Round-Up: 23/10/20
Our pick from the Designs of the Year show, plus TED launches Countdown to a Greener Future and a call for the UK to develop its low carbon skills and education
Newsletter
Catching our Eye
Ideas, resources and stuff the URGE team would like to share
This year’s Beazley Designs of the Year nominees from the Design Museum include the K-Briq sustainable building brick (above), the The Water Box Mobile Filtration System, Lucozade Sport Ooho edible drinks capsules and ‘carbon-conscious credit card’ DO Black. See all the nominees here
Does the UK have the right skills to drive our transition to a greener future? In its latest policy briefing, The Aldersgate Group “puts forward a set of key measures that will both grow the supply of workers equipped with low carbon skills but also increase employment opportunities and the demand for low carbon skills”. It also calls for sustainability and the net zero goal to be fully embedded across all levels of the national curriculum. More here
“When you say that the oil companies have marvellous new technologies that can sip the oil from beneath our lands like hummingbirds sip nectar from a flower, we know that you are lying because we live downriver from the spills. When you say that the Amazon is not burning, we do not need satellite images to prove you wrong; we are choking on the smoke of the fruit orchards that our ancestors planted centuries ago. When you say that you are urgently looking for climate solutions, yet continue to build a world economy based on extraction and pollution, we know you are lying because we are the closest to the land, and the first to hear her cries.” The Guardian has published a tremendously powerful open letter from Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani woman from the Amazon rainforest. “This is my message to the western world – your civilisation is killing life on Earth”. Read it in full here
Two more from The Guardian, both concerning microplastics: A new study has found that bottle fed babies are swallowing millions of microplastics a day while several UK companies have announced that they will stop using plastic glitter in gifts and cards this Christmas: unfortunately, biodegradable alternatives have not always proved to be a better substitute.
Worth Watching
TED has launched its Countdown to a Greener Future initiative “to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis”. Through 2021, it hopes to support a series of cross-sector projects — each designed to tackle a climate-related challenge. The first stage of the initiative saw the release of a series of videos discussing “what a healthy, abundant, zero-emission future can look like”.
If you don’t have time to watch the full launch video above (it is 5 hours long!) among our picks are Olafur Eliasson’s Earth Speakr project , Carlos Moreno’s plans for the 15 minute city, and how Yvone Aki Sawyerr, the mayor of Freetown in Sierra Leone, plans to plant a million trees in her cities.
Look out for the Step Into System Innovation virtual conference, running from November 9-13. Real change often requires fundamental reimagining of underlying systems. This event oproimises sessions from “internationally renowned social innovators who have been pioneering system innovation” plus, from organisers the ROCKWOOL Foundation Interventions Unit, “a simple, practical framework to help people to take the first steps into systems change. The framework will help leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs across sectors navigate their way to high leverage interventions to tackle the root causes of chronic challenges.”
URGE in the news
URGE member Michael Pawlyn has been interviewed by Dezeen for its Design for Life series. Michael explains how computational design tools allow architects to mimic the natural world and the potential of biomimicry in architecture.