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Transition Bristol becoming “lighter, quicker, cheaper”!

Hello from the Transition Bristol Coreteam!

We are currently undergoing a process of becoming “lighter, quicker, cheaper” both as a core team and as an organisation. This involves, among other things, rethinking the structure of Transition Bristol as a company limited by guarantee, a structure which involves a lot of admin work for a small group of volunteers, isn’t really needed for our current level of activity, and frankly just gets in the way of trying to do more interesting things!

What does this mean for our website and newsletter you ask? It means that for the foreseeable future we will not be updating the website and/or sending out newsletters. There are so many excellent websites and newsletters that cover the activities of “Transition in Bristol” already!

However, we do think that we have some excellent resources on our website and we will continue to add to and highlight these as and when we find something good or when one of the team is involved with or produces something interesting. Check out our Facebook page for those. Among other things, we have a paper about Community Resilience in Bristol as seen through a Transition lens, by our former coreteam member, Tom Henfrey.

And speaking of Facebook, if you have an event you want to promote or you just want to find out more about the Transition-related scene in Bristol, please visit our lively Facebook page.

That’s all for now!

Photo credit: Lucy Empson

Rob Hopkins

Rob Hopkins

Rob Hopkins photo“Rob Hopkins brings humour, imagination and vision to the great challenges of our time, and argues that what is needed, above all else, at this time in history, is “engaged optimism”. The rapidly-spreading Transition movement which he was pivotal in establishing, is an embodiment of that.

Nicholas Crane, presenter of BBC2’s ‘Town’ series, referred to Transition as “the biggest urban brainwave of the century”.

He is the co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and of the Transition Network. This grew out of many years experience in education, teaching permaculture and natural building, and setting up the first 2 year full-time permaculture course in the world, at Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland, as well as co-ordinating the first eco-village development in Ireland to be granted planning permission.

He is author of ‘The Transition Handbook: from oil dependence to local resilience’, which has been published in a number of languages, and which was voted the 5th most popular book taken on holiday by MPs during the summer of 2008, and more recently of ‘The Transition Companion: making your community more resilient in uncertain times’, published in October 2011 and The Power of Just Doing Stuff: how local action can change the world, published in June 2013. He publishes a blog here which was once voted ‘the 4th best green blog in the UK’(!). He tweets as @robintransition, and recently came 11th in the PeerIndex-driven Sustainability Drivers List.

He was the winner of the 2008 Schumacher Award, is an Ashoka Fellow and a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, served 3 years as a Trustee of the Soil Association, and was named by the Independent as one of the UK’s top 100 environmentalists. He is the winner of the 2009 Observer Ethical Award for the Grassroots Campaigner category, and in December 2009 was voted the Energy Saving Trust/Guardian’s ‘Green Community Hero’. In February 2012, Rob and the Transition Network were among NESTA and The Observer’s list of ‘Britain’s 50 New Radicals’. He and Transition Network won the 2012 EESC Civil Society Prize, and a 2014 PEA Award for Campaigner Hero.

He lectures and writes widely on peak oil and Transition, holds an MSc in Social Research and completed a PhD at the University of Plymouth entitled ‘Localisation and resilience at the local level: the case of Transition Town Totnes’. He recently became a Visiting Fellow at the University of Plymouth and in 2012 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of the West of England. He is a founder Trustee of Atmos Totnes and a director of New Lion Brewery. He lives in Devon and grows food for his family.

“Rob Hopkins has done more to change the way that we live in the past 10 years than any one else in Britain. Because he has given people the tools to create change for themselves. It is beautifully simple and incredibly powerful.”

Monty Don, gardener, writer and broadcaster

Sarah Pugh

Sarah Pugh

I have been facilitating permaculture courses since 1999 and teaching them since 2003. I was incredibly fortunate to learn to teach with Mike Feingold and Patrick Whitefield, both experienced and innovative teachers. I have worked as a community rabble rouser and environmental instigator for the past 15 years, mostly within the thriving network that is the Bristol green scene.

My focus has always been on inspiring people to use Permaculture design to improve their local space. On creating opportunities for communities to work collaboratively and encouraging reconnection with nature, particularly in urban areas. I’m always looking for new ways to take the joys of Permaculture to a wider audience and in 2007 I founded Transition Bristol. After a couple of years of exhausting organising, followed by the birth of my son I decided to step back from the frontline and focus on addressing the skills gap that lies between people wanting to and being able to create more sustainable systems. In 2010 myself and colleague Laura Corfield founded Shift Bristol to run the one year Practical Sustainability Course – the first of its kind in the UK. It’s an expansion of the Permaculture Curriculum taught in collaboration with 40 experts and tutors. Visit the Shift Bristol website for details of this course.

I am a founder member of Bristol Permaculture Group since January 2000, It’s an active network of nearly 1000 people working to bring sustainability to the city. We use the network for sharing resources, tools and ideas and generally practicing common sense living.

I am now self-employed as a teacher and consultant, full-time single mum and Director of Shift Bristol. Keeps me busy!

Jenny Mackewn

Jenny Mackewn

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Jenny is an environmentalist, creative, coach, learner, writer, leader, educationalist, connector, change agent, teacher, parent, communicator and artist. Here is how she describes her work.

“I have facilitated and catalysed breakthrough in many different groups and contexts. I love the continuous creative challenge of discovering what is needed in each unique situation.

For a decade I have run a popular, year-long Facilitation Course for the School of Management at Bath University; a specialist Training for facilitators in the Work that Reconnects; Creative Facilitator and Catalyst Training in many organizations; Intensive Trainings in Systemic Constellations – as well as writing on Facilitation as a form of Action Enquiry and Creative Methods of facilitation. I am a creative consultant with the nowhere group, facilitator, organizational consultant, author, friend, grandmother and continuous learner.

Sophy Banks

Sophy Banks

Originally trained in engineering, Sophy worked in London for over 20 years teaching electronics, computer systems and technical stuff to women returners, and then in housing associations. She later trained in psychotherapy, healing and family constellations – and set up a private practice as a therapist. In 2005 she realised she was too old to carry on slide tackling on the muddy football pitches of Hackney Marshes and moved to Devon, to find the Transition movement coming into being just down the road.

In 2006 Sophy co-founded the “Heart and Soul” group of Transition Town Totnes, addressing the psychological and spiritual dimensions of Transition. She helped to set up and run the Totnes project as it took off. In 2007 she and Naresh set up Transition Training and created the two day “Introduction to Transition”, now known as Transition: Launch. Sophy has trained trainers from around the world to deliver this training. Transition finally brought together her love of football, engineering and inner work in its comprehensive and systemic approach to creating healthy and joyful communities.

Still a part of the Totnes project, Sophy mainly works for Transition Network coordinating, supporting and speaking about Inner Transition in the UK and around the world. Sophy blogs here.

Sarah McAdam

Sarah McAdam

Sarah McAdam pictureSarah has had a varied public sector career working in housing, criminal justice and – most recently – rural development (she was leading DEFRA’s Rural Communities Policy Unit when she caught the transition bug).

She has run a housing aid centre, helped set up a new Ombudsman Service, managed criminal courts and cleverly became Chief Executive of a small Quango shortly before the Government decided it should be abolished.

Sarah became a Transition Network trustee in 2011 when we were looking to widen the range of skills and perspectives on our board. Finding Whitehall exhausting and increasingly frustrating, she left the civil service to sit under a tree for a while and then search for a more satisfying way to live and work. She believes she may have found that in TN.

Sarah lives in Woolwich in South East London with her partner Lynne and loves being able to travel into town by boat.

The Coleridge Lectures 2015: Radical Green

In 1795 Samuel Taylor Coleridge gave a series of radical lectures in Bristol which questioned religion, attacked the slave trade, condemned the war with France and criticised taxation. They promoted wide debate and were attacked by the city’s merchants.

A new Festival of Ideas series, the Coleridge Lectures, looks annually at a theme of interest to the city. To mark Bristol 2015 we present a series on Radical Green, in association with Bristol 2015 and the Cabot Institute, University of Bristol.

All events in this series are free of charge and take place in the Wills Memorial Building, University of Bristol, Queens Road, Bristol.

All places must be booked via the event page. Booking opens six weeks before each lecture. For further information on the series please email ideas@gwebusinesswest.co.uk

If you require additional support for any of the lectures, e.g. wheelchair access or sign language interpretation, please contact Laura Bagley at the earliest opportunity and we will endeavour to meet your request.

Speakers

Poetry, the land and nature

Kathleen JamieKatheleen Jamie

17 Feb

6 – 7.30 pm, Wills Memorial Building
Romanticism looked at nature and the natural world in new ways and embraced a sense of place. Kathleen Jamie – a nature poet who has also covered Scotland’s independent spirit – asks how human beings can live the right relationship with the natural world. Her poetry and her books of essays, Sightlines and Findings, have been at the centre of the revival of nature writing in recent years. Finding nature in the tiny cracks of daily life, as well as Orkney in midwinter and twenty-first-century flotsam on a shoreline in the Hebrides, Jamie helps us all renegotiate our relationship with the natural world. She will read from her work, and talk about this relationship.

Biography
Kathleen Jamie was born in the west of Scotland. Her poetry collections to date include The Overhaul, which won the 2012 Costa Poetry Prize, The Tree House which won both the Forward prize and the Scottish Book of the Year Award. Kathleen Jamie also writes non-fiction including the highly regarded Findings and Sightlines.

You will need to book for this event.

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Green and social justice

Anna CooteAnna Coote

23 Feb

6 – 7.30 pm, Wills Memorial Building
Anna Coote of the New Economics Foundation sets out the case for a new social settlement which recognises that society, environment and economy are intimately linked. She argues that the primary goal of policy should be sustainable social justice, meaning the fair and equitable distribution of social, environmental, economic and political resources between people, places and generations. Any meaningful radical green programme would therefore need to address such issues as how we shift investment and action upstream to prevent harm, instead of coping once harm has occurred; redistributing paid and unpaid time; and valuing the ‘core economy’ which consists of all the unpaid activities and relationships in everyday life, without which the formal economy would grind to a halt. It would also seek to build a fair, sufficient and sustainable social security system; to develop co-production as the standard way of getting things done; and to ‘future-proof’ policies to safeguard the interests of generations that come after us. Anna Coote puts forward a radical green agenda, based on newly published work from NEF, for a new settlement that can meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Biography
Anna Coote is Head of Social Policy in the New Economics Foundation (NEF). She is editor of Time on Our Side (NEF, 2013) which explores the case for a shorter working week. Other recent publications for NEF include The Wisdom of Prevention, Cutting It: The Big Society and the New Austerity, and 21 Hours. A leading analyst, writer and advocate in the field of social policy, Anna was responsible for ground-breaking work on health and sustainable development as Commissioner for Health with the UK Sustainable Development Commission (2000-9). She led the Healthcare Commission’s work on engaging patients and the public (2005-8) and was Director of Health Policy at the King’s Fund (1998-2004). Earlier posts include Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director of IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) from 1989-1998, Editor and Producer of current affairs television for Diverse Productions (1982-6), and Deputy Editor of the New Statesman (1978-82).

You will need to book for this event.

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What a green government could do if it really tried

George MonbiotGeorge Monbiot

25 Feb

6 – 7.30 pm, Wills Memorial Building
David Cameron promised his government would be the greenest government ever. George Monbiot says he’s failed – and failed badly. There’s clearly a need for radical change. But what could a green government do if it really wanted to be green? George Monbiot looks at what a green government’s programmes and policy could be examining,including among others, food, transport, energy, wildlife, rewilding, nuclear power and climate change and the impact this would have on individuals, communities, cities and the world. He presents the case he would make to parliament, the country, and the international negotiations on climate change.

Biography
George Monbiot studied zoology at Oxford, but his real education began when he travelled to Brazil in his twenties and joined the resistance movement defending the land of indigenous peasants. Since then he has spent his career as a journalist and environmentalist, working with others to defend the natural world he loves. His celebrated Guardian columns are syndicated all over the world and his website (www.monbiot.com) receives a quarter of a million hits a month. Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books Captive State, The Age of Consent, Bring on the Apocalypse and Heat, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land. Among the many prizes he has won is the UN Global 500 award for outstanding environmental achievement, presented to him by Nelson Mandela. His latest book is Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding.

You will need to book for this event.

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The only true conservationist is a Conservative

Roger ScrutonRoger Scruton

5 Mar

6 – 7.30 pm, Wills Memorial Building
The Left makes the running on environmental issues – seeing the threats to the earth being international capitalism, consumerism and the over-exploitation of natural resources. The truth is the only true conservationist and environmentalist is a Conservative. The environment is the most urgent political problem of our age; the problem is that most environmental problems are generated and resolved by ordinary people often ignored by the environmental movement. Conservatism is far better suited to tackle environmental problems than either liberalism or socialism; rather than entrusting the environment to unwieldy NGOs and international committees, Scruton argues that we must all assume personal responsibility and foster local sovereignty. People must be empowered to take charge of their environment, to care for it as a home, and to affirm themselves through the kind of local associations that have been the traditional goal of conservative politics. This is the right path to take to ensure the future safety of our planet and our species.

Biography
Roger Scruton is a writer and philosopher. He has specialised in aesthetics with particular attention to music and architecture. He engages in contemporary political and cultural debates from the standpoint of a conservative thinker and is well known as a powerful polemicist. He has written widely in the press on political and cultural issues. Among many other books he is the author of Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet.

You will need to book for this event.

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Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner, Bristol and beyond

Professor Richard Holmes OBE, FRSL, FBARichard Holmes

12 Mar

6 – 7.30 pm, Wills Memorial Building
The publication of the Lyrical Ballads in Bristol in 1798 launched the Romantic poetry movement. Richard Holmes, author of the great two-volume Coleridge, and also of The Age of Wonder, looks at the life and work of Coleridge in Bristol and the Quantock Hills at this critical moment. What originally inspired the writing of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and what has this great and mysterious poem come to mean to us now? Holmes explores its varied interpretations, the revealing history of its illustrations, and its powerful emergence as a modern eco-fable. The poem speaks urgently to our own time about our duties towards the earth and the animals, and the spiritual – not merely physical – fate that may befall us should we fail in our stewardship, “alone on a wide wide sea”..

Biography
Richard Holmes is a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and was made an OBE in 1992. Coleridge: Early Visions won the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year, and Coleridge: Darker Reflections won the 1999 Duff Cooper Prize and the Heinemann Award. Holmes was Professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia 2001-2007. His other books include Shelley: The Pursuit, Dr Johnson & Mr Savage, and two studies of Romantic biography and autobiography, Footsteps and Sidetracks. His group biography of Romantic poets and scientists The Age of Wonder won the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2009 in the UK, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction 2010 in the USA. His latest book is a highly unconventional history of Romantic ballooning: Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air.

You will need to book for this event.

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Animals ‘in the Fraternity of universal Nature’

Andrew KellyAndrew Kelly

26 Mar

6 – 7 pm, Wills Memorial Building
The Romantics took great interest in science, the natural world and animals. In his utopian community the Pantisocracy (the all-governing society – where labour would be minimised and time devoted to study, liberal discussions and educating children) Coleridge said animals were to be brothers and sisters ‘in the Fraternity of universal Nature’. His poem ‘To a Young Ass’ hailed the animal he had befriended in Jesus College as ‘Brother’. Though mocked at the time for these views, animal rights and animal welfare were debated widely amongst the Romantics and remain controversial issues today. Andrew Kelly looks at the views of the Romantics and current campaigns for animals.

Biography
Andrew Kelly is director of Bristol Cultural Development Partnership and Bristol Festival of Ideas, and is a visiting professor at the University of the West of England. His projects include Brunel 200, Bristol 800 and the annual Bristol Great Reading Adventure. He is the author of All Quiet on the Western Front, the Story of a Film (1998) and Cinema and the Great War (1997) among 12 other books. In 2014 he directed Bristol’s programme marking 100 years since the start of the First World War, the largest UK programme commemorating the centenary. He has campaigned on animal welfare and other social and environmental issues for 30 years. He speaks in a personal capacity.

You will need to book for this event.

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Re-imagining the city

Melissa HarrisonMelissa Harrison

2 Apr

6 – 7.30 pm, Wills Memorial Building
Think of ‘nature’ and most of us think of the deep countryside – but the natural world can live side-by-side with us in cities, too. 82% of us now live in urban areas, and in this richly imagined journey through one day in a British city novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison will bring to life a world that most never know is there, and explore the social and ecological benefits of reimagining our relationship with our wild urban neighbours.

Biography
Melissa Harrison worked in non-fiction publishing for several years before moving into magazines, first as an editor and then on a freelance basis, with clients including Vogue, Time Out, Stuff and Mixmag. In 2008 she began spending more time on her own writing, and she won the John Muir Trust’s Award for Wild Writing in 2010. Melissa’s first novel, Clay, was published by Bloomsbury in January 2013. It was selected as an Amazon Rising Star, won the Portsmouth First Fiction Award, was named by Ali Smith as one of her books of the year and has been put on the HSC curriculum in New South Wales, Australia. Melissa writes for The FT and The Times, where she also contributes to their weekly ‘Nature Notebook’ column; her second novel, At Hawthorn Time, is published in April 2015.

You will need to book for this event.

Bristol Energy Champions Needed!

Be part of Bristol 2015 European Green Capital as a Bristol Energy Champion! Would you like to help your community? Are you interested in saving energy?

Could YOU be an Energy Champion?

We would like every neighbourhood in Bristol to have a local person to turn to for energy advice, a person who will champion energy awareness in their community.

Energy Champions are local people like you from all over Bristol who are interested in engaging their friends, neighbours and the whole community about energy savings, local renewable generation and tackling fuel poverty.

By being an Energy Champion you will have the opportunity to:

  • Get involved with exciting new projects and events from across the city
  • Bring your community together and meet your neighbours
  • Increase your knowledge of energy saving and engagement through expert training from our partners
  • Help tackle fuel poverty with practical advice and sign posting to funding available
  • Learn about renewable energy and make your own solar panel
  • Lead energy initiatives at your school, workplace and/or in your community
  • And of course improve the energy performance of own your home!

We will provide all the information, training and support needed for you to become an energy champion.

The first free training sessions are scheduled for early February

Interested? Want to know more? Contact Elsie at elsie.danann@cse.org.uk or 0117 934 1432 or go to www.bristolenergynetwork.org

Bristol City Council launches multi-million pound drive to improve Bristol homes

BREAKING NEWS: the scheme now has access to ECO (Energy Company Obligation) funding, which aims to help households in fuel poverty to upgrade both their energy systems and buildings. There are three related obligations for this (all of which have eligibility criteria) details of which can be found on our website.

More details of the wider scheme are available on the dedicated website and do please use the BEN referral code BEN000 or one from your local energy group in any communications. A show home (56 Heron Road) will be open from Thursday 4th December 2014 on Tuesdays and Thursdays (9:30-16:30) and Saturdays (10:30-14:30) until Tuesday 23rd December. It will reopen again on Saturday 3rd January 2015. More information on the show home can be found here.

Bristol City Council has launched a new multi-million pound initiative designed to make homes across the city warmer and healthier places to live.

Warm Up Bristol is one of the most ambitious energy efficiency schemes in the country, with a target to provide 30,000 home improvement measures over the next four years.

Run by the council’s dedicated Energy Service, which has secured government funding to deliver the initiative, Warm Up Bristol is part of a city-wide drive to reduce energy use.

Bristol has some of the oldest and most inefficient houses in the UK and a huge range of measures are available under the scheme. These include solid and cavity wall and loft insulation, double glazing and draught proofing, plus new boilers and renewable energy systems.

Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, said: “Warm Up Bristol gives a huge opportunity for us to address householders’ energy needs and costs. We are working with local communities with the ambition to engage residents right across the city. Real change comes from the community and I’d like to personally encourage all to grasp the nettle.

“This is a cause that is central to our Green Capital status and will lay a vital part of the foundations for Bristol to be the most sustainable city in years to come.”

Amber Rudd, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, added: “With Bristol Green Deal communities and more money announced for the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund, people in Bristol have lots of options to make their homes more energy efficient.

“It makes sense to help more families install energy saving improvements now, so that they see the benefits of lower bills and a warmer home for years to come.”

Warm Up Bristol has something for everyone. The council is working with community partners such as Bristol Energy Network and Easton Energy Group to engage local residents and help them to make their homes warmer and cheaper to heat.

A cluster of houses on Johnsons Road, Stepney Road and Stepney Walk in Easton have already benefitted from external wall insulation and people are encouraged to visit the demonstrator streets to see the finished result.

Bristol City Council launched the website www.warmupbristol.com where people can find out how they could benefit from the scheme.

Community groups can earn referral fees as part of the project if you would like to refer your “Warm Up Bristol” application to support your local community group in your area please mention one of the following referal codes:
·         BEN000 Bristol Energy Network

·         BEN001 Easton Energy Group

·         BEN002 Totterdown Energy

·         BEN003 Hillfields Energy

·         BEN004 Bristol Friends of the Earth

·         BEN005 Bristol Energy Cooperative

·         BEN006 Bristol Power Coop

If you would like your community group/ energy group to get involved please contact Bristol.Energy.Network@gmail.com

Bristol 2015 European Green Capital programme announced

Bristol 2015 European Green Capital is today launching the initial programme that brings together the events, projects, summits and conferences that will shape the city’s year in the spotlight and a lasting green legacy. Bristol is the first UK city to be awarded the prestigious title and the programme promises to be the best-funded and most-comprehensive launched by any European Green Capital.

Already featuring 40 entries – from grassroots events in each of Bristol’s neighbourhoods, to projects from world-renowned artists that bring sustainability to life, an international green tech festival, national schools’ programme and wide-reaching volunteer scheme – the 2015 programme is designed to give everyone the chance to get involved in making Bristol an even happier and healthier place to live and work as well as a catalyst for change.

Bristol 2015 Ltd, the organisation set up to facilitate Bristol’s year as European Green Capital, is working with two key partners in Bristol City Council and the Green Capital Partnership. Joining them are hundreds of partners and volunteers from across the city, including artist Luke Jerram, Business West and Low Carbon South West, to create the expansive programme that will be added to as the countdown to 2015 continues.

A handful of highlights from the initial programme for Bristol 2015 include:

  • Greentech Camp (March) – The camp will provide children and teenagers the opportunity to learn about and explore how technology can be used for green goals.
  • Filwood Green Business Park launch (March) – marking the city’s first BREEAM outstanding-rated business park and providing space for new and existing companies to set up shop in South Bristol, aiming to create around 350 new jobs.
  • Bristol Blue Whale (opens April 2015) – people from across the city can help to create a life-size ‘sculpture’ of a Blue Whale made from recycled materials. The Blue Whale will present the beauty of ocean life, and the growing human threats it faces.
  • Bristol 2015 Youth Summit (April) – bringing together the next generation for TED-style presentations, debates and workshops, followed by a rally on Earth Day (22nd April) that will send to a message from the young people of Bristol to the world.
  • Solar Balloon (Aug) – Cameron Balloons will unveil the world’s first modern solar powered balloon to launch at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.
  • Community Tree Planting Week (Nov) – to mark National Tree Week, Bristol’s Tree Pips scheme will run a special community planting week where it will aim to plant as many trees as possible. Overall the scheme will see 36,000 new trees in Bristol by spring 2016.
  • Festival of Future Cities (Nov) – drawing commissioned writers, artists, filmmakers, poets, architects and others to the city. The festival will seek to bring together all the lessons learned during the year.

New project details will be added throughout the year.

As part of this, Bristol 2015 is inviting community groups, local businesses and voluntary organisations to join forces and become an official part of the city’s year as European Green Capital. From today, the programme can be added to by individual groups and organisations, meaning as many people as possible can get involved in 2015 – not just in attending events or taking advantage of projects, but by creating their own.

The full programme of activity is available to view on the Events section of this website. To register an event or project as part of the Bristol 2015 programme go to our Get Involved page.

George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, said: “This is a great start. It is an initial programme which really gives people a feel for what to expect during our year as European Green Capital. We’re talking new jobs, exciting events, long-lasting environmental projects, better environmental education, more energy efficiency offers, more protection for green spaces and on-going improvements in our transport infrastructure.

“What you see today is only the beginning of what will be a city wide set of initiatives. There will be many more announcements to come, each adding something special to the comprehensive programme. Now that we’re inviting others to take part we can also expect hundreds of community events planned through the members of the Bristol Green Capital Partnership, local businesses, voluntary organisations, community groups and individuals. 2015 is already looking special, and will be further enriched by more and more individual and community initiatives. I have no doubt that Bristol will be the most extensive and engaging Green Capital that Europe’s yet seen.”

Andrew Garrad, Chairman of Bristol 2015, commented: “Throughout next year, Bristol will be home to a wide-reaching programme of activities and events that will showcase Bristol’s achievements and ambition. Today we have announced the initial programme which will grow over the year. There will be opportunities for all individuals, communities and organisations of all sizes to get involved and now we’re calling on the city to get behind the year by adding their own events to the programme too.”

To keep up to date on all the latest news and events from Bristol 2015 you can also follow Bristol2015 on Twitter or join the conversation on Facebook www.facebook.com/Bristol2015.