‘Many are cold, few are frozen’, says environmental entrepreneur

Participants at NICVA’s sustainability conference, ‘Building tomorrow’s world …’ were treated to an entertaining and thought provoking keynote address by Jerry Greenfield, one half of the celebrated Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand.

A scoop of the action

In a first for NICVA, using video link to the conference from his home in Vermont, Jerry told the story, as he put it, of a friendship between the ‘two slowest, fattest kids in the class’ which led to the creation of a globally renowned social economy enterprise.

Initially unimpressed by the whole nature of the business world, they hit upon the idea of inviting local people to ‘get a scoop of the action’ and buy shares in the fledgling company, the principle being that local communities would benefit from the company’s success.

Realising that making money and giving back to the community are often incompatible, they developed a two-point bottom line, where they measured success in both profits made and in benefit to the community.

This community benefit they made tangible by such things as creating an ice cream using brownies produced by a local bakery that is run by people with social, drug and alcohol problems, producing ‘Peace Pops’ with wrappers promoting a group called 1% for Peace and the development of a ‘Climate Change College’. So, next time you tuck into a tub of Chocolate Fudge Brownie, the only guilt you need feel is calorie related …

Responding to an audience question asking if the company had ‘sold out’ following a takeover by Unilever, Jerry remarked that part of the Ben & Jerry success story is down to its ethical stance, though of course it has taken a little time to integrate. The appropriately named CEO of the company, Walt Freeze, has a progressive attitude and understands what makes B&J unique – he recently approved a new American Pie Ice Cream which carried a pie chart which revealed the full extent of US government spending on the military.

What is sustainable development?

The day began with a presentation by Alice Owen, the UK Sustainable Development Commissioner, who brought a simple but vital message about consumption – reduce the amount of material produced and you reduce the amount of energy used, a message so obvious it’s easy to forget.

Alice’s excellent presentation gave her vision of sustainable communities which would:

• Meet the diverse needs of all people in existing and future communities, promoting personal well-being, social cohesion and inclusion and creating equal opportunities
• Respect environmental limits in terms of resources, biodiversity, landscape, construction etc.

She produced some interesting ‘eco-stats’ for Northern Ireland which included:

• Ecological footprint – the amount of land needed for the energy we use: a fair share for NI would be 1.8 global hectares per person, we actually use 5.63 global hectares
• Climate Change: 40,000 properties in NI are at increased risk of flooding
• Transport: 50% of local children want to cycle to school, but only 5% actually do.

Debate

Unusually for a conference we held the ‘Great sustainability debate’ which asked if sustainability was really a part of our work in the voluntary and community sector.

• Jim Deery from the Ashton Centre told us that funders are increasingly looking for evidence of sustainability and innovation and that his organisation had set up a number of projects to engage the local community with ‘green’ issues. He appealed to us all to "switch off, drop in and save the planet – and maybe save a bob or two as well"
• Ciara from TADA Rural Network took Bruntland’s definition to heart in her own organisation: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

TADA reduced its own energy bills by ‘switching off’ and has developed a project to help local people save energy. She said the community sector needs to be at the forefront of sustainability and ended with a quote from Margaret Mead

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

• In an alternative view, Jonny Currie of NICVA reminded us that 26% of respondents in an online survey said sustainability had no impact on their work and that many people in the sector felt too much under pressure to secure funding to stay afloat to look at the ‘bigger picture’.

‘Come on in, the water’s lovely and getting warmer’

This was the title of a presentation by Kenny Boyd, and he should know, having recently swum bareskin from Rathlin to Ballycastle. He felt that climate change is all about social and economic equity and that we should find new measures, not GDP, to measure our worth as societies.

He set us 3 challenges:

• Stop procrastinating, start doing – doubt undermines responsibility for action
• Focus on big wins – like insulation or deforestation
• Initiate mass participation – remember we can’t solve problems by ourselves

Workshops

As the day was primarily aimed at finding out and getting involved, a programme of entertaining workshops showed us how to make flash from trash, measure our carbon footprint, re-use and recycle, save energy, make better food choices and get involved in social economy business.

Carbon neutral

‘Building tomorrow’s world … was a triumph for sustainability as it was a carbon neutral event. Lunch had as few food miles as possible, many people used public transport to get to the conference and we'll be taking steps to offset the energy used. Not only that, appropriately our keynote speaker appeared by video conference, saving on the emissions from a transatlantic flight.

A Pledge

The conference ended with a Pledge to Action which asks organisations to commit to small steps to reduce their carbon footprint. We'd love you to sign up.