TTT's Fiona Ward accepts the Ashden Award from Kevin McCloud.
On Thursday 16th June Grand Designs TV guru, Kevin McCloud, presented the Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy and Behaviour Change to the Transition Together project run by Transition Town Totnes (TTT). The award, worth £10,000 plus support and mentoring from the Ashden Trust over the next 12 months, came just 18 months after TTT were awarded £625,000 as part of the previous government’s Low Carbon Community Challenge. This money made it possible to scale up the previous Transition Together programme and make grants available to install solar PV systems in participating households (you can read Ashden’s very thorough case study here).
A more detailed report is to follow, but for now here is a film made by the Ashden Award people about Transition Streets (click here to read their case study report), the project that won us an Ashden Award last Thursday…
Receiving my certificate from Brian Harper, one of three Gasketeers who travelled to the Tagore Festival...
On Saturday I did a talk at the Tagore Festival which I hope to get a film of up soon. Instead of using powerpoint, I told the story of Transition using different objects which different initiatives had sent me. It went really well, and was a really enjoyable way of doing it. One of the most substantial ‘props’ was a fully functioning Victorian gas lamp which the Malvern Gasketeers had brought all the way from Malvern that morning. My thinking had been that the crescendo of my talk would be to invite them onstage and that they would light the lamp for all to see. However, while setting up we were told that in order to light it we would have needed a licence from the local Council, so it remained unlit, albeit rather beautiful nonetheless.
We are now in editing mode for ‘The Transition Companion’ (out in September). The draft is way too long, so some bits are being cut. The following piece has been cut way down, so I wanted to post it in full here, as I rather liked it (!). First there is the piece from the book, and then the interview I did with Justin Bere, in full, a riot of delights for passivhaus/local building materials fans out there….
The 'Larch House' in Ebbw Vale, Wales.
The ‘holy grail’ in terms of the construction of new sustainable buildings is homes that reach the highest level of energy efficiency, whilst also using as high a proportion of locally sourced materials as possible, what we might call ‘The Local Passivhaus’. Two buildings, recently completed in Ebbw Vale, known as ‘The Lime House’ and ‘The Larch House’ have moved this concept forward significantly.
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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