The challenge of being green

Argyle Street Housing Co-operative (ASH) is a purpose-built, government-funded housing co-operative in Cambridge, set up in 1981. The co-op offers shared accommodation and consists of houses and flats, surrounding three communal gardens. There are currently 86 co-op members. Bryony Vickers is 31, a member of ASH and the Development Co-ordinator. She is responsible for looking at the co-op’s internal development in terms of improving the environmental impact of the existing buildings and the co-op’s policies. She is passionate about environmental issues and finished a degree in sustainability last year.

Her role in the housing co-op, and her passion for sustainability, meant that she was already trying to improve the housing co-op’s green credentials before signing up for Greener Together. “I was quite excited to hear about Greener Together”, she explains “and thought it could be something that ASH would like to be involved in, because we’re already quite green and because we’re already making moves in that direction”. Bryony was particularly interested in signing up to Greener Together because of its focus on behavioural change. “There’s a lot of work at ASH being done on infrastructure, and I think that’s really important, but I also think you need to have the two-pronged approach of addressing both the issues. I thought Greener Together would be a great way to encourage people to think about their behaviour, particularly in terms of energy use; it makes a massive difference.

“At ASH, we have been measuring the gas and electricity use of our four-person houses. All houses are identical in terms of structure; it’s the tenants and their lifestyles that differ. We found that the highest figure of carbon emissions was 100% larger than the lowest. This shows that within the home, purely through behaviour, it’s possible to cut carbon emissions by at least half”.

The housing co-op’s target was 30 pioneers, and Bryony got the first 15 people to sign up relatively easily. “After that, it became an uphill struggle. People seemed interested in the project, and thought it was a great idea, but to actually get people to commit to being involved was much harder”. ASH now has 27 people signed up. However, despite almost getting the required numbers, Bryony has also found it difficult to get those who’ve signed up to actually engage with the project. “The hardest thing is getting people to talk to me in the first place which is making it harder to find out what’s stopping them from being involved”. She suspects that it’s a combination of people being too busy, and a side-effect of the housing association being quite green to start with. “People already feel like they’re making a big effort and the idea of having to commit to making an extra effort or to do more seems like too much, or maybe even a bit unnecessary”.

The difficulty of engaging with people has meant that Bryony isn’t sure how accurately they’re sticking to their pledges. “I’m hoping that the new scheme where you can make your own pledges will improve things” she says. “It’s a good move for this audience where people are probably already doing some of the standard pledges”.

Bryony is just about to start some new strategies to see if that improves participation. “I’ve decided to hold weekly surgeries and make a time every week when I’ll be available in the garden. It’ll be quite casual, so people can have a chat about green issues in general, as well as Greener Together. Perhaps making it wider and less formal might make it more appealing”. Bryony is determined to keep trying to make Greener Together a success, despite the challenges to date. “Even if I can get just a couple of people thinking about it more, it’s possible that things will disseminate further out amongst the people they know”.

Bryony is also going to move ahead with the community project, in the hope that might get people involved. “I’d like to move ahead and create a practical project that people can actually do, rather than just talk about”. Ideas so far include building a bike shed out of recycled materials, or building a pizza oven in the garden. “If we can get a permanent structure that a group of people have been involved in making, then I’ll count that as a success”.

Bryony has signed up to 9 pledges. “The ones within the home have been going well. I’ve nominated my daughter as the light monitor so she gets to tell us off for leaving the lights on. That’s been quite effective”. However, other pledges have been harder: “buying less packaging has been quite tricky, simply because of the amount in shops that’s out there”. Bryony’s greatest success is a new pledge that she’s made herself: to eat less meat. “I find it quite difficult cos I’m a real foodie and I like meat, even though I understand that it’s much less sustainable than other sources of protein.” She’s made a commitment to only eating meat three times a week and only buying it from local butchers that source it from local farms. “I’d had the idea of cutting down on meat for a while, but signing up for Greener Together has pushed me into actually doing it”. She hasn’t found it as hard as she expected. “I still have to remind myself when I’m out shopping, but once you’ve made the commitment to doing it, you start to change your mindset and it’s not actually too much of a problem”.

Prior to Greener Together, ASH was already making some structural and policy changes to become more sustainable. These include centrally purchasing and distributing energy efficient lightbulbs and recycled bin bags. “We replaced our windows and doors to get highly efficient double glazing. It was an enormous project that took three years, but once it was finished, people saw an immediately drop in their energy use. The direct feedback from that created another wave of excitement about doing other things”. The co-op provides fridges and cookers to all houses and has changed its policy to energy buy A** energy rated ones, and has a new policy about buying more sustainable hardwood flooring and carpets. The housing association also has changed the type of futon that it buys so that the mattresses contain recycled off-cuts. “We only buy eco-paint with low VOCs, do community compositing, have an onsite organic allotment and fruit trees. We changed our energy and gas suppliers and our water showerheads to low-water showerheads”. ASH has also begun to start to retrofit the houses and two have been nominated as guinea pigs to see how it will work.

The amount that the co-op is already doing could be inhibiting people from taking up the Greener Together pledges, suspects Bryony. “I think there maybe is a limit to which people are either capable, or prepared, to be involved in projects that are addressing sustainability. Perhaps also it’s to do with capacity, because people are already involved in our in-house projects”. Bryony does think that, because ASH is pretty forward thinking with environmental policies, her fellow members already have a green identity, “somehow it’s also become a barrier to address the personal behavioural change”.

Bryony’s advice to eco-operators new to Greener Together is to get the practical/community project going quite early on. “It would have got people engaged and given them a feeling of ownership of the project and a feeling of accomplishment. If people feel part of something, then they’re more likely to stay engaged”. When it comes to the pledges themselves, Bryony’s advice is to choose pledges that are specific to you. “Look at your life, and go through the questionnaire and then find out the gaps. Fit pledges into your lifestyle and choose ones that you know you can achieve. Ask yourself ‘what do you know you ought to be doing, and never get round to?’” She also suggests using a buddy system to try and get people who have similar pledges to buddy up.