On 17th June, we were fortunate enough to have Stephen Hilton and Lorraine Hudson from Connecting Bristol and Carolyn Hassan from the city’s Knowle West Media Centre to meet with local authority representatives, IT professionals and digital entrepreneurs from across Yorkshire and Humber for a knowledge sharing workshop hosted by Digital 20/20.
Bristol is aiming to be a Green capital, and was the sole UK city shortlisted for the European Green Capital Awards recently. Bristol’s ambitious plan is to reduce carbon emissions in the city by 40% by 2020 from their 2005 figures.
IT accounts for 7% of the city’s total CO2 emissions so it has an important role to play in Bristol’s Green future, one way or the other.
Lorraine Hudson explained that the city has set up new partnerships and have appointed several Green IT Champions to help achieve its aims. A key hub for the strategy is the Green Add ICT website. The site provides a co-ordinating point for all ongoing projects, activities, goals and news. It incorporates an interactive CO2 emission scrollbar, a Twitter feed and a Green ICT Map.
Stephen Hilton described the Green IT Solutions Database, which complements the website. This is a knowledge tool for businesses to assist them to assess how green they are, and to help them devise actions to reduce their carbon footprint. Bristol City Council recognises the importance of practising what it preaches, and it has thus developed and implemented a full Green IT policy for the Council. This has included recycling and reusing the council’s redundant PCs for community use, working through the BETS (Bristol Environmental & Technologies Sector) partnership.
Green IT is one of the few areas where the city council has been able to justify increased expenditure in recent years. This has resulted in growing partnerships between the authority and the business and third sectors.
Bristol’s aim is to become a world class Green IT city, and for that to happen, the authority recognises that it has to be “creative, open, green and social”.
Carolyn Hassan from the Knowle West Media Centre believes that communities are playing a vital part in developing Bristol’s Green IT strategy.
Carolyn described Knowle West Media Centre as a community and young person-led building that gives the community pride in the work they are doing. In Knowle West there are 5,500 homes and around 20,000 people. The area is in the bottom 10% for deprivation and the bottom 1% in education, and this is something the Media Centre aims to play a part in changing,
The Media Centre focuses on community-led projects that have a high local profile and support from local people. One such project is the Carbon Makeover scheme, including the ‘Say No to Plastic Bags’ initiative. It’s about linking people together through practical projects and using the internet in a very local way to unite the community, bridging divides through digital technology.
There is a strong link between digital inclusion and green issues. The Carbon Makeover Toolkit has been developed so that members of the community can ensure their house is as green as possible. This has been presented to the EU commission as an example of the strong work that can be done in local communities.
However, it hasn’t been easy making Bristol one of the UK’s greenest, as Stephen explained:
“When we began this journey, ICT and the Environment were totally separate entities in the city council. They were both forward thinking but had little communication with each other. We had to bring people together and develop a real crossover between the two departments.
“Once we developed a tie-up between the two, the real work could begin – and we have been lucky enough not to run into too many problems along the way.”
The talks given by the three Bristol representatives provoked a strong interest with those in attendance.
Following the presentation there was an open forum for discussion with delegates wishing to talk about broadband capabilities, developing further community projects and how to produce clear and useful websites, such as those demonstrated.
The intention is to develop an ongoing communication link between Digital 20/20 and the Connecting Bristol and Knowle West Media Centre, which will result in mutually beneficial exchanges.
