Bright Green Futures’ Network
Organisations we like
Balanced View trains people in gaining sustainability from within. It is the most comprehensive instructive and effective training we have come across for supporting ethical business practice, balancing the needs of all of us working for Bright Green Futures, working in mutual support and being of benefit to the world. It identifies the fundamentals of the core leadership skills necessary for innovation and success, both professionally and personally. It provides the tools needed for perfected practical action in everyday life as well as in all business settings. The training combines written instruction with the practical application of how to bring clarity to the collaborative work setting and highlights how easy it is to go beyond the current parameters of successful leadership and innovation. At Bright Green Futures we regularly attend trainings run by Balanced View to inform our business practice and decisions.
Ecomotive is a non-profit, sustainable construction company aimed at supporting self-build and self-finished sustainable housing. Bright Green Futures and Ecomotive work in mutual support with each other and share similar visions and aims.
NaCSBA lobbies UK government to make self-build a volume housing solution. Through NaCSBA we are involved and kept up-to-date with the political environment that effects our company. All local authorities will be required to meet demand for Self-Build and the way this is measured is through how many people have registered on the local Self-Build registers. Therefore the more people register the more support we will get from the local governments. It’s brilliant if you can participate: click here to register your interest on the Local Self Build Register.
Ashley Vale Action Group is a community organisation which enabled an ecologically and socially sensitive development of a brown-field site in Bristol. The Ashley Vale development has served as a case study and pilot project for us. The Bright Green Futures concept evolved through drawing on the experience and lessons learned at the Ashley Vale development and other similar national and international projects.
Relevant Publications
“Enabling low carbon living in UK housing developments” is an academic paper by Steffie Broer and Helena Titheridge that won the best conference paper award at the Second International Conference on Whole Life Urban Sustainability and its Assessment. The paper shows that a building designed to the government’s zero carbon homes definition will only reduce the resident’s overall carbon footprint by about 11% spending about £20 to £40k per home on renewable energy and energy efficiency measures in addition to convetional house building costs. With the low carbon living approach which Bright Green Futures uses we also reduce emissions through the choice of building materials, and through making low carbon living easy. With a fraction of the above costs we achieve greater emission reductions and additional benefits for the residents. If you’d like to know more click on the title for the full paper.
“Eco self-build housing communities: Are they feasible and can they lead to sustainable and low carbon lifestyles?” is another academic paper Steffie wrote to summarise her research into the Bright Green Futures business model. We nearly did not find a publisher, because we were told that business models never get published as companies do not want to give their IP away, hence there are no publishers who specialise in this. We told the publishers that this does not apply to us as we are active contributors to a growing global generosity society. In the end we found a publisher who wanted to support us and offered to make an exception. Not only that, we particularly like this publisher as it is an open access publisher and hence the electronic copy of our publication is freely accessible to the public on the internet. Of course we love to give our business model away as we wish make empowering self-build communities accessible to as many people as possible. So if you’d like to set up your own community without direct involvement of Bright Green Futures, this publication could be a valuable read.
“Self-build as a volume housing solution” is a report by NaSBA describing the self-build market and a number of eco-friendly self-build housing developments.
The Gowell Research on Regeneration and Positive Mental Health shows the link between wellbeing, empowerment, community spirit and housing provision. It clearly demonstrates how the Bright Green Futures’ approach generates wellbeing and has a knock-on effect in terms of fostering the social capital of people choosing to contribute to society themselves.
Ask Green Jeeves is an article Steffie wrote based on her research that showed that there are many simple solutions to climate change in new housing development: so simple that they are often overlooked by policy makers who largely focus on technical solutions only.
Renewable energy lessons from Austria is a talk Steffie gave at the Think 08 conference (sustainability and the build environment) comparing the commercial and regulatory environment for renewables in the UK and Austria. The talk was based on a renewable energy study tour to Austria which Steffie organised, visiting community-owned renewable energy schemes.
The Story of the Yard- Building a Community tells the story of self-builders of the Ashley Vale community. It is a beautiful book written by one of its residents: Carrie Hitchcock. Great reading for anyone who would like to self-build or simply feel part of the journey or enjoy great photography.