Resources
Useful guides and tips
Recycling Points in Lichfield - List of more unusual items
| recycling_points_in_lichfield_-_condensed_version_aug_21.pdf |
Plastic Free Christmas Guide
| plastic_free_christmas.pdf |
The Ethical Shopping Guide
| the_ethical_shopping_guide.pdf |
Thinking of booking a cruise for your holiday? Then check out the eco credentials of the operator first. This Sunday Times article gives an insight.
| sustainable_cruising_-_the_sunday_times_2022-01-23_.pdf |
Litter Legends Nov 2021 Newsletter
| litter_legends_november_2021_newsletter.pdf |
Useful links
- The environmental factors you need to consider when planning to build an eco-friendly home - which materials to use, energy consumption, water conservation, pollution, biodiversity, using reclaimed materials etc
- A Homeowner’s Guide to Eco Technology and Green Energy - tips for sustainability in the home.
- Electric Vehicles - An Autotrader guide created by Garette Haddock, including costs (taxes, insurance, servicing, resale values), government subsidies for EVs, and tips for charging at home or for long journeys.
- Zero Waste Near Me. Zero Waste shops and services around the UK. Community initiatives such as Repair Cafes
- Cycle Routes in Lichfield and South Staffordshire
- Tree Planting Really Green? Is your business thinking about planting trees to help reduce carbon? Then read this guide first!
- UKGBC Solutions library. Solutions to the climate and biodiversity emergencies
- Table of solutions. Project drawdown. Showing solutions and associated costs.
- Ellen Macarthur foundation. For circular economy information and solutions
- Doughnut Economics. A new economic model
- Met Office - Climate Impacts - Analysing climate change and its impacts in the urban environment
- Energy Saving Trust - Energy advice for your home
- Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) - at the cutting edge of eco innovations
Retrofit Section
- Low Carbon Retrofitting - Guidance article from the Centre for Sustainable Energy.
- Fully Charged Home series - youtube videos (6 episodes)
- John Tisbury Retrofit series - youtube - My name is John, I'm UK based and I’m a photographer, cinematographer, 2 x battery electric vehicles (BEV) owner and renewables champion. Regular updates on performance and statistics of my 6.3kW PV solar panel system and the Tesla Powerwall 2. We have a myenergi eddi and zappi which is included in the monthly performance updates. Our EVs are a Tesla Model 3 Performance and Renault Zoe (arrived Jan 2022).
- Superhomes Network - A membership group open to any individual or organisation that has an interest in domestic retrofits large or small. Sharing retrofit knowledge and best practice to certify one million SuperHome retrofits by 2030
- The Carbon Coop - an energy services and advocacy co-operative that helps people and communities to make the radical reductions in home carbon emissions necessary to avoid runaway climate change. Manchester based. For inspiration.
- Oxford Cosy Homes - We’re a one-stop home retrofit service, making it simple to make energy efficiency improvements to homes in Oxfordshire. For inspiration
- Retrofit Rendezvous - Retrofit Rendezvous is a private space for those who have attended or contributed to the regional retrofit conferences staged by Low Carbon Homes, and anyone who has a professional interest in decarbonising housing.
- Meshwork - Meshwork is a unique network, run in partnership with Mesh Energy, which brings together architects, developers, installers, students and anyone else who is interested in low-energy and sustainable building design.
- Net Zero Carbon Home - Award-winning eco-home in Balsall Heath, Birmingham UK
- Retrofitworks - owned by community based organisations and local supply chains, to design and host energy efficiency and retrofit schemes. For inspiration
- Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) - We bring together contractors, trades people, self builders, architects, designers, engineers, manufacturers, housing associations, local authorities and academics to help develop, share, train and promote sustainable building best practice. We promote excellence in design and construction
- Sustainable Housing Action Partnership - The Sustainable Housing Action Partnership (SHAP) is a not-for-profit organisation made up of an independent network of innovators and leaders working in public and private organisations across a range of disciplines involved in the housing sector. Our Members include housing associations, local authorities, businesses and third sector organisations.
- Centre of Alternative Technology (CAT) free information service - Free, independent and impartial advice on a wide array of topics relating to sustainability and sustainable living: renewable energy, green building and renovation, water and sewage treatment, organic growing, and more.
Documentaries
- Waterbear platform: 'The first streaming platform dedicated to the future of our planet. Watch hundreds of award-winning documentaries, anywhere, for free.'
- Toxic Hot Seat: 'TOXIC HOT SEAT follows a courageous group of firefighters and mothers, journalists and scientists, politicians and activists as they fight to expose a shadowy campaign of deception that left a toxic legacy in our homes and bodies - a campaign so cunning, it's taken nearly 40 years to unravel.'
- Sand Wars film by Denis Delestrac: Sand is a finite resource, yet it is used indiscriminately in a vast majority of our everyday products, from toothpaste to food to glass to concrete. The documentary uncovers the environmental, ethical, and social consequences of its unsustainable usage.
- The Need to Grow (Netflix): '"The Need to GROW" delivers alarming evidence on the importance of healthy soil — revealing not only the potential of localized food production working with nature, but our opportunity as individuals to help regenerate our planet’s dying soils and participate in the restoration of the Earth.'
- Kiss the Ground (Netflix): 'Kiss the Ground reveals that, by regenerating the world’s soils, we can completely and rapidly stabilize Earth’s climate, restore lost ecosystems and create abundant food supplies. Using compelling graphics and visuals, along with striking NASA and NOAA footage, the film artfully illustrates how, by drawing down atmospheric carbon, soil is the missing piece of the climate puzzle.'
- Seed (available for streaming across multiple platforms): 'As many irreplaceable seeds near extinction, SEED reveals the harrowing and heartening story of passionate seed keepers as they wage a David and Goliath battle against chemical seed companies, defending a 12,000 year food legacy.'
- My Octopus Teacher (Netflix): 'A filmmaker forges an unusual friendship with an octopus living in a South African kelp forest, learning as the animal shares the mysteries of her world.'
- Fantastic Fungi (Amazon): 'Fantastic Fungi is a consciousness-shifting film about the mycelium network that takes us on an immersive journey through time and scale into the magical earth beneath our feet, an underground network that can heal and save our planet. Through the eyes of renowned scientists and mycologists like Paul Stamets, best-selling authors like Michael Pollan, Eugenia Bone, Andrew Weil and others, we become aware of the beauty, intelligence and solutions that fungi kingdom offers in response to some of our most pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges.'
- Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough: 'A broadcaster recounts his life, and the evolutionary history of life on Earth, to grieve the loss of wild places and offer a vision for the future.'
- The True Cost: 'The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a ground-breaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?'
Books
- Sand Stories by Kiran Pereira: 'Surprising truths about the global sand crisis and the quest for sustainable solutions'
- The Solution by Anders Lendager and Esben Pedersen
- Resource Salvation: The Architecture of Reuse by Mark Gorgolewski
- The Re-Use Atlas: A Designer's Guide Towards a Circular Economy by Duncan Baker-Brown
- Lo-Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism by Julia Watson
- Anything & everything from the Anthropocene Architecture School Library
Podcasts:
- Trace Material from the Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons
- Building Sustainably hosted by Jeffrey Hart (aka Jeffrey the Natural Builder)
- Various episodes from Sophia Bush's podcast A Work in Progress
- How to Save a Planet hosted by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Alex Blumberg
- Outrage and Optimism hosted by Christiana Figueres, Paul Dickinson and Tom Rivett-Carnac.