Sue Riddlestone OBE, CEO and co-founder of Bioregional shares her reflections from 2018/19
Doesn’t it feel as though climate change action is in the air?
As Bioregional turns 25, I’ve seen so many peaks and troughs of environmental awareness and action I almost daren’t believe that a corner has finally been turned.
But it feels as though the pace is picking up, and that this time it’s different, so long as this talk is translated into change. This brief review of our impact this year shows that change – and most importantly the deep, transformative change we need – is possible.
One Planet Living continues to inform, inspire and create impact
One Planet Living is our vision of a world where we can live happily within the Earth’s resources, and a straightforward framework to achieve this.
This year we have worked with organisations around the world to help them achieve and communicate their sustainability ambitions, as well as effectively engage their staff, residents and pupils.
The One Planet Living principles and brand have really benefitted Singita by providing a framework and positive way to communicate sustainability to guests, staff and other stakeholders.
Andrea Ferry is the sustainability co-ordinator at Singita, a conservation company committed to community outreach and One Planet Living with tourist lodges across Africa
The focus on nature at Les Villages Nature Paris is amazing. This means that even though my work is somewhat removed from nature, I know that I’m making a commitment to the environment.
Jerome Fouques is an IT worker at Les Villages Nature Paris, a sustainable tourist destination next to Disneyland Paris.
We want to show that creating sustainable developments is deliverable and replicable...For this to happen, we need an approach that gets developers to embrace sustainability and challenge themselves. One Planet Living does this.
Tao Bourton is a director at Yolk Property Group, the developer behind Evermore WGV in Fremantle, Western Australia. Evermore has just been recognised as Global Leader in One Planet Living.
The cities embracing One Planet Living
Through Our One Planet Cities project, funded by the KR Foundation, we’ve helped four cities and city regions across the world create sustainability action plans for healthier, happier and greener futures.
The One Planet Living approach is stimulating, it’s exciting, it’s simple, but it’s also extremely functional. It gets the job done.
Tom Hayes, Chief Executive at Elmore Community Services, an Oxfordshire mental health charity
We helped international home improvement company Kingfisher set ambitious science-based targets, now approved by the renowned Science Based Targets Initiative.
“Bioregional was invaluable in helping us navigate the creation and approval of ambitious science-based carbon reduction targets in line with Paris Agreement and the requirements of the SBTi.” Caroline Laurie, Head of Sustainability at Kingfisher
We helped The Carey Group, an engineering, construction and resource recovery business, take its sustainability commitment to the next level with a sustainability strategy rooted in staff insights.
Bioregional has built a strategy for The Carey Group that is both tangible and fitting with all aspects of the business. It can be fully embedded in what we do every day, ensuring that sustainable business is just the way we do business!" Clare Killeen, Head of Sustainability at The Carey Group
We helped Hammerson, one of the UK’s leading property and retail investment companies, engage with its tenants to ramp up the sustainability ambition of retail spaces.
Bioregional’s understanding of the sustainability challenges of different retailers made them a great partner to work with on this project…The outputs and insights from the event are helping us deepen our retailer engagement work and are opening potentially very positive collaboration opportunities.” Louise Ellison, Group Head of Sustainability at Hammerson
“Faced with the opportunity to build sustainable, modern and comfortable homes, all developers should be asking the question “why wouldn’t we?”
Martin Pike is Director of Oxford Advanced Living, the developer of Kings Farm Close. This is the new One Planet Community in Oxfordshire with ultra-low carbon homes.
Bioregional Homes: working with communities to create locally affordable, sustainable homes
We’re scaling up sustainable and affordable homes with a totally new model through Bioregional Homes. This wholly owned subsidiary will allow us to act as a developer to build our own One Planet Communities.
Over the last year it has been an energising and exciting experience working with Bioregional Homes. Using the ten principles has helped to promote the best holistic approach for each project, and we look forward to carrying this through to create future One Planet Communities for people and nature to co-exist!
Sophie Maubon, Project Architect at Waugh Thistleton Architects
True zero-carbon homes prove achievable and attractive
Our monitoring of Elmsbrook, NW Bicester led by A2Dominion has confirmed it as UK’s first large-scale true zero-carbon development. Residents are enjoying household bills almost £400 lower than the average Bicester household.
As a test bed, exemplar scheme, we are very proud of the achievements at Elmsbrook." Steve Hornblow, A2Dominion's Head of Special Projects
Influencing wider change
After successfully lobbying for the Sustainable Development Goals, we now push for their uptake, with a major focus on SDG12 on Sustainable Consumption and Production.
In the lead up to Futurebuild 2019, we surveyed the built environment sector to discover trailblazing SDGs stories.
These were shared at the opening session of the conference to inspire the rest of the sector to follow their lead and ‘act now’ on the SDGs.
“We used the SDGs when we did our materiality review with Bioregional, to come up with a new strategy…It's our duty as a purpose-driven business to be able to contribute where we can.” Amie Shuttleworth, Head of Sustainability at Cundall
Build a better world – our practical SDGs guide for built environment companies – has been downloaded more than 530 times
We’re the convenor of Transform Together, a multi-stakeholder partnership accelerating progress towards sustainable consumption and production.
We’ve enjoyed seeing it grow from a partnership into a movement over the year as we pushed for the Sustainable Smartphones and ICT sector to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by:
- Sharing scaleable solutions
- Creating a compelling global vision for transformation
- Harnessing the power of procurement by engaging world governments
We host the project team for UKSSD, a multi-stakeholder network of 100 organisations working together to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs in the UK.
Using our sustainable consumption and production expertise, we wrote the chapter on Goal 12 chapter for its ‘Measuring up’ report - the most comprehensive review of the UK’s performance on the SDGs to date.
We also used the release of the report to join with the Institution for Civil Engineers to call for the built environment sector to act on the SDGs, given its immense power for change.
“The built environment sector has a big part to play in contributing to achieving the SDGs in the UK - after all, carbon emissions from buildings account for around a third of our emissions.” Sue Riddlestone OBE, CEO and co-founder of Bioregional
Thank you to all of our partners and funders who help us try to make this headline a reality
Our work wouldn't be possible without you.
Our partners 2018/19
A2Dominion; B&Q; Boyer Planning; Brighton Community Land Trust; Cambridgeshire County Council; Careys; Catalyst Housing; Clarion Housing Group; Coral Co-Housing; Crest Nicholson; Cundall; Edward Developments; EuroDisney / Pierre & Vacances; City of Fremantle; Global Challenges Summit; Government of Finland, Ministry of the Environment; Government of the Netherlands; Greencore Construction; Hammerson; Heart of Hastings; Community Land Trust; Hill; Innovative Construction and Development (ICD); innocent drinks; Kingfisher Group; Lambeth Council; LandCorp; LandSec; Legal & General; Nando’s; National Community Land Trust Network; Newhaven Town Council; Oxford Advance Living; Oxford City Council; Oxford Direct Services; Oxfordshire County Council; Simplyhealth; Singita; SOMO Village; Ssassy Property; Sustainable Charlbury; Sutton Council; Transition by Design; Troup Bywaters + Anders; United Communities; Vision 2030 Ltd; Wates Group; Whale Centre; Windmill; World Habitat.
Our grant funders and donors in 2018/19
European Regional Development Fund; Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust; KR Foundation; Mark Leonard Trust; Pooran Desai OBE; Wates Family Enterprise Trust
Photo credits: Villages Nature Paris; Yolk Property Group, LandCorp, City of Fremantle, Waugh Thistleton, A2Dominion, Futurebuild, Skoll World Forum