WE ALL like to think of ourselves as green but few of us actually make the effort to change our wasteful ways, as a poll for
The Times showed all too clearly this week. Sixty-five per cent of the 1,500 adults surveyed claimed to buy only energy-saving light bulbs, but in truth less than 20 per cent of those sold are energy-saving.
Our record is so dire that ministers are reportedly considering plans to issue every Briton with a “carbon credit card” — a sort of green loyalty card — to persuade us to cut our emissions. Everyone would have a set entitlement to consume energy and would win cash back if they used less than their allowance.
Nigel Hughes and Ric Edelmann, however, need little inducement to save energy. They are co-founders of the Green Light Trust, an environmental charity that is helping thousands of children to become involved in community-based woodland planting schemes throughout East Anglia and beyond.
They have just completed a new head office for their charity, which Nigel describes as “eco-building to the max”. Their original office was a tiny cubbyhole beneath the stairs of their farmhouse cottage in Lawshall, Suffolk. Later they converted the washhouse at the back to accommodate an administrator, expanding again after a couple of years into the neighbouring washhouse. By 2004 the trust, now ten strong, had grown too big and they were forced to look for new premises. What could be better than a dilapidated traction engine maintenance shed at the other end of their village? “As an environmental charity, we wanted this scheme to have ‘deep green’ principles,” says Nigel. This meant going beyond a no- carbon impact to Suffolk’s first carbon-negative building scheme. Ralph Carpenter, of Modece Architects in Bury St Edmunds, landed the job, which required complex negotiations with the planning authority, the overcoming of local objections and large-scale fundraising. But Nigel has considerable charm and the objectors were won over to the scheme so completely that they joined the volunteers who helped to build it.
What they ended up with was a scheme that moved the existing shed 130ft (40m) into the plot. “We re-used the timbers of the original shed, having applied limewash to protect against beetle infestation and fungal attack. This meant there was no need for toxic chemical treatment,” Ralph says.
Lime was used throughout, so there was no need for concrete, and interestingly lime is an ideal fire retardant for timber-frame buildings. Wattle and daub made up the interior walls from the community’s woodland hazel and local clay. Other eco-flourishes are solar panels for water heating and linseed-oil paint, which unlike conventional paints has no environmental impact. Sewage treatment is carried out by their own reedbed system.
Another intriguing locally sourced material is the hemp and lime block. The blocks, which look similar to mini straw bales, are used for insulation as well as contributing to the carbon-negative factor because hemp absorbs carbon dioxide. Some of the blocks in the lobby walls were left exposed, which led to the project being nicknamed “the Weetabix House”.
Rainwater is recycled from the galvanised iron roof, and the whole place is heated with a woodchip boiler running on coppiced timber from their own woods. Their efforts have been rewarded with a Riba sustainability award — an architectural Oscar The Green Light Trust has its origins in a patch of primeval forest in Papua New Guinea. Twenty years ago Nigel and Ric were living the rollercoaster ride of self-employment as an actor and writer respectively. Based in London at the time, they had also rented a small cottage in Lawshall. The rent was a mere £2 a week, but that was in return for getting stuck in with repairs, including fixing the leaky roof and reassembling the jigsaw puzzle of beams that had been thrown out. Once most of the work had been done, they decided it was time for adventure and took off in search of virgin rainforest.
Trees, wildlife and nature had always been a passion for Ric, who was brought up near Ashdown Forest in Sussex. Their tour took them via India, Australia and Indonesia to Papua New Guinea, where they found the ancient forest they had been searching for. They also discovered that it was under threat from a logging company. And so began a totally new chapter in their lives, which has continued ever since. Working with William Takaku, director at the time of the National Theatre company of Papua New Guinea, they created a drama show that toured the forest by dugout canoe and performed its agit prop to mobilise local opposition against wanton deforestation. They succeeded and helped to conserve 2,000 square miles of rainforest in the Hunstein range. In return, the remote Bahinemo and Berinemo people asked them about the trees in their own country.
Returning to the UK, they found that the fields around their village were treeless and that hedgerows were disappearing. They started canvassing, cajoling and campaigning, eventually persuading a local farmer to donate some land. Neighbours helped them to plant this plot. Mr Takaku was the guest of honour at the inaugural planting in 1993; Golden Wood, the original two-acre planting, is now 23 acres and still growing. It is also the model for 33 community planting schemes in other villages across the UK.
The building project has inspired them all by example. A neighbour is making his own reedbed. Ralph, the architect, is fitting a log boiler in his own house. And Nigel and Ric are installing solar panels and hemp-block insulation to the walls of their cottage as well as tending to the planting of their woodland, which will be ready for their own heating system in a few years.
So if they can go green, then so can we . . .
Green Light Trust, 01284 830829 or www.greenlighttrust.org
Modece Architects, 01284 761141 or www.modece.com
YOU SAY...
OUR green debate shows no sign of running out of steam. Here are your e-mail responses to last week’s piece on the eco-house in Rock (read the article at timesonline.co.uk/newhomes)
Mr B. Trimmer, Hatfield: “The article about the super-efficient house in Rock was of great interest. I have for a long time thought that the Government should make it mandatory for all new homes to be fitted with solar panels.” Tell us what you think: www.timesonline.co.uk/property
