Greengaged

On October 12th 2009, London's Ecological Literacy Initiative EcoLabs are running their inaugural "Teach-In" - a student conference aiming to help the design industry embrace ecological literacy & systemic change. Several hundred of students are scheduled to attend the event at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, whilst the entire event will also be streamed online to dozens of participating design institutions around the world! Speakers include John Thackara (Doors of Perception), Andrew Simms (New Economics Foundation), Richard Hawkins (PIRC), Ben Gill (BioRegional), Jonathan Crinion (Crinion Associates), Emma Dewberry (Open University) and Stephanie Hankey (Tactical Technology Collective. Questions from remote audiences will be taken, via Twitter @2012Imperative.

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photo by: Chiara Terraneo

Greengaged curator John Grant was joined by three speakers after lunch on Tuesday: Shaun Nagassic, Dave Birch and Giles Andrews, who each, in the context of the day on co-opportunity and re-inventing the banking system for the common good, gave presentations of their work. Here we provide a summary of each of the talks.

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photo by Chiara Terraneo

Our second curator, John Grant kicked off Tuesday's session on "Co-opportunity", proposing the question; "How can we create (banking and financial) systems, for the common good?"

With speeches from Josh Ryan Collins of the New Economics Foundation, and Chris Wise & Ed McCann of Expedition Engineering, John led an interactive morning session. Beginning by sketching the agenda of the day into a flowchart, John quickly split the attendee's into smaller groups, asking them to discuss and brainstorm ideas on how, using models/examples of present day service design and system thinking, could they redesign a new system for banking.

Following her participation, Phd student Lauren Tan, offers Greengaged a great summary of John Grant's morning session...

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photos by: Travis Drever

For those of you who have been at Greengaged this week you will have spotted a curious looking confessional booth, and probably have been wondering what that was for. Well... on Monday at Greengaged, Ed Gillespie brought with him Futerra's "Earthly Sins Confessional Booth"! Ed didn't (until after hours) adorn the priest attire, however during the day on behaviour change, many of the attendees entered the booth to confess their 'earthly sins'. Alleviating guilt as a barrier to action, the booth allows us all to unveil those sins we are all guilty of. I'm sure, the more we all confess and talk about such environmental misdeamours, the more we will be able to reconsider alternatives. See more confessional evidence on flickr and do keep your eye on earthlysins.org 

So, what's your earthly sin? 

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photo by: Travis Drever

Our second guest writer for Greengaged.com this week is Dan Lockton, researcher in Brunel University's Cleaner Electronics Research Group investigating design for sustainable behaviour, in theory and practice. Dan attended Greengaged last year and having spent the day with us again on Monday, for Ed Gillespie's Design for Life session, has written a wonderfully intellectual review of the day as it happened. Read Dan's full feature story here, and to follow coverage on both his theoretical and practical work, visit his blog 'Design With Intent'.

read the article...

photo by: Chiara Terraneo

Earlier this week Greengaged was pleased to welcome Sheena Matheiken of The Uniform Project to Ed Gillespie's panel on behaviour change in fashion and travel.

The Uniform Project is all about one ambitious and highly creative woman, who is wearing one black shift dress for 365 days. The project has two aims; 1. To raise awareness about sustainable fashion and 2. Raise money (through donations) for the Akanksha Foundation, a nonprofit group providing educational programs to children who live in Mumbai’s slums. At Greengaged, Sheena explained how she wanted to make an "extreme statement about consumers", "change perspectives about shopping and fashion", "to bring back the creativity into fashion" and prove that "with imagination and through creativity, sustainable fashion can be stylish." Keep up to date with Sheena's project (and outfits!) on her pictorial website and twitter feed (@UniformProject).

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photo by: Chiara Terraneo

On Monday evening, Greengaged held its first co-ed Swishing night. Swishing is a sociable, friendly (usually) form of clothes swapping, with very specific rules. Organised by sustainable marketing communications company Futerra, everyone was asked to bring one piece of clean good clothing which could be swapped for someone else’s top, dress, shoes or tee-shirt. 

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photo by: Travis Drever

On Monday 21st September, under the theme of "Design for Life: Barriers to Behaviour Change", our first guest curator Ed Gillespie ran the inaugural day of Greengaged 2009. Joined by an esteemed array of guest speakers incl. Roman Krznaric, Professor John Wood, Martin Hoelne, Alastair Fuad Luke, Jamie Burdett, Richard Hammond, Kerry Seager, Fiona Bennie, Duncan Law, Greta Corke, Toby Hammond, Victor Buchli and Ben Reynolds, the day set out to informally debate, discuss and explore the reasons why and how change happens and what prevents it. With some innovative communication technology from the Talkaoke media team (which Gillespie aptly defines as 'question time on acid'), the day was fast paced, engaging and provided exhaustive food for thought for all those in attendance. 

• "Don't design alone" Alastair Fuad-Luke
• "We need a creative democracy" Professor John Wood
• "Designers should inspire to be generalists" Roman Krznaric
• "Use technology to hook up as teams" Martin Hoelne
• "Specialism is for insects" Roman Krznaric
• "Start to agitate" Sophie Thomas
• "Designers, try designing something for 2030" Fiona Bennie
• "Have fun with what you do" Sheena Matheiken
• "We are all in this together, we need to get out there, inspire and agitate" Ed Gillespie

Read Ed's great feature Exploring Behaviour Change Barriers all about his day, see the photographs, and hold your breath for the Talkaoke video footage, coming as soon as the 6 hours are edited!

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