Greenprint 2020

Summer Step is a National Citizen Service (NCS) volunteering programme bringing together 100 young people this summer holiday to take on new challenges, embrace new skills, meet new people and have fun!

In the first of its kind Summer Step will not only give you the chance to make a difference in your community but to the environment as well. You’ll take part in team challenges and adventures that will provide you with inspiration to deisgn a group project which you will bring to life with professional support!

Who: 16 - 17 year olds living in Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets London boroughs.

When: The programme will run for 6 weeks, starting on the 25 June and 2 July. You can choose which date you start.

Where: London, with 1 residential week outside of London.

Find out more

Water scarcity is a real issue in parts of the UK, with the average Briton using 150 litres each day. South-East England has less water available per person than parts of Sudan and that just 3% of water is freshwater safe for drinking. So with the summer approaching it’s essential we use water efficiently, and there are lots of ways to do this.

Last week a team of Greenprint 2020 volunteers and interns headed to Barts Hospital in London for ‘Bust a Flush’, showing the public how easy it is to save water. We donned our hippo costumes and gave away shower timers, save-a-flush bags and water hippos.

Over the year these people will now save 965,000 litres of water and over 4 tonnes CO2!

Register here for updates about future events.

Barts building just opened in March 2012 so it is a fantastic example of new energy efficient architecture. Barts and the London NHS Trust have created an environmental programme, reducing their annual CO2 emissions by 6000 tonnes. That’s enough to fill over 31,000 double decker buses!

Way’s you can save water:

Bronze (saving up to 5,000 litres per household per year)

• Use a water hippo or save-a-flush bag
• Fit a water efficient shower head
• Install a water butt/rain barrel and use this to water your garden

Silver (5,001 to 10,000 litres per household per year)

• Fix dripping taps
• Turn off taps when your brushing your teeth
• Fit water efficient tap adapters

Gold (saving 10,001 to 15,000 litres per household per year)

• Use the plug or a bowl when washing up
• Spend less time in the shower, aim for less than 4 minutes
• Switch from baths to showers

Platinum (saving over 15,000 litres per  household per year)

• Avoid sprinklers and hoses – use a watering can

Global Action Plan Resources

Greenprint 2020 volunteer, Adam Yasir, wins the London regional overall commitment to volunteering Award!

Source: vInspired

Adam arrived in London as a refugee in 2007.  Inspired by the support he had received from British volunteers in Darfur, he began volunteering at Croydon Voluntary Action.  He has supported projects ranging from youth inclusion events, inter-cultural projects, and created his own environmental campaign at his college.  

As a result of the confidence and skills gained through volunteering, he was able to complete his school exams and is now studying International Relations at university, in the hope that he may be able to help others in the way that British volunteers helped him in Darfur.

The things I get most out of volunteering are…  
Being a part of my community, as well as developing new skills, boosting my career opportunities, meeting new people, forming lasting friendships and new interests.

My volunteering has made an impact on the people I help by…
It’s opened doors of opportunities to many young people to participate by campaigning and making positive changes within their communities. My volunteering has challenged the negative image that the press and the media have about young people.

Being nominated for a vInspired National Award makes me feel…
I am deeply honoured, even though I was not seeking any recognition for my volunteering. But I just wanted to contribute to my community in a way that others contributed to my life and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lee Townsend and the team at Croydon volunteer centre and also the vInspired team; as well as my friends and colleagues during the campaign. They are equally responsible for me been nominated for the award.

If I were Prime Minister for the day, the one thing I would change would be…
If I was the Prime Minister for the day, the one thing I would change would be to found a national youth project such as vInspired, not only to provide opportunities for young people but empower and help them make positive contributions to their society through support.

Previous awards:

• Greenprint 2020 Big Kick Award, 2011
• Third Sector Excellence Award, Volunteer of the Year runner up, 2011

Our Interactive Concept Competition will be closing on January 16th, so if you want that £100, you’d better get your act together. Don’t forget you can submit more than one idea, and on top of the £100 you get a sparkly UNEP certificate too. 

We’re after mind-bogglingly brilliant concepts to communicate environmental issues that impact all of us. We want your creative ideas and we want you to really go for it.

Find out more.

Our festive advent calendar was a huge success last year saving 24.5 tonnes CO2, which is equivalent to the carbon emissions of heating six UK homes for a year! So we thought we’d bring it back again.

Each day we’ll reveal an action to help you have a celebration that’s kinder to the environment and your purse strings. We will share tips, facts, events and ways to get creative and have fun!

Use the ‘record your action’ links to register your actions and whoever completes the most actions will go into a prize draw for a chance to win Christmas goodies!

Take part in the Great, green advent calendar!

Joy Schlageter has been busy in Edinburgh learning about gardening and organic growing this summer. After Volunteering at Phantassie Farm and at Whitmuir Organic Farm, both on the outskirts of Edinburgh, she has kick started gardening in her own back garden. Joy has discovered a great way to approach urban gardening, especially for those who do not have huge amounts of garden space, it is called square foot gardening (Try and get a hold of the book from your local library - Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work). 

Joy has built two raised Vegetable beds, from recycled scrap wood found on the street, and plans to use the square foot gardening technique in the coming spring. For now she has sown seeds that will work as organic fertilisers over the winter, preparing the soil for growing fabulous fruit and vegetables next year!

Joy will be with us throughout September and October!

Response from Greenprint 2020 young people to the news that the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions rose by 3% in 2010, and are not falling fast enough to meet government targets:

Are we the forgotten generation? 

UK greenhouse gas emissions are not falling fast enough according to the Committee on Climate Change.  Every month of delay will have a profound impact on young people like us throughout the world.  Failure to act will hit us financially, will create more disruption in our lives and will increase suffering. 

We are trying to change things in a positive way. We have created a Greenprint vision that sets out a sustainable future.  We have provided practical ideas on how companies and government can join with us to create a better world.  But our efforts seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Our question to government and business is simple. What more do we need to do to be heard to avoid being the forgotten generation? 

Sincerely

Sian Ryan, Duong Tran, Emily Hamilton and Sandra Lipni on behalf of the Greenprint 2020 Steering Group.

Eleanor Gill, Patrick Lyons, Rowan Boase, Adam Blatchford, Heather Poore, Andrea Yaluma, Georgina Shiplee, Ellen Dobbs, Keisha Gounden and Ruth Whincup on behalf of the further movement’s membership. 

Trewin Restorick, CEO of Global Action Plan and supporter of Greenprint 2020.

Over 40 percent of the world’s oxygen is produced from rainforests! See more facts about rainforests here…

Head of Youth Volunteering, James Alexander, gives us an insight into some of the exciting opportunities to come for the Greenprint 2020 programme

The past few months have been quite hectic! Since the ‘Our Sustainable Future’ event at the end of February where we outlined the Greenprint 2020: your vision of a greener, fairer Britain in 2020 to a variety of businesses and youth organisations, we haven’t stopped. The event kicked into life our joint vision of not just talking about action on climate change, but being a force for change through finding and implementing practical solutions for business, government and society.

Our first stop was the Business in The Community (BITC) Responsible Business Conference, where our steering groups ‘product of the future’ ideas impressed people so much that they out shone other ideas developed by leaders from some of the UK’s top businesses. As a result many doors have opened up to us, and we are busily meeting CEOs and top directors around the country.

We are currently planning community days with Hammerson (if you have never heard of them before, they are one of the largest shopping centre landlords in the UK), and we are just about to work on a water project with Anglian Water.

We have also had a great opportunity to talk to Accenture who are concerned with the amount of young people struggling to find work. They are interested in seeing how we can work together to support young people in gaining the skills and experience required to make the most of the emerging green economy

I really knew we were on to something when Ian Cheshire, the Head of Kingfisher (who own B&Q), saw me at an event and before I had the chance to speak, said we should definitely work together. Their situation is fairly interesting, Kingfisher as a group are striving ahead in creating a sustainable business but are finding that the public and their suppliers are a little way behind. They are finding it hard to sell sustainable products even when they are heavily discounted, whilst also struggling to source new products that meet their environmental standards. In these circumstances many businesses would have decided that the market wasn’t ready and reverted back to their old ways. But Kingfisher are pressing ahead with creating one of the most environmental big businesses in the UK, and it will be great if we can be involved.

With supermarkets, shopping centre’s, retailers, financial intuitions and utilities wanting to work with us, I think we are going to have a busy time ahead. However it will be an exciting time with loads of opportunities for you to get involved, and not only shape what we do but see how some of the UK’s most powerful corporations operate as well.

James Alexander