Bring £5 if you’d like to take your newly grafted tree home to grow on in your own garden!
Another chance to learn this skill from our expert, Leo. This workshop was popular last year so please spread the word.
Notes from the SOW meeting on 28 Feb 2024. Dates for your diary at the end.
Eight people present; apologies from a large number of people! Jenny and Paul led a discussion on…
(1) Greening our pensions cuts our carbon footprint 21x more than going veggie, giving up flying and switching energy providers combined!
(Research by Make My Money Matter/WWF-UK/Aviva: “Moving the national average pension wealth to the sustainable fund used in the calculation is 21 times more effective (respectively) than the combined annual carbon savings of switching to a renewable electricity provider, substituting all air travel with rail travel and adopting a vegetarian diet.”)
(2) What’s best?
The worst banks include the big household names:
(Source: Which)
High Street banks have been around for hundreds of years, and have been able to get away with unethical practice. Until recently there were no new banks to challenge them – the film “Bank of Dave” describes someone who found a gap in the banking market to help his community! Since then there have been a few other newcomers.
Which? Eco providers for current accounts:
Unscreened investments will use your money to fund whatever makes the most profit. But there are funds which have a small or large degree of ethical screening. (A fund is a collection of investments in different companies which is managed by one fund manager, according to pre-defined criteria.)
“Ethical” considerations are wider than just environmental, eg. avoid alcohol, gambling, arms trade, animal testing. But ideally you’d want to be able to choose what matters to you, eg investing in village-scale artisan alcohol producers OK, investing in BP not OK
“ESG” = Environmental, Social & Governance. You’ll hear this phrase. Many providers now consider ESG risks/performance. (Examples of Environmental: Climate change policies, waste & pollution; of Social: Human rights, labour standards, data protection & privacy; of Governance: Board diversity, Anti-corruption policies, Corporate behaviour.) ESG is positive but does not go very far. Eg. can have tobacco, armaments, and fossil-fuel companies that manage their ESG – publishing annual reports about protecting biodiversity or providing apprenticeships, and some companies “greenwash” – talk about their ESG but don’t actually do much.
“Light green” or “dark green”. Dark green funds are very strongly ethical, avoiding the bad and seeking out positive companies to invest in. Light green funds still have an ethical focus but might not, for example, avoid an oil company altogether, if it was aiming to move over to greener energy. Types of company invested in by most ethical funds also include “neutral” or “helpful” areas of business like medical and food retail.
Source: Make My Money Matter. Note that these scores are averaged over all the pension company’s funds. Individual pension funds can be more ethical/sustainable, eg. Aviva will have a sustainable fund.
Well-chosen eco funds can perform as well as unscreened. Investing against climate change makes long-term business sense!
Sustainable funds can fluctuate more over the short term. In tougher times the market favours old-school stocks like oil. In times of growth new technologies do better.
www.ethicalconsumer.org
‘All the information and inspiration you need to revolutionise the way you spend, save and live.’ A consumer organisation a bit like Which? With purchasing advice and a magazine subscription available.
www.makemymoneymatter.co.uk
A movement calling for the trillions of pounds invested in UK pensions to build a better world.
www.which.co.uk/money
The consumer organisation’s Money section, who have information on ethical banks and pension.
As an example, Paul played part of Mark Thomas’s podcast which reveals that all of us until 2015 were effectively paying off the government compensation awarded to slave owners (you read that right, owners, not slaves!) in 1834 when slavery was banned in this country.
Bank of Dave (a film)
Dave in Burnley wants to open a bank, but a new banking licence hasn’t been issued in over 100 years.
Tax Justice Network (website and podcast)
www.taxjustice.net
Taking on a system that fuels inequality, fosters corruption and undermines democracy.
They publish The Financial Secrecy Index and The Corporate Tax Haven Index every two years, which makes for interesting reading, and also produce a very informative podcast.
arbdn Financial Fairness Trust (website and podcast)
www.financialfairness.org.uk
Research, campaigning and policy work to improve life for people on low to middle incomes. Also produce a podcast.
The Dark Money Files (blog and podcast)
thedarkmoneyfiles.com
A blog and podcast with more information than you will ever likely need on money laundering, bribery, corruption, fraud and trafficking.
Treasure Islands (a book)
A book about, amongst other things, how billionaire Warren Buffet, currently the third wealthiest man in the world, paid the lowest rate of tax among his office staff, including his receptionist.
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire (a film)
Britain’s transition from colonial power to global financial power
The Things About Us: Slavery (a podcast episode)
Listen to the full podcast, ‘Slavery’ through your podcast provider.
Many of us try very hard in our everyday lives to make sustainable choices – recycling, saving energy, gardening for wildlife, etc – but if we’ve got money in a bank or invested in a pension that’s being used to fund e.g. the oil industry, that’s having a bigger negative impact. In this session we’ll pool and share our knowledge about ethical and environmental choices in finance. If you’ve got some experience or knowledge of this area please do come along. If you haven’t, come along as well and find out more!
Plus discussion of any other environmental issues, action planning and tea, biscuits and chat! And the Green Library will likely be open for lending.
Oakington’s first Repair Cafe was held on Saturday 10 February. The grand total was 70 repairs, of which 41 were successfully repaired, 19 were found to be repairable and 10 deemed end of life. But not only did we prevent unnecessary waste and landfill: people were inspired by and learned from the 14 amazing volunteer repairers, enjoyed the cafe and the friendly community atmosphere.
Thank you to the repairers, everyone who helped and to all who supported it – the very generous donations and cafe takings covered costs and will help with the next Oakington Repair Cafe.
Here’s just some of the feedback received after the event:
Sustainable Cottenham have asked us to let people know about their event in March:
SWISH at Cottenham Village Hall on Saturday 16 March from 2.15-3.45
Swishes, or clothes swap parties are a fun, free way to refresh your wardrobe without buying new clothes. The fashion industry has a huge environmental footprint accounting for more carbon emissions than aviation and shipping combined, and is often exploitative of workers too. Meanwhile, an average Briton’s wardrobe contains
a whopping 57 unworn items!*
It’s those under-worn clothes you’ve fallen out of love with that we want you to dig out from your wardrobe and swap with others. Bring women’s, men’s and children’s clothes, shoes and accessories in good, clean condition. You can bring and take as much as you like*.
Drop your items off at 1:45 and whilst we sort your clothes there will be refreshments and stalls from local groups. Swishing will start at 2:15pm and end at 3:45pm.
All leftover clothes will be donated to charity.
This is a free event organised by Sustainable Cottenham. Donations gratefully received towards our costs (please bring some cash!), all welcome.
*Figures from this BBC article on Fast Fashion
**No underwear, please.
***Please only take what you/your family will personally use – not to sell on. We reserve the right to challenge anyone not acting in the spirit of the event.
Come along to the meeting on Wednesday 31 January, 7:30pm at the Church Hall.
Led by John, we will be discussing the Nature Recovery Project in Oakington & Westwick – we got this started last year with lots of ideas and enthusiasm, but now is the time to plan actions for this year onwards.
We’ll also be planning other SOW activities in 2024/hearing updates on plans; and gathering ideas for future evening sessions.
And as usual a chance to exchange ideas, get tips and even just offload about environmental issues that are on your mind!
The Green Library will be open for borrowing! And of course there will be tea, biscuits and a chance to chat.
7:30pm at the Church Hall, Oakington. As well as updates on our current activities, we’ll have…
Come along for a fun and practical session, building bird boxes out of scrap wood. Bring the kids! You can take the finished birdbox home to encourage wildlife into your garden, or even give it as a Christmas present. We’ll also be making a bee hotel to put in the village orchard.
If you have them, bring some secateurs, and a drill with a selection of drill bits 2-10mm and a pz1 screw bit.
We’ll also be hearing a presentation by members of the village Eco Club, who are at Oakington Primary School. Please come along and support these brilliant young people!
Oakington’s first Repair Cafe will be held on 10 February, 11am – 2pm in the Pavilion. Slots will be available to book in due course but if you want to make sure you hear as soon as bookings are open, email oakingtonrepaircafe@gmail.com.
f you are good at repairing things (clothes, electricals, bikes, toys, …) and could be a volunteer repairer, or if you’d like to help on the day in another way, please contact oakingtonrepaircafe@gmail.com.
The village has a chance of getting funding for solar panels on the Pavilion roof, which will make the Pavilion more environmentally sustainable, and more financially sustainable too. But it needs your help. If you have used the Pavilion for any reason: private celebrations, as a member of a club or group or society, for example, please write to Laura Lawrence, the clerk, clerk@oakingtonandwestwick-pc.gov.uk, to say how you’ve been involved, and useful the Pavilion is (and how good solar panels would be, perhaps.) This is because it’s a competitive bidding process – whoever has the best reason for improvements will get a grant. Only one in four applicants will be successful. The deadline is 5 December so write now!
(Notes from a talk given at SOW meeting in October 23)
Journeys by public transport usually take longer than driving – but you can do something on the journey so needn’t waste the time. Not always 100% smooth but often are, and much less hassle to plan now we have mobile phone apps and websites. Definitely reduce our carbon footprint – 25% of a typical personal footprint is transport and 75% of that is personal car use – it’s a relatively easy part of our footprint to tackle.
For local travel, use the MyBusTrip app. (Stagecoach also has an app & need for flexirider, but this one is better. Use this once you know which stop you need)
Lots of websites available to give info and sell tickets, eg trainline, national rail enquiries, different operators. But these are our top picks:
More about train tickets…
In an ideal world there would be lots of public transport, cheap and easy to use. Like London! But won’t get to that ideal world if nobody uses public transport – use it or lose it.
It does help to plan ahead. I find this hard but it is satisfying to nab a bargain!
Enjoy the journey! Relax, watch the scenery, read a book, enjoy the bustle of our big stations, chat to someone at a bus stop, make the journey part of the destination!
All are welcome to the October SOW meeting, on Wednesday 25th, 7:30pm at the church hall.
There’ll be a short talk on “Transport Tips and Apps.” Making more use of trains and buses is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint – come and find out about some ways to travel more easily and cheaply too.
We’ll be catching up on progress of some of the actions planned last time, and on the Nature Recovery Project.
Plus tea and biscuits and a chance to chat, as always!
A guided walk around Oakington and Westwick was led by SOW member and tree expert Jake on Sunday 15th October. Around 25 people joined in. The talk provided wonderful insights into the trees we all pass on a regular basis, and was much enjoyed!
Sustainable Oakington and Westwick 