‘Power, Nature, Culture and Society’ was a platform at a major conference on design and sustainability  held at London College of Fashion (LCF).  

Attending an intensive two-day event is a luxury to anybody who isn’t a student, academic or staff journalist. But much of the conference was radical – at last!

The event proved surprisingly upbeat, and revealed a new world of possibilities and cutting edge technologies.

Sustainability activism

Attendees and presenters from as far afield as India, Japan and the United States presented alongside European institutions, also out in force. Their talks were crammed with progressive ideas, as well as  investigative research that revealed how this subject has developed as an area worthy of ecological, environmental and political significance.

Transgressive in its behemoth approach, this was a conference with a difference and an unabashed audience.

Noticeably, certain speakers from the more established and luxury brands were received with an audible gasp of exasperation and cynicism. Time to cue you know who.

An honorary of fashion sustainability and activism and a former student at  designer Katherine Hamnetts was once shunned by the greater industry, which now see her embraced as the ‘High Priestess’.

Hamnetts work in this arena spans several decades, most notoriously taking centre-stage in 1984 with her anti nuclear statement T-shirts of protest, provocation and politics. Cue present-day sustainability and Hamnetts related response ”Slogans are fine but we need action now and it needs to be dramatic”.  Ever outspoken, she quickly dismissed Donatella Versace’s recent sustainability award, with a hiss of caustic hilarity. 

Experimentation and cooperation 

Met with a rapturous response especially from the many students in attendance, the field of force that is

Hamnett exhaled a hurricane of cynicism throughout her interview, and stressed the persistence of many in the industry who do not want to deal with the environmental, human and animal issues relating to fashion. She was received by rapturous applause, particularly by students. 

She argued: ”There’s a conspiracy to do nothing”. Perhaps then, a slogan T-shirt could read HUNG LIKE HAMNETT,  because we need more ballsy women in this challenging field.

However, activism and education and bringing change, plus there is willing from areas of the industry, particularly from some of those at the very top. Watch this space.

There needs to better dialogue, action, experimentation and cooperation, which may not necessarily come from expected sources. The conference offered a mosaic of considerations in sustainable fashion and some stand out talks.

New skin

Ever aware of alternatives to animal skin, a fascinating presentation under the ‘Natures  Materials’ section, Istituto Marangonis Kirsten Scott (no relation!) spoke about ‘tree skin’ from a holistic study of trees in Uganda.

Their work is surely ‘fashion forward’ in its feasibility and approach to sustainable luxury.

Ten apprentices and artisans work with their bark ‘cloth’, which also is fully compostable and has antibacterial properties. It is a wonder material that’s used to wrap bodies as it preserves decomposition. 

Conversant clothing

With few exceptions, it’s a sad truth that the notion of fashion and ageing make for an uncomfortable pairing on several levels. This project offers ingenuity and hope in an area worthy of greater attention and respect.

Japan represented some startling and heartening endeavours, exploring ways of communicating and sharing knowledge, creating  holistic environs and using manga cartoons.

Most notably the Daijiros Mizunos work which could surely be termed ‘conversant clothing’. A garment with sensor pockets for cameras and collars fitted microphones that ‘talk’ to the wearer, intent on enhancing well-being and aiding the ageing.

The talk ‘Speculative, Fashionable, Wearable, Engaging Fashion Design with Wearable Tech for the Sustainable Future’ emphasised facilitation and the role emerging designers can play in promoting positive partnerships, in this case with ATAP Google Lab.

Mizuno pragmatically proclaimed, after going to Google HQ in San Francisco, that “They are the tech experts, but we are the designers who work well collaboratively”.

Sophisticated ethnography

Catherine Glover from Northumbria University produced a polished and professional presentation on the Tweed Run. A sophisticated ethnography and narrative enquiry on an annual heritage cycling event, where attendees and participants ‘dress up’ in period clothing.

Glover participated by wearing her husbands Grandfathers ‘plus fours’ (or knickerbockers). Her presentation emphasised: “Tweed is the original technical material; Thorn-proof, weatherproof and waterproof”. 

Tweed is a material making a comeback due to its endurance and efficiency, and helping heritage designers to regain a platform.

Glover regards herself as a contemporary communicator and professional marketer. Her own style and notable presentation offer progressive insight.

Fashion revolution 

Edwina Ehrman, senior curator on the Victoria & Albert museum’s exhibition ‘Fashioned from Nature’, spoke of the importance of making their exhibition deliberately uncomfortable for people, as well as examining the many and consistent abuses toward animals for fashion.

The exhibition premièred prototypes which could revolutionise the field. Ehrmans talk was ell-received and impressed the audience, as did Orsola de Castros from ‘Fashion Revolution’ with an impassioned appeal for action.

‘Power, Nature, Culture & Society’ welcomed topics as diverse as ‘Culture and Spirituality’. Noteworthy contributors such as Elsa Parente and Miguel from Portugal’s ‘Co-curating a Fashion System’ presentation, and Sara Caravagnero from Italy’s Red Cross were very well received. 

Caravagnero’s remarkable work on disability – an under-represented area in the industry – was potent and pertinent. Her presentation was resolutely fuelled by optimism and opportunism as the ‘take-away’ elements in an arena which can at times, frustrate and deflate.  

This Author

Wendyrosie Scott is an anthropologist and journalist focusing on design and creative communities. She looks at the positive partnerships between lifestyle trends & the natural world.

Image: Bukomansimbi organic tree farmers association laying bark cloth to dry.

There is an emerging trend for manufacturers to develop their own sustainable sourcing models, inspired by Fairtrade and consumer demand for ethically-sourced products. Even the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s are following suit.

While a proactive commitment to sustainable sourcing is to be applauded, setting up an entirely new sourcing model – and doing it well – is no mean feat. I speak from experience of converting English Tea Shop to run on a Creating Shared Value model throughout our supply chain from seed to cup.

The impact of creating and implementing our own sourcing model has been profound, not only for the farmers but for our business and all those in our community, or our Prajāva as we like to call it. I want to share some of the key things I’ve learnt about setting up a sourcing model, based on my experience over the years.

Clear motivations

The very first step should be asking yourself why you’re setting off on this path. Is it to help support and share value with those in your supply chain? Is it to improve transparency?

Is it to have a more secure and reliable supply chain? Is it so you can source increasingly high-quality produce? Is it because ethical sourcing is important to your customers? Is it to be better for the environment? Is it all of the above?

What’s important is considering what long-term outcomes you want to achieve, both for your business, and for those in the supply chain.

Start small

Unless you’re starting a new business, it’s likely best to take a long-term approach to sourcing.

Having direct relationships with producers is both essential and time-consuming, and building close relationships even more so.

It may be best to start working with one producer or co-operative under your model, or on one project, and to grow from there. 

Strong Prajāva

Prajāva is the Sri Lankan word for community and taking a wide view of who this includes is vital.

Creating shared value throughout a supply chain takes a great deal of thought – and it’s surprisingly easy to do the wrong thing when trying to do the right thing.

That’s why close relationships are so important – you have to have an innate understanding of what people want and need, rather than just doing what you think they need. The stronger your Prajāva, the better placed you will be.

Business people

This is one of the absolute best ways of sharing value through your supply chain. For us, this means helping our farmers to improve the quality and quantity of their yield through support education and a trusted route to market rather than just paying a minimum price.

For those who work in our factories, we have a profit-sharing initiative called Big Game which involves them in programmes such as open book management, knowledge sharing and budget games with the goal of making English Tea Ship a significantly employee-owned business.

This ultimately drives employee engagement and increases productivity too – there has now been a 31 percent increase in value added per employee since The Big Game initiative was introduced.

Without wanting to be too trite about it, helping people help themselves is much more sustainable and powerful.

Measuring and monitoring 

If you’re going it alone, you need to find a robust way of benchmarking the outcomes of your model. Failing to do so could cause more harm than good. 

This could involve developing a framework for measuring social and economic impact for your investments and efforts and then tracking how business is directly and indirectly impacted as a result of such social progress.

Shared value

Creating a sourcing model is not without its ups and downs and there are times when commercial realities come knocking that can put you in difficult positions.

My advice would be to focus your sourcing model on creating shared value – that is, value for people throughout your supply chain, but also for your business.

For me, this is what makes a model truly sustainable in that it is then protected from short-termism during leaner periods. 

As our society becomes even more ethically-minded, it will soon be the norm for businesses to adopt and drive growth through sustainable sourcing models.

We’ve already seen a good selection of early adopters make their mark, and I hope that the fruitful results produced will encourage others to take a leap of faith.

This Author

Suranga Herath is a global expert on the tea industry, and CEO of English Tea Shop, one of the world’s leading organic tea businesses which brings high quality, ethically-sourced tea to customers all over the world.

Image: © Bauer Media/Homes to Love. 

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is always working to increase construction practices that address health and safety hazards.

The NIOSH Construction Program works through every stage of development – from pre-design to design, construction, occupancy and eventual demolition, the safety of people in the area remains a top priority.

NIOSH is not the only group in the United States pushing for safer conditions for construction workers. While worksites have improved in the past, how things are built is under constant transformation.

In this case, switching to green, eco-friendly building designs have been both a good and bad thing for construction workers. While the general point is to ensure the health of people throughout the building’s life, some of the practices are new and not yet mastered.

Green positives

All construction can be a dangerous business. Just because the building is environmentally friendly doesn’t mean it’ll be safer to build from the label alone. Work has to be put into the project for everything to come out right with everyone’s well-being in mind. However, green buildings and construction can make sites safer for workers.

The NIOSH Office of Construction Safety and Health, along with the United States Green Building Council, has developed a concept called Prevention through Design, or PtD. This concept, explained in two webinars, covers the prevention of occupational injuries, illnesses, fatalities and exposures on the worksite. PtD is there to minimize risks during the design phase of buildings by changing equipment, tools, processes and anything else to make the job safer.

Through PtD, workers eliminate hazards as early as possible. This can easily be implemented through green construction, as everything to make the building green is decided upon during the design phase. The premises, structure, equipment, machinery, substances and other parts of construction all have to be taken into account for both reasons.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that green construction is “the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s lifecycle.” While also being considered as high performance and sustainable, green buildings are also meant to be better for durability, comfort and the economy.

Occupational and environmental health can benefit each other by working together. As of 2011, 71 percent of construction businesses claimed to use at least one piece of technology or practice that was green while over half reported being involved with energy and waste efficiency.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates that about 100 construction workers are killed each year. Going off this figure, the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) finds that 55 percent of those fatalities happen on the worksite rather than anywhere else. Construction is a dangerous job either way, but finding new innovations to make the work safer is worth trying out, which is one reason why green building continues to gain traction.

Green negatives

The Identification of Safety Risks for High-Performance Sustainable Construction Projects study looked into construction projects with the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification. LEED remains the largest program in America for certifying green buildings.

In the study, dozens of designers and contractors were interviewed, each with an average of 100 traditional construction jobs and about four LEED jobs. Out of the results, 12 LEED guidelines lead to an increase in safety risk compared to non-LEED.

A lot of the problems have to do with height coupled with unfamiliar, new technology. The high-risk tasks include constructing atria and installing solar panels. This has been attributed to the 24 percent increase in falls.

There are also more electrical currents near unstable soils and an increased use of heavy equipment on LEED projects. Even wastewater technologies have about 14 percent more exposure to harmful substances.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics also conducted the Occupational Employment Statistics, or OES, survey. Along with the O*NET green occupational categories, about 90 percent of the construction workforce is now employed in green-related industries. Again, the increased risk of falls is a big factor when dealing with solar or wind power, as well as skylights or atriums. They also found extra exposure to hazardous materials because of weatherization.

Some other hazards not previously considered were from cement, concrete, terrazzo and insulation exposure to silica, coal ash and nanomaterials. In addition to material hazards, injuries continued to happen in green worksites. While these are all important problems to consider, the situation doesn’t have to be like this.

Safety First

The executive director of the Center for Construction Research and Training, Peter Stafford, noted that “with proper layout of the worksite, recyclables can be sorted safely and efficiently. With properly scheduled breaks for hydration, a reflective roof doesn’t have to mean trips to the hospital. And with proper fall protection, solar panels can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels without risking workers’ lives.” Simply put, new technology brings new safety measures.

Construction can be a dangerous job, especially when negligence is involved.

While green construction has new problems to overcome, they aren’t much worse than the issues already presented, and they’re better during the long run.

New safety measures need to be implemented for these different processes, and proper training must be conducted. With knowledge and the correct tools, risks can be lowered for everyone’s peace of mind.

This Author

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer and the editor of Conservation Folks.

Kindness is a delicate thing – as soon as you try to ‘operationalise’ it, or scale it up, something of its essence is lost. It brings to mind an image of a wild animal being brought into captivity.

In an older people’s ward a terminally ill man commented that he appreciated a nurse making him a hot chocolate after she’d finished her shift. He felt that she went out of her way to be kind to him, he felt that he mattered, and he was touched – “She sort of broke the rules for me.”

The new issue of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine is out now!

The well-intentioned ward manager responded to this by introducing a ‘hot chocolate round’ as part of the routine care on the ward; it became part of the ‘machinery’ of care rather than an act of spontaneous kindness.

Common humanity 

Health care is a calling to so many people who are led by an instinctual, natural kindness. We believe that the act of caring is an invitation to engage with distress, disease and death, which in itself carries a necessary emotional cost.

Caring cannot work in relieving pain and suffering unless the person being cared for can see an impact on the carer. This connection is the psychological and spiritual basis of transformation in suffering.

Touching and being touched by the heart and mind of another creates the connection that enables relief and comfort. This happens from the cradle to the grave as all of us seek recognition and understanding in the responses of others. It is part of our common humanity.

Organisations can become structured to protect staff from some of the painful realities of people’s lives. For example, an emphasis on checklists of questions can bring apparent structure and certainty, rather than connecting with patients on an equal human level and responding to whatever comes up.

A perceived need for staff to have a sense of detachment (often described as ‘being professional’) carries a risk of disengagement from the feelings necessary to build compassionate relationships with patients and colleagues.

Emotional detachment 

Part of professionalism is an intention to ensure that individual preferences and personal connections don’t cloud the process of objective, equitable decision-making. However, this emotional detachment can be at the heart of systemic care failings.

To care, we need to feel, but feelings can sometimes invite us down unhelpful paths. Feelings without thought can mean that sometimes we react in a totally inappropriate way, without consideration for others.

The solution is to bring conscious awareness to feelings so that we can be aware of the emotion before we act and consider whether this is the best way to respond to the situation. This is a skill that people can learn and develop.

At a local level, reflective practice sessions or mindfulness groups might offer protected spaces for thinking and being, and not ‘doing’ all the time – spaces where our own and others’ vulnerabilities can be acknowledged and embraced.

Feelings can be combined with thoughts. Individuals and teams are increasingly encouraged to reflect on what matters to them, as a way to reconnect with core values. Our experience is that sessions like these can be useful but are tough to set up and maintain. Also, they can have much in common with the way that individual therapy functions as a sticking-plaster for wider social issues. We must consider the ecology of the whole health-care system.

Nurturing relationships 

To care is an interpersonal matter that involves empathy, warmth and genuineness. These vital human qualities are the easiest things to experience subject­ively, but in a health-care system that values objective outcomes the spiritual essence of care can become lost or diluted. 

Care can only be as good as the mental state of the carer, and the mental state of the carer depends in turn on the support and nourishment of the working environment.

Carers need nurturing relationships with other people so that their own energy can be constantly replenished. For this to happen, the needs of caregivers have to be recognised and the working environment has to be designed to meet them, in line with fundamental psychological needs.

What we call a ‘psychologically safe’ health-care environment is one in which everyone feels a sense of involvement; an environment where conversations routinely happen whose purpose is to talk through difficult feelings so that people feel refreshed and re-energised to carry on; an environment where not only the patients feel remembered and held in mind, but also the staff.

One of the most practical steps, therefore, in ensuring good-quality care is to care for the care staff as human beings too. Simple behaviours that create psychological safety include conversational turn-taking, empathy and a freedom to “say what I think without fear”.

Compassionate work 

We must be able to talk about what is messy or sad with openness, to embrace hard conversations with colleagues (for example in team meetings) with whom we are having difficulty. We acknowledge that these behaviours require some time, and that health care is fast-paced and highly pressured. We lose so much when our focus is on efficiency and protocols.

Care can only be as effective as the state of mind of those providing it. This means limiting the factors that expend emotional energy, and bolstering those who supply it.

This task cannot be left to self-care or individual ‘resilience’: it requires the whole organisation to provide a system of sustaining supportive relationships.

If patients feel heard, cared for, engaged with on a human level, they are more likely to feel that they had a positive experience of health care and perhaps will feel more supported to self-manage and be more in control of their health.

This becomes more possible, we believe, if carers are maintained in a state of mind where there is the energy, focus and time to really engage with patients. This means that we cannot care for patients unless we also care for their carers. In human health, the most powerful factor is caring relationships.

By honouring those relationships, we will optimise health outcomes, enable more compassionate work environments, and genuinely improve efficiency.

These authors

Charlie Jones is a clinical psychologist at North Bristol NHS Trust. Martin Seager is a clinical psychologist/adult psychotherapist. This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. 

Image: Julie Delton. 

A vast newly-planted forest and enchanting wildflower meadows are growing alongside pockets of ancient bluebell woodland and old hedgerows near densely populated areas in Hertfordshire.

In the spring and summer, fields after fields are covered with blue, yellow, red, pink, purple and white wild flowers, undulating in the wind.  There are tracks for horses and bicycles and even a yoga grove, but also miles of solitary muddy paths. It is a haven of peace and beauty for wildlife and people.

Ten years ago, none of this was there: low-grade farmland stretched as far as the eye could see.

Realising dreams

In 2008, the Woodland Trust acquired 347-hectare of arable land in Sandridge with an ambitious plan to launch the largest tree-planting scheme in the country.

Louise Neicho, who has been the Woodland Trust’s Site Manager from the start of the project, said that Heartwood Forest is “the fulfilment of a dream for us – to create England’s biggest new native woodland. We wanted to plant a forest of trees on a truly landscape scale and make a difference to wildlife and nature – but also to the hundreds of thousands of people we could inspire.”

Some 140,000 people per year are now visiting the forest and Heartwood Forest has been selected as one of the trust’s Top Ten Destination Sites.

Each of the 600,000 trees there has been planted by some 45,000 volunteers, including more than 17,000 school children. Neicho said: “So many people have been involved from the local community and further afield – school children, businesses, religious groups, the public and our very own volunteers.”  

They have also planted new wildflower meadows, open grassland and a 600-tree community orchard, which includes many old Hertfordshire varieties of apple, pear and cherry, as well as plum, medlar, apricot and quince. An arboretum has also been created – the only one known in the UK to contain all 57 of our native tree species. 

Increased biodiversity 

The trees have had remarkable effects on wildlife – including doubling bird numbers and increasing butterfly populations by 160 percent, as well as encouraging the arrival of new species such as the water shrew, barbastelle bat, common lizard and grasshopper warbler. 

To date, 27 species of butterfly have been recorded and 87 species of bird, including owls, linnets, skylarks, buzzards, kestrels and a rare sighting of a great grey shrike. The linnet is one species that particularly thrives there – in six years linnet sightings have increased by 250 percent, bucking a national trend decrease. 

Surveys have also recorded 62 species of woodland mammals such as voles, badgers, deer and mice. In the insect kingdom, the exotic-looking but non-poisonous wasp spider is new to the site. 

These regular surveys are conducted by volunteers from the Hertfordshire Natural History Society to enable the Woodland Trust to chart populations of plants and wildlife during changes to the site.

Neicho added: “These surveys illustrate the impact that planting new woodlands can make, even in short space of time. [The Woodland Trust] has achieved something amazing, a green and natural place where everyone can find space, peace, wildlife and miles of beautiful young woodland to explore.”

This Author 

Veronique Mistiaen is an award-winning journalist writing about the environment, international development, human rights and social issues. She blogs at The Right Human and she tweets at @VeroMistiaen.

Image: Judith Parry. 

The extraction and processing of natural resources now accounts for more than 90 percent of global biodiversity loss and water stress impacts, and approximately half of global greenhouse gas emissions, a flagship UN report concludes.

The Global Resources Outlook report, released on Tuesday at the United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, provides a global analysis of the world’s natural resource use and management.

The report depicts a story of relentless growth and increasingly severe trade-offs for human well-being and environmental health.

Resource inequity

Izabella Teixeira, co-chair of the International Resources Panel and an author of the report, said: “Over the last 50 years, material extraction and consumption has tripled. This is not surprising knowing that the global population has doubled and global GDP has grown fourfold since then.”

“What is reason for concern, however, is how the benefits of that resource use have been distributed,” Teixeira adds.

While consumption is growing in upper-middle income countries such as Brazil, India and China, high-income countries continue to outsource resource intensive production, exporting the negative external impact that come with resource extraction to middle- and low-income countries.

The world’s poorest countries, on the other hand, have rarely seen any growth in material consumption, even though they have the highest need for higher material living circumstances.

Janez Potocnik, co-chair of the International Resources Panel and an author of the report, said: “We are not saying that developing countries are not allowed to grow and increase consumption. Low income countries would benefit a lot from an increase in their resource use. This report outlines the need for a more comprehensive and careful approach, instead of rampant one-dimensional growth.

“Even a country like China, known for its incredible economic growth, is now having to come to terms with the fact that it needs to take sustainability into account if it wants to ensure its future.”

Fossil fuels

The use of coal, petroleum and natural gas increased from 6 billion tonnes a year in 1970 to 15 billion tonnes a year in 2017.

A huge increase in capacity for the generation of global fossil fuel electricity has increased access to affordable energy for many in recent years, but has come at high environmental and health costs and has locked the world in environmentally harmful technologies, the UN report states.

Based on current trends, greenhouse gas emissions are projected to further increase by 43 percent by 2060. To attain the sustainable development goals, however, greenhouse gas emissions would have to decrease by 90 percent.

Similarly, global pasture lands would have to decrease by 30 percent, intensive agricultural land would have to decrease by 9 percent and forests would need to increase by 11 percent by 2060 for the world to reach sustainability.

Potocnik explained: “The only way towards a sustainable future is by accounting for the negative impacts of extraction and consumption on the environment and our well-being.

“The environmental and health trade-offs from rapid growth and increased resource consumption are usually not accounted for in a country’s GDP. If they had [been accounted for], the last few decades of global GDP growth would have been minimal.”

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a biologist and science journalist who writes about climate change, environment, health and migration. He tweets from @ArthurWyns. 

Image: Gerry Machen, Flickr. 

If you ask someone to describe the deep sea, the response is often a depressing description of a barren landscape devoid of life; one of such crushing pressure and eternal darkness that the chance of life surviving here seems only possible in stories of science fiction.

So, it would probably surprise you to hear that there are rich, deep-sea ecosystems under threat from an emerging ocean industry… and virtually no-one knows about it.

Amber Cobley is speaking at Exploring the Deep at Edinburgh Science Festival, taking place at the National Museum of Scotland on Saturday 6 April. Tickets and more information is available here. 

Within the next decade, the deep-sea mining industry plans to send 300-tonne vehicles to harvest tens of thousands km2 of deep seafloor for minerals considered vital to the future of green technology. But these hard mineral resources are also home to fragile and diverse ecosystems, some new to science and some yet to be found. 

Mineral Resources 

Currently in its exploration phase, deep-sea mining is targeting three different types of mineral resources on the deep-ocean floor: potato-sized manganese nodules, also known as polymetallic nodules, that carpet vast areas of abyssal plains; cobalt crusts, also known as ferromanganese crusts, that form on the slopes of some undersea mountains; and seafloor massive sulfides, that form at undersea hot springs called hydrothermal vents.  

Of these, nodules and seafloor massive sulfides are likely to be exploited first.

Many believe it was John Mero’s book The Mineral Resources of the Sea that began the deep-sea gold rush in the early 1960s.

Mero proclaimed that “once these nodules are being mined, the minerals industry would be faced with the very interesting situation of working deposits that grow faster than they can be mined” – a utopian, sustainable industry that seemed too good to be true.   

These possible riches of the deep were so tempting that deep-sea mining was added to the agenda of the UN General Assembly for discussion in 1967.

Abyssal plains

Fast-forward to today, and we know manganese nodules actually take 10,000 to 1 million years to grow, gradually accreting many layers of polymetallic oxides from surrounding waters and everything from volcanic debris and prehistoric shark teeth forming their core. 

“Fields” of these nodules cover huge areas of some abyssal plains around the world, covering ~6 million km2in the North East Pacific alone.  The nodules are rich minerals of economic interest such as Nickel, Copper, Cobalt, Lithium and Rare Earth Elements, a group of elements vital for green technology, such as neodymium magnets for wind turbines and hybrid cars.

In contrast to the nodules that carpet large areas of abyssal plains, the seafloor massive sulphides that form at hydrothermal vents occur in very small patches, typically along undersea volcanic rifts.  Cold seawater percolates into oceanic crust at these rifts, where it becomes heated geothermally and leaches minerals from surrounding rocks.

These hot fluids burst out of the crust, precipitating minerals to form the seafloor deposits. These can be formed subsurface, or on the seafloor where the “chimneys” of hydrothermal vents tower up to 30m tall, all enriched in minerals such as Iron, Zinc, Copper, Lead, Gold and Silver.

Potential impacts

Despite proving that nodules do not grow back soon after they are mined, some industry experts now think the higher mineral concentrations of deep-sea deposits could mean a smaller impact footprint than land-based methods.

But many scientists and conservation groups caution that at this moment in time, there is simply not enough known about life in our deep-oceans for the industry to begin mining safely.  

Without the basic understanding of the species that make up these ecosystems and how they function, we cannot assess any potential impacts deep-sea mining may have that could cause serious, irreversible harm to our marine environment. 

Both resource types provide hard surfaces for many species to attach to and create biodiversity hotspots filled with organisms often new to science. However, low food availability, cold temperatures, and low disturbance levels at nodule fields means these communities are predicted to be ill-adapted to cope with mining impacts. Scientists predict any recovery post-mining to be at decadal, if not centurial time scales.

Experts anticipate responses of vent populations to mining impacts to be different to those at nodules, as their ecosystems experience disturbance when the venting fluids supporting them “turn on and off”. However this disturbance occurs at time scales varying from tens to thousands of years, depending on vent location.  

Complex ecosystems

Caution is therefore advised towards these complex ecosystems until we have a better understanding of their processes, with many scientists and conservation groups calling for a ban on mining active “switched on” vents altogether.

The variation between ecosystems at different resource types means management of environmental impacts must be based on scientific understanding of each of the three resource types individually. This triples the workload for the International Seabed Authority, the UN regulator of deep-sea mining on the international seabed, on which the majority of these mineral resources are located.  

Although previously criticised for a lack of transparency and inclusivity during this process, a recent step-change by the International Seabed Authority leaves some stakeholders more optimistic and hopeful for an increased and continued focus on regulation underpinned by scientific evidence.  Without that evidence, many are still concerned that we risk ending up in a situation where we aim for a green economy to protect one environment, whist causing avoidable harm to our deep oceans.

The ISA says it will have finished writing regulations allowing for the commercial exploitation of all deep-sea minerals by 2020, after which mining could begin.  

The race is now on to feed knowledge of these unique and fragile ecosystems into environmental safeguarding of this industry, to ensure that deep-sea mining is governed by environmental regulations that avoid mistakes of generations past in other habitats.

This Author

Amber Cobley is a postgraduate research student within Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton at the University of Southampton. She is speaking at Exploring the Deep at Edinburgh Science Festival, taking place at the National Museum of Scotland on Saturday 6 April. Tickets and more information is available here. 

Image: Venting fumeroles just from the crown of Godzilla hydrothermal vent. Ocean Networks Canada, Flickr. 

Single-use plastic pollution is ubiquitous and tangible – we can see it on our beaches, roadsides and waterways, and it’s even in the seafood we eat and the tap water we drink.

Today, there are endless creative initiatives to help limit plastic pollution, from grassroots beach cleans to campaigns for plastic-free supermarket aisles. The momentum sky-rocketed when the final episode of BBC One’s Blue Planet II, which highlighted global plastic pollution for just six minutes, was watched by 11.91 million people – the highest ever recorded ratings for any Nature programme.

The latest issue of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine is out now!

In 2018, ‘single-use’ was named Word of the Year by Collins Dictionary while ‘plastic’ was Oxford Dictionaries’ Children’s Word of the Year.

Bigger picture

Once hailed as a wonder material, plastic is the biggest threat to our planet – or so some press coverage would like us to believe. As a result, it is arguably the most engaging environmental catastrophe of our time. But are people seeing the bigger picture?

The current wave of interest in plastic pollution shares many factors with the alarming discovery of the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica in the mid-1980s and the subsequent successful engagement of industry, governments and consumers.

This protective layer has significantly recovered since the phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) 30 years ago, after the groundbreaking Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was agreed by leading industrial nations in 1987.

George Marshall, founder of Climate Outreach and author of Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, said: “There was an obvious cause and effect – it was possible to reduce our usage of CFCs found in aerosols and refrigerants, and manufacturers could stop producing these nasty chemicals in the first place.”

Marshall studies how people engage psychologically with climate change. He explains: “That was a very well-constructed problem for us to deal with – it was still complex to understand but more manageable than climate change and similar to single-use plastics in that people could visualise and make sense of it.

 “[Climate change is] really an economic and social problem with moral and political complexities – it’s about human rights and armed conflict and so many things. Plastic is in that environmental category, and more deservedly so, but the danger is that people feel they have ticked that environmental box by redu­cing plastic pollution.”

Immediate impact 

All the things that make the plastics issue strong make garnering action against climate change weak, according to Marshall.

Plastic is something that we hold in our hands, it’s here and now, the impact is immediate, and we can all make direct behavioural changes to reduce that.

Marshall argues: “With climate change, there is no direct immediate connection. The notion that something you do now will affect something else in some complex way in the future is vague and that’s the big problem.”

The plastic backlash has worked well because it has a really good line-up of the qualities that motivate people: “We have got a trusted communicator, Sir David Attenborough, who played a key role in kicking this off, it’s tangible, you can mobilise your own community to help pick up plastic and reduce waste, and it feels like you can do good.”

Internal justifications 

Marshall explains that there are three fundamental reasons why it is hard to get people’s attention on climate change: “Firstly, people have a very limited ‘pool of worry’, so if a problem captures our attention, that displaces something else because we only have a certain mental capacity to worry about issues.

“Secondly, we display ‘single-action bias’ – this is the tendency to take on one single activity with the belief that we have resolved something bigger.” Psychologists hypothesise that this has evolved so that that we don’t worry too much, but face up to problems, solve them, and then move on.

The third and final danger is ‘moral licence’: “In order to maintain your sense of being a good person, you adopt an activity that you consider to be good and then use that as an internal justification for something that is not good. This subconscious offsetting is very common, and recycling behaviour is a classic example.”

We need to tip the balance of public awareness in issues like palm oil and ocean acidification and be smart in the way we tell the story so that people can relate to it, says Nick Clark, environment correspondent and anchor for Al Jazeera: “The question is how we set about covering this story to engage a public fatigued and confused by the climate change ‘debate’ that’s been drummed up by those who want to obfuscate the story.”

Rapid revolution

Clark continues: “It’s essential we cover the first world too, not only Bangladesh and the Pacific islands. Just look at the California wildfires, Florida floods and coastal erosion, the hurricanes blowing in. How will that affect us all?”

Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford Organic Farmers, said: “We are on the brink of environmental catastrophe, and the most important thing is that nothing distract us from climate change – plastic in the oceans is a tragedy, but not on the same scale as climate change. 

“People might feel they have done their bit by reducing plastic, and we are intrinsically lazy, so the changes we are prepared to make must really matter.”

But that’s not to say Singh-Watson has lost all hope. “We keep using stuff and throwing it away – that’s the mentality we need to fundamentally change, and now there seems to be significant im­petus behind it.”

He believes that change can be fast, especially when big business gets behind it. “Just as the transition from horses to cars took just 10 years in 1900s America, today there’s a rapid revolution happening with electric cars because the car industry has got behind it.”

Plastic pollution has a powerful narrative that has the potential to open the gateway to real public understanding of fossil fuels and encourage us to switch from the ‘take-make-dispose’ linear model to a more sustainable, circular economy that inspires us to consider our overall carbon footprint and look at the bigger, global picture.

This Author 

Anna Turns is a freelance journalist and founder of Plastic Clever Salcombe, a Kids Against Plastic campaign. This article first appeared in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine.

Wood fuel seems to be having a hard time of it lately. The arguments used to be so simple – wood is a green, sustainable product, right?  Well, maybe.  

The discussions around carbon and particulates suddenly make this debate so much more complicated, and are in danger of turning us off wood for good.

Take the news that 47 UK towns and cities are at or exceeding WHO standards for air pollution.  This has catapulted air quality up the political agenda, and stimulated a Government Clean Air Strategy published in January that has singled out wood fuel as one of the main contributors to particulate pollution.  Or Sadiq Khan’s suggestions that wood burning stoves should be banned altogether, causing uproar amongst those with a newly installed burner.    

Air pollution

So is wood fuel really the enemy?  It’s enough to induce a guilty conscience as you slip another log on the burner this winter or, worse still, to abandon your stove and crank up the central heating instead.  

Now, I’m not suggesting that air pollution isn’t important – it’s the UK’s top environmental risk to human health – nor am I saying that burning solid fuels isn’t part of the problem, but I think it’s time we re-claimed the case for burning wood.

Part of the problem with the recent reports is that they lump together all domestic solid fuels and all types of appliances, showing how they cause around 38 percent of emissions – higher even than industry and transport.  

But amongst all the headlines, I think we’ve lost sight of two simple messages – firstly, that all wood is not the same, and secondly, that the way that you burn it can make all the difference.  So much so that I believe if we burn the right wood in the right way we can actually improve both our carbon footprint and our air quality.    

Unlike solid fossil fuels, wood fuel should be a carbon neutral resource; the C02 released on burning is matched by the amount absorbed when it is growing.  But carbon can also be emitted through processing and transport of wood fuel, clocking up wood miles just like food miles.  

Renewable sources

Wood fuel should also be renewable, but if there isn’t a cycle of tree re-planting or natural regeneration, or if woodlands are not thinned sustainably, that simply won’t be the case.  

Well-managed woodlands will ensure that healthy trees remain long into the future, with carbon locked up in the mature trees, soils and vegetation, and further C02 taken up as young trees grow. This means that the woodland cycle is not just renewable and carbon neutral, but can result in a net carbon benefit.  

That brings us on to burning.  The reports have highlighted that burning green or ‘wet’ wood can emit twice as much particulate matter as seasoned or ‘dry’ wood.  Drying in a kiln or seasoning wood to air dry naturally reduces the moisture content to less than 20 percent, meaning that wood will burn more efficiently and can be classed as ‘ready to burn’.

Wood should also be kept in a well-covered, ventilated store to make sure that it doesn’t re-absorb moisture.  

And then there’s the wood burning appliances themselves.  Open fires can emit nearly ten times as much pollution as the latest range of ‘eco-design ready’ wood burning stoves, so called because they already meet the stringent air quality regulations due to come into force in 2022. Promoting the shift to wood burners and increasing efficiency can drive new, clean technology and the growth of a responsible wood fuel industry.   

Local communities

These discussions are being played out in the National Forest, where we are supporting the expansion of community wood fuel groups.  

Volunteers are out managing woodlands across the autumn and winter season, and at the same time enhancing their own health and wellbeing, increasing their skills and having fun.  At the end of the sessions they take a boot full of logs home to season and burn.  

It’s now got to the stage where they’re even sharing images of wood burners on Facebook.  This is about as local as you can get and highlights the multiple benefits of wood fuel and well-managed woodlands on your doorstep – and that’s before you consider the other things they’re providing, like access for people to enjoy woodland, improved habitats for wildlife or management of water flows.  

This is a success story whichever way you look at it, and surely the sort of thing we should be promoting.  

So, come on, let’s fall in love again with burning wood.  A simple shift from fossil fuels to wood fuel, and open fires to wood burners means that we can also make a huge improvement in air quality. With just five easy steps, we can all breathe more easily and ensure that wood fuel is still part of our energy future.

Five steps

1. Use locally grown wood fuel to reduce CO2 in the distribution and processing
2. Ensure your wood fuel is sustainably harvested so that woodland is maintained as a carbon store and renewable resource – better still, join a volunteer group and harvest it yourself  
3. Dry, season and store your wood properly or buy seasoned timber that is ‘ready to burn’ to halve emissions of particulates during burning
4. Use an efficient wood burner, ideally one that is eco-design ready.  These have increased efficiency and are permitted for use in smoke control areas
5. Service and clean your flue and burner regularly to maintain efficiency 

This Author 

John Everitt is chief executive of the National Forest Company, which is responsible for coordinating the creation and management of the 200 square mile National Forest spanning parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire.

Chancellor Philip Hammond announced in his Spring Statement this week that the government will launch a global and national review into the link between biodiversity and economic growth. This is welcome news.

We urgently need to take action to halt the UK’s biodiversity crash and it is essential that the government incentivises nature-friendly food and farming practices to achieve that.

Recent reports have shown massive declines in wildlife globally with humanity displacing 60 percent of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970 and a steep decline in global insect populations linked to pesticide use threatening all our ecosystems.

Agroecological farming

Despite this, the UK is currently failing on 14 out of 19 global targets on biodiversity and a report by the Natural Capital Committee concluded that only half of our habitats meet minimum quality targets set by Natural England, with bees, butterflies, and farmland birds and bats either continuing to decline or stagnating in numbers.

Many farmers are working hard to support biodiversity, but more robust incentives from Government are needed.

The review Hammond announced is set to determine the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable interventions that could be taken to protect nature – and agroecological techniques, such as organic and agroforestry, must form part of the solution.

It’s never been clearer that the government should to support this sort of farming, with 50 percent more wildlife on organic farms, while the recent ‘Ten Years for Agroecology’ study showed that agroecological farming can produce enough healthy food for Europe’s growing population, while phasing out pesticides and radically reducing greenhouse gases.

This renewed focus on biodiversity should prompt the Government to ask whether the Agriculture Bill and Environment Bills are up to the task. We’re concerned that there is no explicit support for agroecology within the Agriculture Bill and that soil health and pesticide reduction have not been included in the metrics underpinning the Environment Bill. These must both be remedied.

The environmental issues we face are complex. They cannot simply be reduced to working out the financial value of boosting wildlife. The review into the link between biodiversity and economic growth will be an important contribution if it stimulates government support for nature-friendly farming systems. The cost of doing nothing will be far greater.

The Author

Rob Percival is head of policy (food and health) at the Soil Association.