The City must be at the heart of efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, the government said as it launched a “green finance strategy”.

The strategy includes a £5 million green home finance fund to pilot products such as green mortgages to encourage people to upgrade the energy efficiency of their houses.

It aims to boost sustainable investment, with an expectation for listed companies to disclose how climate change impacts their work.

Future

The Treasury is jointly funding a green finance institute with the City of London to create new opportunities for investors and boost the UK’s reputation as a “global hub for green finance”.

There will also be a green finance education charter to make sure financial qualifications develop people’s knowledge and understanding of the issue, and clarification of the need for regulators to have regard to climate change.

The government also said it was playing a leading global role with £5.8 billion in climate finance, and ensuring the UK’s aid spending is in line with the international Paris Agreement on cutting emissions.

City Minister John Glen said: “The UK has a long history of leading the way in tackling climate change, but we need to do more to protect our planet for future generations. The City has a vital role to play in securing a greener future for us all.

“By investing more in sustainable projects it can not only protect our environment, but also help establish London as the pre-eminent international centre for green finance.

Industry

“Today’s green finance strategy will support this ambition, with new initiatives to boost funding for green ventures and ensure the environment is at the centre of all financial decision-making.”

Energy and Clean Growth Minister Chris Skidmore said: “As the first major economy to legislate to reach net emissions by 2050, green finance can play a crucial role in our mission to protect the planet while growing the economy.”

Business group the CBI said green finance would play a vital role in ensuring the UK met its commitment – which became law last week – to cut emissions to net zero by 2050.

It called on the Government to bring together regulators, financial services firms and industry to develop regulations to promote green finance and create sector specific roadmaps to help sectors such as transport achieve net zero.

It also called for a fund from the British Business Bank to promote green finance for small and medium sized businesses and incentives to encourage industry to make the shift.

Net zero

Rain Newton-Smith, CBI chief economist, said: “Business is right behind the need for the UK to have a net-zero economy by 2050 and build on our global leadership in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

“Green finance is an excellent tool to help decarbonise the economy and could be another string to our bow as one of the world’s great financial powerhouses.”

Alex White, from the sustainable business and society leaders organisation the Aldersgate Group, said: “We welcome the recognition that private finance has a key role in tackling climate change and enhancing resilience, but the government must enable it to do so through the right policy framework.

“This strategy must now be accompanied by an update on the clean growth strategy based on the new net zero target, with binding regulations and market mechanisms to increase investment in zero carbon buildings, industry, transport and natural climate solutions.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the Press Association environment correspondent.

Extinction Rebellion action will shine a light on the the shadier, lesser-known fossil fuel companies’ London offices. 

We all know where BP and Shell are located. But many lesser-known companies are members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), which comprises of: BP, Chevron, CNPC, ENI, Equinor, Occidental Petroleum, Pemex, Petrobras, Repsol, Saudi Aramco, Shell & Total.

The action will target companies such as ENI, which has been attempting to explore for oil in Cardigan Bay and will include music from the opera Carmen. 

Paris agreement

The OGCI claimed that its “member companies are dedicated to the ambition of the Paris Agreement to progress to net zero emissions in the second half of this century.”

XR argues that reducing methane emissions during upstream and downstream production in order to reduce the greenhouse effect, whilst still seeking to increase the production of barrels of oil per day, is hypocrisy. 

These companies (along with the many investment companies) have their offices right in the centre of our capital yet we don’t really know they are there.  

A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion said: “The Procession is to let them know we know they are there, and we know that as long as they are continuing to explore and drill for more fossil fuels, they are not ‘dedicated to the ambition of the Paris Agreement’.

“We are asking them to tell the truth and stop what they’re doing”.  

Crime scenes

Extinction Rebellion will label these offices as ‘crime scenes’ in a non-violent, symbolic way.

Why Carmen? BP is sponsoring a Royal Opera House performance of Carmen in the evening – to be broadcast to 13 BP Big Screens in public places around the UK at 7pm. 

Lola Perrin, a co-ordinator of the action and a contemporary classical musician and composer, said: “In this opera, the central character – Carmen – is killed, so this presents a suitable crime scene scenario for our ceremonial crime scene declaration.

“Actor Tamaryn Payne will deliver a monologue specially created by April De Angelis, a band of classical musicians will perform an adapted version of Bizet’s Habanera.

“Members of the procession will be mass leafleting Londoners along the four hour route and using shakers, bells and sirens to sound the alarm that further fossil fuel exploration endangers all life on earth.”

This Author 

Rob La Frenais is an independent curator and writer who has written extensively on art and climate issues.

Image: Francesca Harris, XR. 

The winners of the third annual Creative Green Awards have been announced. 

The awards celebrate the many outstanding organisations and individuals taking action on climate and the environment. The ceremony took place at Curzon Bloomsbury yesterday, as part of the Mayor of London’s inaugural London Climate Action Week.

The event featured a keynote by leading international environmental lawyer and XR activist Farhana Yamin, contributions from climate champions across the sector. It was hosted by spoken word artist and Barbican Young Poet Amani Saeed, with music from Orchestra for the Earth, and a selection of sustainability films it will be a packed and provocative evening. 

Powerful collaborations

Prizes will be presented by a roll-call of luminaries from the arts world, including acclaimed international artists Michael Pinsky and Heather Ackroyd, musician Fay Milton of the Savages, Baroness Lola Young, poet and activist Judy Ling Wong CBE OBE, Head of Communications at Universal Music UK Jonathan Badyal and Lyric Hammersmith Chief Executive Sian Alexander.

This winners comprise a dynamic and diverse group of climate leaders to celebrate and inspire, including trailblazing organisation Shambala, who in the past few years have dramatically reshaped the festival landscape. 

The awards also recognised powerful collaborations such as the London Theatre Consortium shifting the way we experience and produce great theatre, and pioneering artistic programming from the minds of Studio Eliasson. 

Julie’s Bicycle’s Creative Green programme frames the actions that each and every UK cultural organisation can take, right now, to drastically reduce their carbon footprint and drive change across the sector.

The awards are a moment for the sector to showcase their leadership in climate action, with over 350 Creative Green certificates awarded since its launch in 2009

Ecological emergency

Farhana Yamin, international climate change lawyer and XR activist, said: “The climate and ecological emergency needs action like never before. The Creative Green community of cultural organisations is a community of action – and these winners are showing the way.”                                                   

Specially commissioned commemorative plates made from recycled materials and bio-waste by ECOR and Material Driven will set the standard for the next generation of ethical awards cabinets.

The 2019 Creative Green Winners are:

Outstanding Achievement: Shambala
Highest Achievement for Commitment:London Theatre Consortium
Highest Achievement for Understanding: Festival Republic
Highest Achievement for Improvement: Norwich Theatre Royal
(sponsored by Good Energy)
Best Newcomer: Opera North
Best Festival: Electric Picnic
Best Cultural Venue: Almeida Theatre
Best Multi-Arts Centre: HOME Manchester
Best Creative Group:Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
Best Creative Programming: Studio Olafur Eliasson

Julie’s Bicycle also announced five individual ‘Green Champions’making shockwaves across the sector, these are:

Tref Davies, Capital Administrator, Battersea Arts Centre
Andrew Ashton, Company Dancer, New Adventures
Andrea Bottaro, National Theatre
Karishma Rafferty, Curator, Public Realm and Partnerships, Somerset House
Antonio Seitelmann, Procurement Manager, Onassis Cultural Centre

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Julie’s Bicycle. 

Image: Shambala, George Harrison.

Living in sympathy with our natural world means collective decision-making.  

No one group of individuals in society should be able to dominate any other(s), either by force of arms or by force of numbers.  

So, when disputes are serious: no fighting and no majority voting.  Politics should not be win-or-lose.  Instead, when the subject is complex or controversial, decision-making should be preferential.

Collective cost

After all, the democratic process should aim to identify that which gives “the greatest good to the greatest number.” 

Majority voting cannot identify a consensus; rather, it measures the degree of dissensus. So what kind of voting mechanism should we embrace? 

Majority voting worked fairly well (for rich men) in the forums of ancient Greece and (for the male and even richer ministers) in the Imperial Court of the Former Hàn in China. But there were no political parties in those days, in Europe or Asia.  So Mr X might agree with Mr Y today and disagree tomorrow, without falling into groups of permanent antagonism.

To our great collective cost, dictators and democrats alike prefer the Orwellian binary vote – ‘this’ good, ‘that’ bad.  They choose the question and, in most cases, the question is the answer.  

So majority voting rarely identifies “the will of the people” nor even that of the majority, but the will of he – it’s usually a he – who sets the question. 

Binary vote

In 1997, for example, Wales had a referendum.  Some wanted independence.  Tony Blair wanted devolution.  So he wanted the Welsh to want devolution.  So the question was binary: “Devolution or status quo?”  It won, by 0.6 percent.

David Cameron’s 2011 referendum on the electoral system was no better.  He doesn’t like proportional representation (PR).  So the question was binary: “First-past-the-post (FPTP) or the alternative vote (AV)?” neither of which is PR.  For thousands of PR supporters, this was like asking a vegan, “Beef or lamb?”   

In a nutshell, for problems of any contention, majority voting is inadequate and even dangerous.  For if people vote ‘no’ to everything, as in populism, we will finish up with nothing: Brexit, Trump and so on.

Take Brexit.  June 2016 could have been a three-option referendum: “In the EU, the EEA or the WTO?”  Voting separately on each of these options would probably have got a majority against all.

But there was only one ballot: “In the EU, yes or no? (‘remain’ or ‘leave’)?” and the outcome was 52 percent ‘no’ (‘leave’).  If we assume the 52 percent was split evenly between the two, “In the EEA?” and “In the WTO?” separate votes could have been a 74 percent ‘no’ to each.  

Pluralism 

We cannot best identify “the will of the people” or that of parliament in a dichotomy.  This has been painfully demonstrated by the fact that, since the June 2016 referendum, society has had a huge argument about the word ‘leave’: is it to be a ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ Brexit? Are we to be in a Customs Union, the EEA, Norway +, the WTO or whatever?  

The supposedly identified will of the people is still unknown.  

In 1992, New Zealand put their electoral system to a referendum.  They had five options: FPTP, their then status quo; the Irish single transferable vote, PR-STV; and three others in between.  In a two-round ballot, the people chose a compromise, the German half-and-half FPTP/PR system.  

So pluralism is possible. Both in parliament and in any referendum, when there are lots of options ‘on the table’, an independent body should decide how many and which options there should be for a (short) list of at least three options.  

The MPs/voters may then cast their preferences.  But nobody votes ‘no’!  Nobody votes against any body or any thing. Rather, we seek consensus.   

Politics would be inclusive.  At best, the winner would be the option with the highest average preference and, if it got a good score, this outcome would indeed be the collective compromise, the consensus. 

Majority rule

In theory, parliaments represent all the people.  Most work by majority votes.  So most split into two, and each government represents only the bigger ‘half’.  The consequences of this practice are often horrific.

Prior to the 1998 Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland Catholics were a permanent minority.  In 2016, the Tories concocted a majority by bribing the extremist DUP, which thus acquired a power way beyond its proportional due – not unlike Austria’s Freedom Party one year later.  

A single party with 50 per cent plus one of the seats could still get 100 per cent of the power.

In a pluralist democracy, the resolution of every controversy should first allow everything to be ‘on the table’.  And as Professor Iain McLean writes in his Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics: “When there are more than two [options],” preferential voting “is the best interpretation of majority rule.”  

Accordingly, let us recognise the diversity of our own species: in parliaments and in referendums, on matters of contention, ballots – not least any ‘People’s Vote’ – should be preferential. 

If we are to defend the living planet democratically, resolving disputes should facilitate the identification of the general will. Consenual, preferential voting in decision-making may well be a pre-requisite for our survival.

This Author

Peter Emerson is the director of the Belfast-based de Borda Institute. His latest book – Majority voting as the catalyst of populism (Springer, Heidelberg) – will be published later this year.

The clarion call for major economies to announce a state of climate emergency has never been louder, with a heat wave sending temperatures to a sweltering 45-degrees Celsius in France and giant wildfires bursting into life across Spain.

But we’re going to need more than words and a profit-before-people attitude to mitigate this emergency, as Trudeau’s two-faced climate emergency declaration and massive oil sands pipeline approval demonstrated.

If we want to survive on this plane, we have to radically reimagine our society and our economy. Business-as-usual won’t cut it, the posturing of statespeople won’t cut it and the market alone will certainly not cut it.

Societal transformation

We need a government-enforced industrial strategy that places a low-carbon, just transition at the heart of our societal transformation. 

But the monophony of privately educated voices in position of power does not have the variety of experience needed to imagine a vibrant and inclusive new society.

To imagine a new society, we’re going to need to listen to a diversity of real people on the ground. In short, we need to platform the grassroots and people in power need to listen. 

History has shown us time and time again that mass movements for social and economic transformation are led by people on the ground, not by technocrats or privileged politicians. From Stonewall to the Suffragettes, the people on the receiving end of oppressive or impotent policy are often the most informed about what needs to change.

If we want a proper diagnosis of what’s gone wrong, it is absolutely essential that the voices of the grassroots are included in discussions about how we’re going to make our society work for both people and planet. 

Galvanising message

Add to the inclusion of the grassroots the galvanising message of the Green New Deal, which has shown that we need to move beyond framing the climate emergency as a pure environmental issue, and you’ve created a new environmentalism. 

If we’re going to bring everyone on board (and we need to), a multi-layered framing of the climate emergency as an opportunity for job growth, the sharing of social goods and the healing of our living planet is the way forward.

In practice, this means we need to give as much focus to how we transform our food system, as to how we welcome refugees who are made homeless by extreme weather and flooding. 

After the UN revealed that cities, though only taking up two percent of all global land area, are responsible for 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it became apparent that efforts to decarbonise the planet must begin in megacities like London.

The fact that cities are also particularly exposed to extreme weather and global heating reinforces this focus.

Showcase solutions

A report commissioned by Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, showed that if we hit 1.5-degrees of warming (the absolute best case warming scenario), 2/3rds of London flats could experience dangerous levels of overheating by 2030 and 1/10th of tube stations could be at risk of flooding (mostly on the Northern and Central lines). 

The report found that, out of all European cities, London is most vulnerable to the economic impacts of the climate emergency. Undoubtedly, these impacts will fall hardest on lower-income people in London. 

This week the Greater London Authority has been hosting London Climate Action Week, a week of events that is mostly being led and organised by investors, banks, think tanks, NGOs and government bodies.

The purpose of the week is to showcase solutions and outline the problems of the climate emergency. But a week of events that is not also giving a platform to the grassroots will never come up with the right solutions. 

At Fossil Free London, a London-based grassroots campaigning group, we recognised this shortcoming.

Festival of ideas

In response, from 2pm on the 20 July we’re occupying a space on the grass outside City Hall and throwing a festival of ideas, with a vibrant selection of grassroots and radical groups running workshops on issues as diverse as energy, ownership, housing and migrants rights. 

The festival will provide inspiration for the second part of the day, where we’ll gather in a People’s Assembly (think big melting pot of ideas and solutions for London) and co-create our new plan for London.

If we want London to be a city that works for people, jobs and the climate, we’re going to need to create our own platforms, run our own discussions and draft our own plans for this city. 

If you want to be part of discussions for a new London, come on on the 20  July and leave inspired by what’s being achieved by groups now, clear on how you can help and ready to kickstart our collective vision to reimagine London.

This Author 

Samuel Hayward works on climate change campaigns in London.

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More than 250,000 customers have been moved on to expensive energy deals after their suppliers went bust, new research has revealed.

The consumer charity Which? said that 283,000 of the 925,000 energy customers whose supplier failed in the past 18 months were shifted onto standard variable tariffs (SVT), with some being stung with overnight hikes of hundreds of pounds.

It said that SVTs are often the most expensive deals available on the market and warned that the current system was “failing consumers”.

Hikes

The charity said customers were left “facing a lottery” of not knowing whether regulator Ofgem will move them on to one of the cheapest or most expensive deals on the market if their supplier goes bust.

Its research, published on Monday, also found that some customers had reported being threatened with bailiffs over debts to a failed supplier.

Which? is calling on Ofgem to “get a grip on this chaos” by ensuring new tests for suppliers due to start on Friday are “sufficiently stringent that they prevent so many weak and unfit firms from entering the market if they can not sustain prices and customer service levels”.

Which?’s head of home products and services Natalie Hitchins said switching supplier was still the best way to get a good deal and better service.

She added: “It’s wrong that energy customers face a lottery when their supplier goes bust – and that those who have followed advice to do their research and shop around for a better deal can be hit with such substantial price hikes.

Tariff

“Ofgem must ensure its new checks are sufficiently robust to bring an end to this cycle of supplier failures, and alongside the Government should explore ways to lessen the financial burden and make the process easier for consumers when energy firms collapse.”

Which? said that Ofgem, and the Government in its forthcoming energy White Paper, should explore ways to reduce the financial burden and improve the overall experience for consumers when energy suppliers go bust.

But an Ofgem spokeswoman said around half of the customers from failed suppliers in the last 18 months had been transferred by their new supplier on to tariffs cheaper than their standard variable rate.

She added: “If a supplier fails, under our safety net we find a competitive deal for customers when appointing a new supplier.

“Appointed suppliers have to send welcome packs to customers with details of the new tariff they will be put on.

Price

“Customers can ask to be moved onto a different tariff or shop around and switch to save money. No customers are charged exit fees if they decide to switch to another supplier.”

Which? said that 10 gas and electricity firms had stopped trading since the beginning of 2018.

It said that three of the suppliers of last resort, appointed by Ofgem to take over the customers of a failed supplier, put customers straight onto a SVT – Brilliant Energy and Northumbria Energy, Economy Energy, and Our Power.

The charity said that firms acting as a supplier of last resort play an important role in keeping gas and electricity supplies running, but they may have to find ways to cover the extra costs they face as a result of taking on extra customers.

Which? said Brilliant Energy and Northumbria Energy’s 17,000 customers were moved onto SSE’s standard variable tariff at £1,253 a year, which was £1 less than the maximum permitted by the price cap. SSE told Which? these customers faced price increases of 38% on average.

Last resort

A total of 235,000 Economy Energy customers were moved onto standard variable tariffs with Ovo Energy, Which? said.

The charity said some of these customers would have been put onto the Ovo simpler SVT which was at the level of the price cap at £1,137 a year, moving to £5 below the new price cap level at £1,249 a year in April.

Others with prepayment meters would have moved to Boost’s tariff in January at £1,134 a year, it added.

Which? found that after Our Power collapsed, 31,000 prepayment customers went onto Utilita’s smart energy variable deal, where appropriate, at £1,240 – £2 a year less than the prepayment meter price cap.

But the consumer champion said that not all suppliers of last resort put customers onto standard variable tariffs, with some – including Octopus Energy – moving customers onto their cheapest tariffs.

This Author

Joe Gammie is a reporter with PA.

Farmers and landowners across England benefit from £2.4Bn a year of tax breaks not available to other industries, a new report from People Need Nature has revealed.

This is as much as farmers and landowners received in subsidies from the European Union Common Agricultural Policy in the year 2017-18. 

People Need Nature believes that these tax breaks should be reformed so the tax system operates on the same principle as the reforms to Agricultural Support. This means tax benefits should only be available when they provide public benefits – such as carbon sequestration, reduction in flooding, providing flowers for bees and restoration of wildlife to farmland. 

Business rates

Miles King, CEO of People Need Nature said: “Nature benefits everybody in society. We know that people are happier the more time they spend in nature  – and most of England is covered by farmland. 

“At the moment this money is going to places it’s needed least and be paying for damage to the environment. Instead, we want to see these tax breaks redirected towards helping farmers who are working to restore nature to their farmland.”

An estimated £1.02Bn a year as a result of having to pay no business rates (National Non-Domestic Rates). Farmland and farm buildings were exempted from paying rates in the 1920s when agriculture fell into a deep depression and there was widespread abandonment of land.

Using figures previously calculated by academic, and updating them to reflect current rental values, farmland and farm buildings benefit from a tax break of over £1bn a year, in England. 

Red diesel

Farmers benefit from diesel with a very low duty rate, much lower than other industries – leading to a loss of nearly £1Bn a year across the UK – and over £500M a year in England. Heavy users of Red Diesel, such as those engaged in intensive arable farming, benefit the most. 

In addition, farmland benefits from 100 percent relief from Inheritance Tax – costing the Exchequer over £500M a year in lost revenue.

Recent research by the Tax Justice Network found that 261 families benefited from £209 million in agricultural property relief (APR) in just one year. 

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. People Need Nature is a charity, which works to promote the sensory, emotional and spiritual value of nature to people in England and Wales.

Twelve thousand people travelled from around the country to speak to their local MP last week, in the largest ever environmental lobby of Parliament.

A total of 220 MPs took part, and were taken by rickshaw to meet constituents in the area surrounding the Palace of Westminster

The event was organised by the Climate Coalition and Greener UK, which comprise over 130 different organisations including Oxfam, WWF and the Woodland Trust.

Space for solutions

Research conducted by the Climate Coalition and Greener UK has found that 71 percent of Brits want their local MP to support ambitious plans to protect the natural environment and tackle climate change.

The mass lobby aims to prompt the introduction of an Environment Bill that would tackle air pollution and species extinction, and to ensure that the government’s recent commitment to net zero emissions becomes a reality by 2045. 

Speaking to The Ecologist, Beccy Speight, CEO of the Woodland Trust, said: “Today’s event is about stepping into the solutions space. We’re very keen that we now get government and MPs focused on what we’re going to do about this, which is why we really wanted to make sure we had those face to face conversations with MPs.

“It’s important to keep pushing the nature crisis and the climate crisis up the agenda, it’s got to remain among the top issues in Parliament.

“I really hope we’ve really got MPs thinking about what some of the solutions are and could be.”

Sounding the alarm

At 2pm, the crowd of campaigners set off hundreds of alarm clocks to symbolise the need for politicians to ‘wake up’ to the current environmental crisis. 

Influential figures were involved in the day, including former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who took part in a ‘Walk of Witness’ from Trafalgar Square down Whitehall.

Presenter and author Steve Backshall tweeted a selfie from the event: “With the vocal far-from-silent majority. The #climatecoalition is bringing us together; wildlife & conservation groups, young & old, all parties, faiths & backgrounds”.

Jose Batista Gonçalves Afonso, a human rights defender from the Brazilian Amazon, travelled to the lobby to speak to MPs and campaigners about the reality of climate change in his local area. He said:  “Today the situation is totally out of control.

“Without a doubt the changes in climate [in the region I am from] are related to the deforestation of this part of Amazon. Sometimes we think we can’t do anything, especially those living far away, outside the Amazon. But each of us can do something. We can find out what is happening in the Amazon and get involved.”

Calls for concern

The lobby follows a number of protests during the first half of 2019 organised by the likes of Extinction Rebellionand Youth Strike 4 Climate, involving hundreds of thousands of children and adults across the world.

In response, the UK government announced a state of climate emergency in May and committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 in June.

The event also comes in the wake of a stream of recent findings about the  likely impact of climate change and the scale of mass extinction.

The United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change 2018 reportpredicts that even limiting warming to 1.5℃ would still cause the death of at least 31 million people. The UN has warned that around one million species are now threatened with extinction; and earlier this month, a polar bear was found wandering the streets of Siberia.

Meanwhile, the US government has rolled back the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan, thousands of new pesticides have been approved by Brazil’s government, and G20 countries have more than tripled coal subsidies in recent years.

Time for change

Attendees of the event describe a positive atmosphere and a collaborative approach from MPs and campaigners alike.

Dr. Paul Kelly travelled to London from Settle in North Yorkshire and spoke to his MP, Julian Smith, during the lobby: “People were saying, ‘we’ve come here to support you to do some difficult things,’ and that was a nice angle which I tried to emphasise.

“Julian was keen to say what had already been done, but I said to him ‘thousands of people have all taken the trouble to come here today because they actually want to enable you to step forward more boldly’.” 

Speight added: “We are absolutely at a tipping point in terms of making the right decisions around this stuff. We do not have much time.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s a problem right now but it absolutely is. MPs really do listen to people power so we’ve got to keep demonstrating that.”

This Author

Becca Warner is a freelance journalist and copywriter, focusing on environmentalism and the future. She writes regularly for Atlas of the Future and has also written about environmental justice for charities If Not Us Then Who and Size of Wales.

Yoga, paddle boarding, parkour and canoeing are just some of the free activities on offer as part of a summer series of wellbeing clean ups organised by eco-activist, Lizzie Carr, in her ongoing efforts to eradicate single use plastic from nature. 

Whether you’re a complete beginner or a seasoned pro – everyone is welcome to join in and no experience is necessary, making the activities at Plastic Patrol clean ups accessible to all.

In return, Plastic Patrol asks participants to pay a ‘nature tax’ by picking up plastic waste and logging it in the Plastic Patrol App. Every piece collected contributes towards Lizzie’s mission to remove and log one million pieces of plastic in 2019, representing the one million marine animals killed each year due to plastic pollution.

Paddle boarding

Lizzie took up paddle boarding following cancer treatment in 2014 as a means of rehabilitation and felt the positive physical and mental benefits immediately.

Her time on the water also exposed her to the devastating impact of plastic pollution in nature. She has since dedicated herself to exploring the globe on paddle boarding adventures, using her journeys to capture important data to highlight and educate on environmental issues affecting our planet.  

In May 2016 Lizzie become the first person in history to paddle board the length of England’s waterways, solo and unsupported. She completed the 400-mile journey in 22 days, plotting more than 3000 photos of plastic waste.

Later, she returned to hotspot areas armed with paddle boards and litter picks inviting communities to join her mission and help clean up.  

Plastic pollutions 

Lizzie commented: “Paddle boarding changed my life. It helped me to see the sheer volume of plastic waste clogging our waterways but also gave me a way to reconnect with nature.

“Before my illness I was in an environmental sleep walk and being out on the water opened my eyes to the problem. My hope is that running these clean ups, others will experience the same positive benefits as I did.

“By inviting people to join me on activity-led litter picks across the UK this summer – we’re providing a great opportunity to immerse yourself in nature, try new activities and understand the extent of the problem we face with plastic pollution.” 

Whilst initial efforts began on and around UK waterways, intercepting plastic waste inland before it reaches the oceans, Lizzie’s ambition is much bigger.

This year, qualified instructors and clubs around the UK across five disciplines will run activity based clean ups, helping mobilise more communities and connect them with environmental issues through physical activities.

Mental wellbeing

Lizzie’s campaigning is perfectly timed, as the government moves towards its 25 Year Environment Plan, and commitment to help ‘regain and retain good health’ and to make it ‘easier for people to get involved in improving the natural world’.

Official data has revealed almost 1.8 million work sickness notes handed out by GPs between September 2016 and September 2018 were for mental health, accounting for a third of all sickness notes with a recorded illness, demonstrating millions of us are impacted by mental illness each year. This initiative is tackling those statistic head on to help people take positive action. 

Lizzie said: “Combining nature with physical wellbeing is incredibly powerful for mental health – it gives you a much deeper appreciation of the natural world.

Encouraging people to reconnect with nature through activity inherently makes you feel more protective over it – and that’s what Plastic Patrol is about. The ultimate aim is to restore the balance between environmental and personal wellbeing.

“By incorporating more activities, I’ve opened Plastic Patrol up to a wider network so more people can get involved. This will help gather even more data from other parts of the country, giving us invaluable insight into plastic waste issues not only in waterways, but also on land – parks, mountains, streets – gathering a huge cross section of data to analyse.”

Citizen science

The free Plastic Patrol app was launched in 2016 and leads the way in citizen science to address plastic pollution – currently holding the largest bank of plastic data for the UK inland waterways on record.

It is focused on building a tangible and valuable evidence base across the world through its growing army of passionate volunteers.

The data collected is analysed by partner scientists at University of Nottingham to provide current and detailed insight into trends and patterns of plastic pollution.

This insight will create vital evidence to inform public policy around smarter and more circular packaging solutions, and responsible manufacturing behaviour.

Get involved

Lizzie concluded: “Being outside, exercise and mental health are all inextricably linked, and studies have shown the benefits of reconnecting with nature and spending time outdoors are endless – improved blood pressure, boosting mental health, helping to fight depression and anxiety, relieving stress, eliminating fatigue, the list goes on.

“This is why it made sense to bring all these elements together. In return, we’re giving something back to nature. It’s a win win situation!” 

Plastic Patrol clean up events are taking place across the UK this summer with events already underway. To find out more information or book a space on a wellbeing clean up visit the Plastic Patrol website.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Plastic Patrol. 

Image: Lizzie Carr.