New co-chair for Bristol’s One City Environment Board
The Bristol One City Approach brings together a huge range of public, private, voluntary and third sector partners to work together to make Bristol fairer, healthier and more sustainable. Each of the themed ‘One City Boards’ are co-chaired by a Bristol City councillor and a One City Board member.
Within Bristol City Council, Cllr Abi Finch newly chairs the council’s Environment and Sustainability policy committee, and in June, Abi also joined the One City Environment Board to act as co-chair alongside Savita Willmott, Chief Executive of The Natural History Consortium.
Before becoming a Councillor two years ago Abi worked for Share Bristol and previously Bath Share and Repair managing their Libraries of Things. In this blog, Abi shares her reflections on her new One City role.
The need to work together, across organisations, to act on the climate and ecological emergencies has never been more pressing and the One City Environment Board facilitates this in a unique and impactful way. I’m delighted to be joining the Board as co-chair alongside Savita Willmott of the Natural History Consortium.
I’ll be taking the role on from Councillor Martin Fodor who has served as both Co-chair of the One City Environment Board and Chair of the council’s Environment and Sustainability policy committee for the past two years. Those who know Martin will appreciate how much knowledge, passion and integrity he has brought to both roles, so I certainly have big boots to fill.
Last year the One City Plan was refreshed – with four missions now uniting the work of all the boards. One of those missions is to collaborate “to create a climate resilient city where everyone is empowered to act on climate and nature recovery” so it’s brilliant that this mission will be woven into the work of all One City boards, including ours.
Each One City board is also developing action plans with clear priorities to take forwards. The Environment Board action plan outlines six actions, including priorities such as on green jobs and skills, empowering communities and people to act on the climate and nature crises, and championing our One City Ecological Emergency and Climate Strategies.
I want to highlight three areas I’m particularly excited about…
Circular Economy Hub Demonstrator
We will work with other organisations and One City Boards to support the creation of a Circular Economy Hub demonstrator. This is being led by members of Bristol Repair Coalition who have been inspired by models such as the SUEZ Manchester Renew Hub and recognise the potential for a hub in Bristol to bring together and build on the work of our already rich network of reuse and repair organisations.
Increasingly, we are recognising that our approach to resources and waste as a society needs to change. We need to move towards a more circular economy, where more of our things are repaired, repurposed and reused, rather than disposed of.
We are very lucky in Bristol to have so many organisations doing brilliant and innovative work in reuse and repair. But, having spoken to representatives from a number of these organisations, it seems there are similar challenges impacting many of them. For example, limited processing and storage capacity for donations, and the time and money spent on disposing of or rehoming donations they cannot use.
As individuals we also have limited time so if the first place we try to donate an item won’t take it we may resort to throwing it out. A Circular Economy Hub has the potential to address these challenges, providing space and capacity for storage, processing and repair, and channelling items to where they are needed.
Public participation
The Board’s public participation Task & Finish Group has also been set up to identify opportunities and actions that will empower local people to act on the climate and nature crises. Their aim is to bridge the gap between the fact that 83% of people in Bristol are concerned about the climate and nature crises but only 20% feel as if they can influence local decisions, whilst over a third report that they lack the information to get involved in their community [Bristol’s Quality of Life Survey].
This group will identify how the One City Environment Board and its members can support public participation and deliver on the mission aiming for a Bristol in which “everyone is empowered to act on climate and nature recovery”.
The group has started by reaching out to viewers of over the 50 screenings of the People’s National Emergency Briefing film to highlight the work underway in the city and opportunities to take action.
Improving the water quality of Bristol’s rivers and waterways
Another priority close to my heart is around improving the water quality of Bristol’s rivers and waterways. A working group has already been meeting for over a year, with representatives from the local water companies, Bristol City Council and various other key stakeholders to address this issue.
The major issue here is that our sewers are combined and sewage is mixed with rainwater. This means that with increasingly extreme and frequent high rainfall events, our sewage treatment facilities are experiencing higher volumes than they can process.
There is a recognition that we need to change the approach to water management across the city to avoid sewage spills linked to high rainfall and improve flood resilience. However, this is a huge task and no individual organisation can take this on in isolation.
So, what can we do about it? Aside from replumbing our entire city we can work together to slow the flow and divert rainwater from our combined sewers. For example, through rain gardens and other sustainable urban drainage solutions (SUDs) and through rolling out water butts more widely across the city. Not only will these interventions reduce sewage spills, they will also increase our resilience to flooding and to drought.
These actions demonstrate to me the importance of big and small organisations and communities all working together to address these complex challenges.
I look forward to working with many new people and organisations on these important priorities as I step into this role within the Bristol One City ecosystem, and I know the whole One City Environment Board joins me in sending thanks to Councillor Martin Fodor for bringing his trademark wisdom and long-standing understanding of the city’s environmental ambitions and opportunities to his term leading the group.
Bristol Climate & Nature Partnership play a vital role in coordinating and driving forward the work of the One City Environment Board. Learn more about becoming a member and other ways to get involved.
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