I am truly aware that the blogosphere is awash with the ramblings of both exhibitors, visitors, spectators etc, etc, so now that Chelsea is completed, I thought I'd do a little post about recycling, and the many forms that I saw when I visited last week, rather than my previous offerings.

Firstly - the best sort of recycling - the recycling of stuff. I was extremely pleased when I saw a mass of products, available to either buy at the show, or commission for future delivery. Planters made from old tyres, sculptures made from rubbish and re-made fabric shopping bags. Many lush things, but my vote has to go with the beautiful wares on show from Toby Clayton of HME, which included some re-configured recycled metal planters. Nice.

Secondly - the recycling of waste. At last, there were large bins throughout the show for combined yet recyclable rubbish, from paper to cans to plastic. As shown by the BBC on their coverage, these bins were taken to a large depot to be sorted and split - great stuff, and I only hope that the bins were used responsibly by all and contamination was not an issue. I was also massively impressed by the recycling bins in place during the build up period for the general and varied construction waste, and I only hope that the same were in place for the breakdown.

Lastly, but perhaps the most frustratingly, was the intangible, yet quite obvious recycling of ideas. Some things excited me at Chelsea, were wonderfully executed and conceived and made me whip out my camera in a bout of 'ooh - nice'. Unfortunately, I'm afraid a lot did not. As I wandered around, there were a lot of things that I thought I had seen before, either at Chelsea or other shows over the last few years. And not just little bits, but a lot of things. Some were still done extremely well, but I'm afraid it was been here and seen that.

As a designer, I know that it is incredibly hard, if not virtually impossible, to create something so brand spanking new that it has never been seen before, but I think we should all be trying to push this boundary as far as we can at all times, to progress our profession. There were not many boundaries being nudged at Chelsea this year.

Maybe the blessed 'crunch' has a lot to say for this, as we all hark back to better times when we felt more comfortable in our lives (have you noticed how many ads are reminding us of how long a company has been established, or how many 'retro' graphics are being employed?). We all want the comfort of yesterday, not the uncertainty of tomorrow.

This is sad, as without a tomorrow, there is no hope and excitement left for anything.

And with that in mind, I'll leave you with a picture of a Chelsea recycling bin. (yes, I did get some funny looks as I took it)

Remember - recycling is great, but thinking should be done outside of the kerbside box...

a dedicated follower of fashion...

Those of you who have met me will know that my fashion tastes can only be described as eclectic. Vintage is sometimes thrown in there, along with 40's, 50's and plain old weird. Charity shop chic is another label I am proud to wear on my secondhand lapels, so you may find it odd that I am extremely interested in fashion as a whole, and love to watch the catwalk shows.

Sometimes this is for the sheer spectacle and imagination poured into the event, but I mostly enjoy ogling at the structured shapes of clothes that wiggle their way towards the cameras. I am a very strong believer that all design, across the board of disciplines can be pared down to a few key elements - spatial awareness, form, mass and void, movement (or lack of), colour and functionality. From a jacket to a typeface, these can be applied in one way or another. This is how an inspirational cut for a jacket can manifest itself in my sketchbook as a chair, or a garden plan, and how colour combinations in a shoe end up as the basis of a planting plan or an interior scheme.

All designers do this, sometimes without thinking. We are all a sounding board for each other - designers or not, which goes back to my favourite phrase 'you can find inspiration in everything and if you can't look again' (Paul Smith). We all must see as well as look.

But something else exciting happened at London Fashion Week 2009 - the government has got involved. Our minister for sustainability, Lord Hunt, revealed the spanking new Sustainable Clothing Action Plan at the now firmly rooted Estethica eco fashion element of LFW.

Unfortunately, this is not a set of regulations (give it time), but essentially a code of practices that will be adopted by all those signing up. The action plan will tackle the full loop, from the raw materials and manufacture of the clothes, abolishing exploitative labour, using innovative materials such as bamboo and nettles through to how to wash at lower temperatures and dispose of the clothes responsibly at the end of their life, by recycling or donating to charity. Some 300 retailers have signed their names on the dotted line.

So will this tackle the nationwide and infamous 'Primark effect' where items are bought, worn once then chucked? I think probably not. If there is no perceived value in an item, then we have been conditioned into thinking it is a throwaway. We all should be throwing any unwanted items into the charity bin, but the same questions will always be asked - if you can buy a top for £1 however, how much are those being paid to make it? Does cheap mean unethical and unsustainable? And at the time of a credit crunch, not many will be able to resist the urge of buying ten things instead of one, key item.

We need recondititoning, but at least it's a start.

But as the sun is shining on me, and I am in far to good a mood to end a ranty post with nothing but the vast expanse of bleakness that lies ahead, here are some nice links to some very interesting ethical designers - take a look and don't forget to see...

Beyond Skin - tasty shoes and based down the road from me in Hove

Ciel - lovely structure and also based down the road in Hove

Nahui Ollin - fantastic bags made from sweet wrappers ( got one for Christmas - love it)

Eloise Grey - I love proper tweeds, and Eloise pushes all the right buttons

From Somewhere - upcycling at its best

Izzy Lane - ethical knitted stuff - made in Britain.

Veja - sorry - more shoes, plus practice your French on their website

well done america...

well done america.

here are some nice poster images that were used for the campaign by an artist called shepard fairey (i think)

change is a comin'...

crunch day for the world...

i've been looking forward to this day for a while.

and even though I can do nothing about the result, i am glad that a certain George is being shunted off the stage.

lets hope that the americans do the right thing - they should (and who knows, maybe they did) have done it eight years ago.

what a different world we would be living in if Al Gore had rightly been given the presidency...

greenwashing - no wonder we're all in a spin...

claire potter design markets itself as 'a small design studio committed to producing innovative, exciting and sustainable interior and exterior design' Now, there is nothing in this statement which is not true. I go to massive and sometimes painstaking lengths to ensure this statement remains true. always.

But many companies have realised how the 'eco' and 'green' label can get them into the good books of potential customers. So they pretty up and promote the sustainable bits of the company to score precious brownie points with us all, hoping we will part with our pennies with a clean conscience.

this process is 'greenwashing' - basically like political spin for companies who want to jump on the eco bandwagon.

don't get me wrong - I would want everyone to be on the bandwagon - as long as their intentions are true and they are not out to make a quick buck on the backs of those who really care. we should all be playing the same tune.

this 'greenwashing' of course makes it very difficult for the general joe who does care where those precious pennies go. marketing is such a strong weapon for companies, and truly is the reason why a lot of us buy certain brands over others.

So how can we make sure we don't support the greenwashers?

It is very hard, but buying organic (which is certified), and local where you can helps to cut out a lot of greenwashing, and support small businesses, who usually care a lot more then the large guys. buy recycled items (check the back of items though and see exactly how much recycled bits are in there), and if you are going for a large purchase, try and check out the true eco credentials online.

an interesting site I have found is http://www.greenwashingindex.com/ which has much more advice about the issue. go and take a look - lets crack down on the greenwashers...