Want To Be More Sustainable? Eco Design Fair Reveals….
Kick starting Earth week at the Eco Design Fair, Goodtochina started the day with an exciting critical mass ride across Shanghai (see Critical Mass article). The day was full of sustainability workshop activities from Goodtochina: from “how to start your own sustainable business”, to hands on creating an urban farm. Saturday demonstrated that local interest and support for sustainable business and “actually doing something oneself” to move us all towards sustainable living is really starting to pick up.
At the sustainable business workshop we opened up some interesting discussions around the possibilities of solutions that include integrating corporate, community and individuals based on the three aspects of sustainability: economy, environment and social. We talked further about the reality of the targets; urban residents ready to move towards sustainable solutions. At Goodtochina, we feel that there are plenty of sustainable business opportunities.
One such example is the enthusiasm and movement around Urban farming as it seems to have become the “must do” among shanghai’s innovators and trend-setters. From Saturday’s workshops and further discussions it seems to be that its not just a talking point but that many “would be urban farmers” are really getting into it. Daniel D’Andrea from YCIS school was looking for a large amount of soil for his school’s farm project as was Daniel Shrewsbury at BISS who is building the school’s roof top farm.
Urban farm workshops covering hydroponics and traditional farming enabled participants to move closer towards their own farms and led to interesting discussions. Hydroponics an environmentally efficient way to grow vegetables all year round, has been used since Babylonian times, yet its reintroduction into urban environments in the form of window farms is exciting a large audience: as they are keen to grow their own vegetables and a window farm is appealing. The workshop explored the simple DIY, window farms that use recycled bottles to create the farm, so anyone can try. This is to create interest and a curiosity around the possibilities of this type of farming.
Simple well designed biodegradable products to start your own urban farm were enthusiastically bought. Examples include the “pot of black gold” and the “bamboo tower” from Goodtochina – even by those who felt that they certainly were not green fingered. “People liked the look of the product and the simplicity of planting and growing your own salad. With the design we have taken out the tricky part, to starting your own urban farm, we have prepared the pot with the soil and the seeds with super easy instructions that can be followed in any language” said Bamboo from Goodtochina.
Its also apparent that its not just small balcony solutions, but that corporations and government are looking to tackle bigger projects for their communities, schools and employees.
Goodtochina was set up based on its findings in 2009 that there were big gaps between urban residents perceptions and behaviors and their ability to move towards sustainable impact: due to lack of infrastructure and product.
The Eco Design Fair Spring 2011 was an astounding success and shows that there is an ever expanding consumer market for environmentally conscious products and activities in Shanghai. For the first time Urban Raw Speech held interviews with the organisers, exhibitors and visitors, more articles to follow.
Also, look out for Urban Raw Speech at Eco Design Fair in London at Southbank Festival in July 2011.
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