Details of our latest events

Bright future enjoyed by St Mary’s School

Thanks to our Tesco Community Grant we were able to take our Bright New Futures Roadshow to St Mary’s CofE Primary School in Pulborough on the 22nd July . This […]

Tesco grant helps us share Bright New Future

Thanks to a Tesco Community grant on 8th July we took our Bright New Future Roadshow to Kingslea School in Horsham where we worked with 60 children from Year Two […]

Lets visualise Horsham in 2030 together

At our next Sussex Green Ideas online meeting, on July 21st at 7.00pm, we will be useing two books to help identify what Horsham District groups could usefully build now – and by 2030.

Chris Goodall – “What do we need to do now?” (discussed at Steyning Green Books 6/5/21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrxFSLl9tsw). Chris explained a number of uncomfortable truths relating to food and agriculture (one quarter of the world’s emissions), travel, domestic buildings and clothing (fast fashion)

He then identified what local groups could do, focusing also on working together and making lives better. We have chosen to focus on food, agriculture and clothing in our meeting*.

In the first part, we will look at his suggestions for:

Food and agriculture – He suggested The Kindling Trust as a model of community horticulture.

Clothing. He suggested The Clothing Warehouse Ltd as a model for recycling clothes (and household textiles). And initiatives that improve sewing skills (like our Horsham Repair Cafe) and use alternatives to cotton. We are going to be joined by Karrie Mellor one of our trustees and the founder of Bags of Support, a West Sussex textile recycling initiative run for social and environmental purpose. Read more

Why we need to talk about homes after gas – through a Horsham eco open house trial

Click to view presentation

At our last Sussex Green Ideas Zoom event on Wednesday 16th June we learnt about the challenge of transitioning from gas and the urgent need to cut the 17% of UK emissions that come from heating our leaky homes. You can view the Homes after Gas presentation here.

It helps that we can now choose renewable energy instead of fossil fuels – and generally save money, this is our energy cost comparison and switching site www.Bigcleanswitch.org/SussexGreen it only takes about 5 minutes to switch!

But the next step is the end of gas heating. From 2025 new builds will not be connected to the gas grid. The government hasn’t yet set a cut off date for new gas boilers in existing homes but it will need to do this soon. Read more

1st public Bright New Future Roadshow on World Environment Day

PRESS RELEASE: What does a 1974 milk float, 7 tonne lorry, a group of inspiring environmentalists and World Environment Day 5th June have in common? They are all part of the Bright New […]

A Fairer Easter for People and Planet

This article by Marie Allen, Fairtrade Horsham, was published in West Sussex County Times on 11.3.21

Horsham has been a Fairtrade town since 2005 and we are lucky to have so many shops and cafes which offer Fairtrade products, giving farmers and producers a better deal. Fairtrade Fortnight, which ended on March 8th, had Climate Justice as its theme this year, reflecting the importance of climate change for farmers in the developing world. Many of them are already seeing its impact in droughts, crop disease, floods and heatwaves.

Fairtrade and Climate Justice

Fairtrade means that farmers and producers receive a fair price for their products and that they have safe working conditions. In addition, they receive a Fairtrade premium which they can choose to spend as they see fit. Fairtrade farmers and producers adhere to a set of environmental protection standards and they are encouraged to learn about environmentally friendly practices. Many spend their Fairtrade premium on measures to alleviate the impacts of climate change.

Read more

Affordable heat help at hand

SGN Help to Heat advisor

Our Sussex Green Living West Sussex County Times column on 18th February 2021

The Danish word hygge means cosy and charming- an ideal winter word!  However, the winter months can be a worrying time for residents concerned about keeping warm while living in draughty, cold homes knowing their precious heat is simply leaking out and heating the outside air. And with many people working from home or home-schooling, lots of us are facing higher energy bills this year as well.

But help from Sussex Green Living is at hand!

Switching energy supplier or tariff is one of the quickest things we can do to reduce our bills. While we have a bit of time on our hands is a great time to look at energy switching sites like  https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/ .

Better still, save money and move to 100% clean renewable energy.  When our Horsham Repair Café is open, we offer a clean energy switching service: https://www.horshamrepaircafe.org.uk/energy-advice/  Everyone we’ve helped has saved between £90 and £366 using this site: https://bigcleanswitch.org/sussexgreen/.

For people on low income there is a scheme called Help to Heat which could help residents and tenants switch to gas central heating by offering a cheaper or free gas connection. Landlords and local authorities can benefit from funding if their tenant applies and is eligible, learn more here https://www.sgn.co.uk/HelptoHeat.

West Sussex Citizens advice have funding available for residents who have concerns about energy bills, suppliers and lots more. The West Sussex helpline is 01243 974063.

Residents can also access LEAP, the Local Energy Advice Service, supported by Horsham District Council. If you’re on a low income, have a health condition made worse by living in a cold home, or are vulnerable in another way, then you could be eligible for free advice and some practical energy saving gadgets. Advice is currently delivered by a friendly telephone call with energy advisers, who can refer you on to other sources of financial help or practical energy saving measures like insulation. You can apply online www.applyforleap.org.uk or via telephone 0800 060 7567

The Government are also currently offering Green Homes Grants. Learn more here https://www.sussexgreenliving.org.uk/green-homes-grants-explained/. People earning less than £30,000 who have a home with low energy efficiency rating (typically E,F or G) can apply online by selecting LAD funding at https://www.warmerhomes.org.uk/

Learn all about this and ask questions at a free AFFORDABLE WARMTH TALK on 24th February 7-8pm using Zoom (from a mobile phone, ipad or computer) https://www.sussexgreenliving.org.uk/events/

We look forward to seeing you there – bring a cuppa to make it hygge occasion!

 

Feeling inspired to get involved?

We are always looking for volunteers, so get in touch or come and meet us and see how you can get involved! Join us on FacebookTwitter and Instagram, or sign up to receive our latest news (it only takes two seconds to add your email address – simply click on black ‘Follow‘ tab on bottom right of this screen!). Feel free to also send us an email using our contact form, or come and say hello at our events like the Horsham Climate Cafe or the Horsham Repair Cafe!

Inspiring sustainable living in Sussex

 

 

Resilience is key

When the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161 AD) died, his last word was aequanimitas (equanimity) Fitting: he was an honest man whose reign was prosperous and peaceful. What’s his relevance? What’s so good about equanimity?

One man who knows is Paul Hannam, who gave a fascinating talk at our Horsham Climate Cafe on Saturday 2nd January.   Paul is an expert on people’s emotional intelligence.  Last autumn he spoke at our Horsham Climate Cafe about the ‘A New Story if humans want to survive and evolve as a species​’, hear his podcast from this event here. As we move into a new year of pandemic meltdown and economic crisis Paul thinks that the key quality to get us through is resilience.  Like the Stoic philosophers Paul defines resilience as a combination of mental toughness, adaptability and equanimity. Read more

How We Can Enjoy the 12 Rs of Christmas

West Sussex County Times our weekly column – 10.12.20 by Karen Park, Horsham Eco Churches

Here’s a chance to think about how we can enjoy a greener, more sustainable Christmas!

 

Read the full article below.

 

 

 

Read more

Have a Planet Friendly Friday!

Black Friday it came from America…..Along with school proms, trick or treat and a host of other ideas. Black Friday, when we must all cooperate to help keep up the profits of large retail corporations, whose own philosophy seems closer to free market dog-eat-dog economics than communitarianism.  Even the most hardened addicts of the shopping habit  must agree that the charms of Black Friday are starting to jade. The wrong lines discounted. Massive ranges of stuff you don’t really want. Vapid special promotions of things you feel they couldn’t give away if it weren’t for all the hype and glitz.

Followers of Sussex Green Living, being a progressive, well-informed lot, will ask: what’s the environmental cost of all this? We’ve found quite an interesting little piece by Lucy Harley McKeown of Yahoo News that makes for sobering reading. We urge you to read the link; but we’ve filleted out a couple of take-aways, just to give you a flavour:

….Black Friday purchases via Amazon alone could result in at least 18,854 tonnes of additional CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere.  Delivery service Hermes is predicted to produce the most CO2 from Black Friday deliveries; 58,313 tonnes of CO2, while DPD is also expected to rack up around 42,000 tonnes. Read more

MP Christmas card with environmental message

We have a suggestion to help to encourage our Government to increase their amibition on addressing the Climate and Ecological Emergency, send a Christmas card to your MP! Wishing them […]

Confronting stories of despair

“Don’t confuse me with the facts, I’ve already made up my mind.”  Everyone who has worked on climate change, trying to nudge, to persuade and to inform has run up against that refrain in some form or another many times. Puzzled progressive scratch their heads. “Wasn’t there supposed to have been something called the Enlightenment? Weren’t facts and reason supposed to have won the day?”  But our facts bounce off like shells on strong armour. Our discoveries are dismissed as Fake News. And our reason is labelled conspiracy.  At least they think we’re clever.

As the sea levels rise and humanity divides itself into ever more hostile warring tribes, our side needs to cut through even more urgently.  Why don’t people understand? Why do they love the siren songs from the other side?  Such questions are no longer academic.

One man thinks he has some of the answer. Paul Hannam is a successful academic, businessman, best-selling author and psychologist. He specialises in teams and leadership. He sees the telling and reification of stories as essential to the way that humans see both themselves and the world. For Paul a story is like a deep psychological paradigm by which we perceive, interpret and act on the data which impinges on us at all times. And you won’t change anything unless you change that story. Read more

Churches unite to help fundraise for our recycling hub

PRESS RELEASE

SUSSEX GREEN LIVING THANK HORSHAM DISTRICT COMMUNITY AND LOCAL CHURCHES FOR THEIR RECYCLING EFFORTS AND ANNOUNCE OPENING OF NEW RECYCLING HUB

Joy Carter, “lead Womble” at Sussex Green Living has continued to co-ordinate the sorting and dispatch of “hard-to-recycle” types of waste accepted by TerraCycle during the COVID-19 lockdown and subsequent period and would like to encourage local residents to keep on recycling.

Given the current situation with COVID-19 and the government’s restrictions to reduce the spread of the virus, our day-to-day lives have changed, and our priorities have shifted but it is not all bad news! Green issues remain a key topic, and Sussex Green Living, along with TerraCycle would like to remind everybody that recycling is as important now as ever before! By disposing of waste correctly or storing it to send to TerraCycle when things get back to normal, we can collect now and have an impact forever. Read more

Green Homes Grants explained

                   Green Homes Grant

For our Horsham Future Forum (HFF) meeting on the 29th of September, we were joined by Tom Bragg, from Cambridge Carbon Footprint and Open Eco Homes, to explain to us how the Green Homes grant works. The purpose of his talk was to go through the details of these grants to help people understand how to apply for them. Tom was also joined by Soren from Warmer Sussex, to provide his insight to people (learn more about Warmer Sussex and listen to Soren’s podcast here)

He started off with a poll asking the participants of the HFF about their intentions about applying for the grant, and what they might want to install. Only 28% of participants said Yes or Probably, with a much higher percentage, 68%, responding with a maybe, so hopefully the clarifications provided through Tom’s talk has encouraged people to apply. The installation that was the most popular was low carbon heating (such as heat pump or solar thermal) at 88%, followed by insulation (48%), draught proofing (28%) and windows and doors (20%). As this was a multiple option question, some people might have chosen more than one option.

Firstly he explained about the scheme, and secondly discussed all the energy saving measures that you could decide from to implement in your house. The main points to remember are:
Read more

Food and community resilience

On Tuesday the 15th of September, we had a very interesting talk from Adam Stark from The Food Resilience Project in Cootham. Adam teaches religion and philosophy at the Weald School, and is a self-published writer as well as an environmental campaigner, along a list of other accomplishments. The evening started with a movie trailer shown by Carrie Cort, called “The Need To Grow”, a stark environmental documentary film emphasising that “we need to stop playing games and start saving the planet” because to “not take care of our planet [is] no longer an option”. With that setting the stage for the importance and difficulty of maintaining our food systems in the face of the global and climatic changes we are seeing, we moved into hearing about Adam’s initiative. Read more

Wildlife friendly gardening

Our Horsham Climate Cafe on 5th September was an inspiring and informative talk about Wildlife Friendly Gardening.  Every green space is critical for our wildlife, even your garden, as all our UK gardens form more space than all the UK nature reserves!

Carrie the founder of Sussex Green Living opened the event with a reminder that we humans are not at the top of a wildlife pyramid but are simply part of the web of all life.  All the living things in an ecosystem depend on all the other things – living and non-living for continued survival – for food supplies and other needs.  Humans, animals and plants depend on a complex system of food for survival. Stressing the importance of using bug hotels, bird boxes and bat boxes in our gardens, but be aware that bats need about 1,000 mosquito type insects per hour, so a pond is almost essential!

Joanne Knowles was our second speaker who is passionate about encouraging us all to seek out peat -free compost. Read more

Reducing energy, saving money and the planet

  • Over the last 10 years the UK has made some good progress reducing the carbon emissions associated with the generation of electricity. However – over the same timeframe – very little progress has been in reducing the emissions associated with heating our homes (ie “space heating” the heating of our home spaces). This is mostly due to our reliance on gas boilers in the home.
  • There are a number of options that can reduce the emissions related to space heating, not least improvements in home insulation (reducing wasted heat that “leaks” out of your home). But which insulation – wall, floor or roof ? And when you have optimised the insulation, which non-gas technology should you consider – solar, heat pumps (air source or ground source), or is there something new just around the corner ?
  • Warmer Sussex offer impartial advice (via a Retrofit Coordinator) to give you a plan/road map to reducing the emissions related to the space heating of your home. You will receive a bespoke Whole House Plan which looks at what has been done before, and what can be improved now. The Retrofit Coordinator considers the property, the clients budget, and any future plans they have (eg updating kitchen) when developing the strategy for the property. The insulation and ventilation will be considered first before starting to tackle heating/renewable.

Read more

Guildford Community Hub unites community

On Tuesday evening our Horsham Future Forum were inspired by a presentation about the new Guildford Community Hub which it is in the early stages of development. It consists of 12 different local organisations working together, their aim: education and engaging the wider population to drive behavioural change, and thereby try to reduce consumption emissions. Presented by Ben McCallan.

The Guildford Community Hub is built on a model called Space Generators, which has been operating for about 30 years. Space Generators focus on arts environmental community and sustainability projects / events using their network built up since 1992, when their campaign for the reuse of empty space began after the Rio Earth Summit. They tailor events or create a variety of modules to match vacant space in the interim period before development. Helping to provide space for local community use.

Currently there are Community Hubs being formed in Staines, Farnham, Elmbridge and two in Scotland. Could we develop a community hub in Horsham?

Read more

Help Keep Rookwood Green!

Join the Keep Rookwood Green Campaign on Saturday 15th August to become citizen scientists at this bio blitz, help carry out surveys to help record all living species in the area. You can book timed tickets for staggered visits through this Eventbrite link or learn more here  www.KeepRookWoodGreen.org.

Watch the talk Keep Rookwood Green gave at our Horsham Future Forum meeting on Tuesday 16th June here.

 

 

Read more

Planning environmentally friendly celebrations

On Saturday 4th July the Horsham Climate Cafe session focused on life celebrations, and how to make them more pocket and planet-friendly. Christenings, weddings, anniversaries and funerals needn’t cost the Earth, in more than one way! Presented by Jeanie Francis, a Billingshurst-based OneSpirit Interfaith minister/celebrant who over the last 25 years has developed a passion for creating personal, environmentally friendly special occasions that celebrate milestones in life.

Whether you are planning a celebration of new life or loosing a loved one, with a little thinking ‘out-side the box’ (excuse the pun) a personal and unique occasion, honouring a specific religion, mixed religion or no religion can be planned.

This is what one couple said recently about their son’s baby naming ceremony: “With a deep love of nature but with no particular religious faith we felt unsure how to celebrate the arrival of our son, Adam. With Jean’s imaginative guidance we created a beautiful ceremony which took place in our cottage garden beneath the willow tree. Everyone wrote wishes for Adam on cotton flags and tied them to the willow tree. Jean suggested we ask special friends to be guardians to Adam for Male Youth, Wisdom, Creativity and Spirituality. A day full of truly wonderful memories thank you Jean”. Read more

E.Y.E.’s 1st Virtual EYE Eco-Summit

*** UNDER A WEEK TO GO…***

…to the online launch of E.Y.E.’s 1st Virtual EYE Eco-Summit, on the 2nd July at 10:00.

The social distancing has led to the postponement of the 13th Worthing and Adur Eco-Summit gathering. I know that your participation in the event was booked into your calendar, and that you might take an interest in our virtual event. As always we look forward to your involvement and support with our future events.

EYE have taken the initiative to collate and post a selection of workshops, to keep our keen eco-learners busy. Kindly provided by some of our supporters who were able to do so, in these challenging times we currently find ourselves in.

The 1st Virtual EYE Eco-Summit will be available via YouTube. Read more