Regen Notes #5
Imagination, Carbon, Ecology, Covid19, Zoom Regenerative, Spotify
Welcome to Regen Notes, your fortnightly newsletter of regenerative news, stories and more with a sideways focus on the built environment, curated by me, Martin Brown.
Imagination
In the wonderful Arundhati Roy "portal" article in the Financial Times back in 2020, she wrote “We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it”. (This article in part inspired the first Zoom Regenerative),
At the end of January this year, the Patagonia stories blog carried an in-memory interview with Barry Lopez (author of the acclaimed Arctic Dreams and Horizon books who recently passed away) “to address the environmental threats we’re facing, this wave of extinctions and the climate emergency, an unprecedented level of imagination is required for our own survival”
As I write and prepare the text for a RESTORE Final Action Dissemination booklet ‘RESTORD 2030’, I realise how difficult we find it to imagine what a future city would look and feel like in detail, how our relationships with nature will be. Yet if we cannot imagine what good looks like, what our visions (of eg the ILFI / Living Future Europe’s Socially Just, Ecologically Robust and Culturally Rich built environment) would ‘feel’ like, then we have a very hard task in front of us.
Carbon
An article from Dr J Foley (Project Drawdown) Carbon Offsets Should Make You Nervous explored carbon offsetting alongside a focus on net-zero carbon.
Greenhouse gas “offsets” — where you pay others to reduce their pollution today or bet on schemes to remove yours tomorrow — are all the rage, but they come with risks. We need offsets, but they must be used wisely, sparingly, and without distracting us from the job of reducing our emissions.
At the end of the day, carbon reduction activities can only count if they result in there being less carbon in the atmosphere. Does net-zero just create a balance?. Maybe the bottom line zero carbon target we should be focusing on. Perhaps impossible - but we said the same about zero accidents, zero waste and zero asbestos in our buildings. By having a zero target then we will get closer to where we need to be.
Net Zero achieved through offsets will always be fraught and open to interpretation. Recently, Mark Carney ignited a carbon debate on the issue of ‘avoided emissions' being counted as credits to offset other emitting activities. Carney former Bank of England governor is now advising Boris Johnson on COP26 and also a vice-chair at Brookfield.
Brookfield declared net-zero through the acquisition of renewable businesses: “The reason we’re net zero is that we have this enormous renewables business, all the avoided emissions that come with that had compensated for the planet-warming toll of other investments”. (Bloomberg)
Depressing carbon news from the UN Press Release and the NDC Synthesis Report showed that while a majority of nations increased individual levels of ambition to reduce emissions, their combined impact puts them on a path to achieve a less than 1 per cent reduction by 2030 compared to 2010 levels. This will undoubtedly increase pressure on country ratification of Paris commitments at the upcoming COP26
Writing on her ConstructionLCA blog, Jane Anderson explores how the UK Government has required, through the Construction Playbook, Whole Life Carbon assessments, which means embodied carbon assessments, for all new public works projects.
Ecology
The UK Environment Bill, although delayed, is making progress through the UK parliament. It is encouraging to see a growing call for ecological and nature recovery to be included within the bill, establishing a target to reverse the decline of species and habitats as law.
Following on from the Regen Notes #4 on granting legal rights to natural features, Quebec’s Magpie River becomes the first in Canada to be granted legal personhood. The Magpie, (Muteshekau-shipu in the Innu Coet) is "an internationally renowned whitewater rafting site, winding nearly 300 kilometres before emptying into the St. Lawrence". Gaining legal rights is seen as a permanent solution to protection from further development and disruption.
ASBP (Association of Sustainable Building Products)
The ASBP Awards took place on 24/25 February. A highlight from the conference was the opening keynote from Prof Catherine Noakes setting out a vision for a Future of Built Environment that addresses air quality and Covid19 lessons.
I was delighted that Zoom Regenerative (ZR) was recognised as a finalist and it was indeed a treat to share our journey and plans and to listen to other finalist pitches. A huge congratulations to all the other long and shortlist finalists, with a shout out to ZR friends including Kate Brown’s FabHab, Jeffrey Hart, Anthropocene Architect School, and the winners, RAFT and ACAN.
Zoom Regenerative1
ZR 27 was a real Regen treat with John Renwick sharing insights and experience in Vedic and Vastu Architecture principles. There was also a glimpse of The RegenVast Smart Living Home project in Trinidad looking to become Living Building Challenge and Vastu recognised. A project that will certainly be featured in a future ZR, allowing us to dive deeper into a combination that was described as a dream ticket by a ZR attendee.
The icing on the Regen 27 cake came from John Bridge Studios showing insights into regenerative possibilities within the city here in Preston. Undertaken as "What If', R & D projects to imagine a future city through a Garden Bridge over the Ribble and a regenerative ExoSkeleton skyscraper.
ZR 28 on 9th March will feature Louise Hamot exploring carbon in MEP based on her work, recently published in CIBSE Technical Memorandum 65: #EmbodiedCarbon in building services. This ZR session will also outline plans for 2021, an Earthday special from Sabden as a hybrid event in conjunction with RESTORE and Living Future Europe - and more details on the planned ZR Tutorials in May. ZR 28 details here.
Sounds
Did you know that Zoom Regenerative has a playlist on Spotify? It features artists and tracks that have an regenerative story or message. The playlist has now been updated for March. Follow / Subscribe here and enjoy.
… “Zoom” as in accelerating, Zooming out to the marco and into the micro aspects for a regenerative future …