Minutes 17th November 2009

Crystal Palace & Norwood Chamber of Commerce
MINUTES OF MEETING
17th November 2009: Patrick's Bar, Westow Hill

Those Present:
Ray Hall* (New Crystal Palace, Chair)
Andrew Parfitt* (Honorary Secretary)
Matt Atkinson (Full Spectrum Integration)
Banny Baksh (Property Manager)
Sharon Baldwin (Croydon Economic Development Company)
Paul Bartholomew (Vien/Orispace)
Hannah Bougen* (Full Spectrum Integration)
Alistair Cameron (Joseph Paxton Society)
Alison Carey (Chris Carey’s Collections)
Christine Carey (Chris Carey’s Collections)
Kevin Carleton-Reeves (Transport Consultant)
Ray Coman (Coman & Co.)
Sarah Dacre (Amphlett Lissimore)
George Filbey@ (G.F. Gauges Co. and Cllr, LB Croydon)
Michael Fuss (Proper Oils)
Peter George (GO Contaminated Land Solutions)
John Greatrex@ (Great Exhibitions Ltd)
Jerry Green (The Journal)
Frank Lissimore* (Amphlett Lissimore)
Don Madgwick (Abbazappa Records)
Shinali McCusker (Sefgrove Chemist)
Kevin Monk (Mango Swiss)
Sue Nagle* (Bambino)
K Palka (guest)
Daksha Patel (Sefgrove Chemist)
Kirit Patel (Sefgrove Chemist)
Simon Pither (No Problem Technologies)
Jonathan Rowlandson (Jonathan Rowlandson Design)
Amber Rusk (Croydon Economic Development Company)
Andy Stem (Bambino)
Tim Sharville (Gunpowder Studios)
Catherine Shaw (Allbone and Trimit)
Altaf Syed (Top Quality Dry Cleaners)
Joan Vernette (Friends Hair & Beauty)
* Management Committee
@ Ambassador

Apologies:
Stephen Jopson (Synergy)
Katrina Gillard (Local Skill Swap)
Stan Morris@ (Shinebright)
Mike Mulvey (London Business Network)
Stuart Packer (guest)

1. Introduction
Ray Hall welcomed all to Patrick’s Bar for this special evening, organised by Hannah. He thanked Sue and Andy for providing excellent catering, including soup from the new community café, Living Water Satisfies.

2. Minutes of Last Meeting
The minutes of the 20th October meeting had been received by all members and were agreed as a fair record.

3. Information Items

3.1. Sharon Baldwin
Sharon Baldwin said that she has run the Croydon District Centre Management team for the past three years. Now Croydon council have set up the Croydon Economic Development Company (CEDC), which is working in partnership with local businesses to deliver improvements to town centres and support thriving communities.

In Crystal Palace, she announced that the CEDC is piloting an initiative which will provide funding of £10k in Year 1 and £5k in Year 2 towards the Chamber of Commerce, with the aim of further strengthening the business community. The CEDC will have a contract with the Chamber, with which it will work closely to help with the delivery of objectives. Ideally, Sharon would like to incorporate Bromley and Lambeth too – for a partnership approach will be essential for gaining access to different funding schemes.

Members welcomed Sharon’s announcement. Ray said that he looks forward to the Chamber working closely with the CEDC.

3.2. George Filbey
George said that, as a local councillor, he has been very active with issues such as College Green and Westow Park. But on 19th October he was informed by Croydon council of allegations of financial impropriety. As a result, the Conservative whip was withdrawn, despite his being convinced that the allegations are false.

George said he will remain an independent councillor until the May 2010 elections, when he might decide to stand as an independent candidate for Upper Norwood. He looks forward to working very hard for Crystal Palace and the Triangle. If members supported him, he would be happy to continue as an activist and ambassador for the Chamber. For he very much wants to continue to contribute to this fantastic community.

Members gave George a round of applause. Ray said that George is an integral part of the Chamber and an ambassador for the Chamber.

4. Presentation: Hannah Bougen “Climbing Mount Sustainability”
Ray introduce the main focus of the evening by saying that the conclusion of his architecture finals’ thesis 40 years ago was that ‘the earth is dying’. He could not write any more and cried. Everything that he has been doing since – including the New Crystal Palace – has been in that context. Forty years on and this thought was now becoming an actual prospect recognized by many. We all need to change in order for the earth as we know it to survive. And he wants Crystal Palace to be an exemplar of how to be sustainable. He welcomed Hannah’s heart, desire and commitment to address the dilemma we face.

Hannah gave a presentation (see Annex) about the challenges of being more sustainable in our business and home lives. For we need to ensure that future generations have the same opportunities as ourselves and that they inherit an environment which gives them access to clean air, clean water and clean food.

The earth’s resources are finite. There is a narrowing funnel between the falling supply of natural resources and our increasing demand for them. We have a choice: either coping with the consequences of our failure to protect the environment or changing the way we live to adapt to the earth’s ability to support us.

For businesses, the wise choice is to become more sustainable. We should take the opportunities of new technologies and innovative approaches. This will get us on the right side of what will increasingly become a legislative and market climate which turns against poor environmental performers and embraces those who look to respect the planet’s ability to support us.

We on our hill in Crystal Palace are fortunate. We have access to plenty of expertise, we have lots of champions among us, we are a strong, creative, diverse and supportive community. We can climb the mountain to be a shining example of how to become more sustainable.

Sue congratulated Hannah on a very well-pitched presentation. George noted how Crystal Palace was once part of the Great North Wood and said how important, globally, it was to stop deforestation and, locally, to plant more trees around the Triangle.

5. Presentation: Alison and Chris Carey “Chris Carey’s Collections”
http://www.chriscareyscollections.co.uk/index.html
Ray gave a warm welcome to Christine Carey and her daughter, Alison, whom he had known for several years through their activities with the Lewisham Chamber of Commerce.

Alison said that Chris Carey’s Collections is a family business, established over 100 years ago in Deptford (when clothing was collected on a horse and cart for the market stall), which has grown to become one of the largest textile recyclers in the UK. It has two textile recycling plants, and employs over 120 people, and has a fleet of twelve vehicles which collect textiles from across southern England. As a result, over 500 tonnes of textile waste are diverted from landfill each month.

Many of the textiles are unsold donations bought from charitable organisations such as St Christopher’s Hospice, Mind and Save the Children. This leads to £1 million of income a year for the charities. Also, the company works with local authorities and waste management companies, collecting, for instance, from recycling centres.

Chris Carey’s Collections place textile recycling banks free of charge in schools and colleges. The schools get paid for every tonne of waste collected. And the firm educates children on recycling; its Banks for Education scheme runs workshops to make cuddly toys, glove puppets and customised tee-shirts.

So what happens to the textiles? 66% are reused as textiles, reworn as clothing throughout the world – including as costumes for film and television. 32% are remanufactured into various products, including felt, mattress fillings, wellington boots and flooring. Just 2% are waste: of this, the natural fibres are fed into an anaerobic digester to make compost and the synthetic fibres are incinerated for energy, with the ash used as a cement substitute.

But there is much more to be done. Each year, the UK generates 2 million tonnes of textile waste of which 1.2 million goes to landfill. Only 16% is recovered for recycling. Ideally, they would like to find a much larger site, where they could invest in recycling to create jobs for local people and provide a new purpose for so much more textile waste.

Sue said that she had visited the company’s centre at Cricket Lane, Beckenham and had been struck by the range of outputs: Versace cloaks for the Tate Modern, blankets and handbags for Selfridges and incredible garments for Goldsmiths’ Fashion Shows. The depot is full of young people and students, with all the clothing sorted by hand – which greatly pushes up the recycling rate.

Ray thanked Chris and Alison for a fascinating and inspirational presentation.

6. Presentation: Michael Fuss “Proper Oils”
http://properoils.co.uk/
film: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7708423.stm

Ray gave a warm welcome to Michael, who has come to give a presentation on another very practical way of becoming more sustainable.

Michael said that he established Proper Oils in April 2007, with the aim of creating a better alternative for waste products. The company collects waste cooking oil for free from over 1,000 caterers in the London area, including 40 in LB Croydon with whom it works in partnership through Envibe.

The cooking oil is taken to a site in Twickenham where it is filtered and decanted. The “good oil” is refined and sold as biodiesel to customers in the public and private sectors. The “bad oil” is rendered down to generate electricity. The refinery can produce over 3,000 litres of biodiesel a day.

Ideally, the company would like to have small refineries throughout London. Each site creates six local jobs, generates £400,000 a year for the local economy and saves over 1,500 tonnes of CO2 a year. So, he encourages local restaurants and take-aways to get in touch (tel. 0845 470 8091, email freecollections@properoils.co.uk) to help us climb Mount Sustainability.

Tim Sharville noted how all too often caterers dispose of waste cooking oil in unsustainable ways. He suggested that greater enforcement would help, perhaps via “The Frying Squad”...

Ray thanked Michael for a really interesting presentation.

7. Any Other Business
• Sonia from Embody and Soul http://embodyandsoul.co.uk/aboutus.aspx said that the Croydon-based company offers holistic health and beauty treatments, delivered to the customer’s door. Where possible, it uses organic and non-toxic products.
• Hannah said that the next edition of The Journal would be published in December. She encouraged members to consider advertising in it, and also to give her any photographs depicting their business or life in Crystal Palace.
• Catherine Shaw said that Cooper’s Yard would be having an open weekend on 21st-22nd November and invited all to come along to her studio. http://www.allboneandtrimit.co.uk/
• Andy said that the next Crystal Palace Festival would be held on 28th November.
• John Greatrex said that there would be a Darwin event in Crystal Palace Park on 22nd November. And on 30th November there would be a commemoration of the 73rd anniversary of the fire.
• Andy gave an update on the Picture Palace Cinema campaign. The Planning Committee meeting would be at Bromley Civic Centre at 7 pm on Thursday 17th December. http://www.campaign.picture-palace.org/

8. Concluding Remarks
Ray said that following Sharon Baldwin’s offer of funding from Croydon, he will be meeting Stephen Carr, the leader of Bromley. He is hopeful that Bromley would be able to provide funding towards the Chamber, and the next step will be to seek money from the third Triangle borough, Lambeth.

Ray said that tonight we have heard how we can all begin to climb up Mount Sustainability. He had started with sharing tears. Crystal Palace, set in the heart of South London, really has the potential to make a difference. Because of the commitment and applied skill of great people like Hannah, Christine, Alison and Mike, tears can become hope for the future.

9. Date of Next Meeting
The Chamber Christmas Party will be held from 7 p.m. on Tuesday 15th December at the Gothic House, 128 Church Road. Food will be provided by the Yak and Yeti Restaurant and musical entertainment by The Effras. Tickets are available at £10 from Sue Nagle, phone 020 8653 8977 or e-mail susy.nagle@tiscali.co.uk.

The next main meeting will be held on Tuesday 19th January 2010. It will feature a speaker from the Crystal Palace Museum on Crystal Palace Commerce: Our Legacy.

Circulation: all members of the Crystal Palace & Norwood Chamber of Commerce


ANNEX: “CLIMBING MOUNT SUSTAINABILITY” – by Hannah Bougen

Climbing Mt Sustainability
Welcome and thanks for coming to this very special and important meeting. Tonight we are going to talk about the most important & pressing issue of our time. - Sustainability.

Sustainability is all about the simple fact that the world and its resources are finite. Yet we are locked into a system based on continual growth. The growth of our population - the growth of our income and our growth of consumption. In short, the way in which we are living right now is unsustainable.

It’s all very real and all very scary however, I’m not about to bang on about ticking doomsday clocks, demand you throw your car in for a bicycle or run a group session on knitting your own jam jars. But this is an issue that affects every single one of us. It can’t be ignored, it won’t go away.

We need to ensure we are equipped with the right information to take the right actions to see us through to the future. This evening has been called Climbing Mount Sustainability. For it is a journey we need to consider taking as individuals, as businesses and as a community.

What is Sustainability?
Sustainability seems like a buzzword at the moment. I’ve even heard it used by the media with regard to the future of a football team.

There are a number or definitions of sustainability.
1) Sustainability can be described as ‘ the ability to be sustained or continue into the indefinite future’;
or this one to ponder on:
2) ‘Being sustainable is about how you would act today if you knew you were going to
live forever’.
Nice and simple really. Nothing complex or scary. It’s not rocket science. It’s just good practice,
common sense. Another good definition, and perhaps the most widely used now is this one:
3) The ability to provide for the needs of the world’s current population without damaging the ability of future generations to provide for themselves.

In considering these definitions two obvious questions spring to mind:

The first being: How can we continue to grow on a finite planet? We are reliant on nature’s resources that have been available to us since the beginning of our time. Resources that in the last 100 years have been depleted so rapidly. Just in my father’s lifetime – (and he’s pushing 60) over half of the world’s oil supply has been diminished.

All this time we (the universal ‘we’) have been acting as if these resources were limitless. As if we can keep taking and taking from the earth. One day there will be no more oil to find. No more limestone to turn into cement. We know oil is a finite resource and yet every year our economy demands more to fuel its growth.

“We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors, we have borrowed it from our children.” - Antoine de Saint Exupery -

The second question is when will we have enough? The consumption driven economy shows no real signs of decline. So many of us are in this ridiculous situation where we go to work, maybe two jobs even, and we come home and we’re exhausted so we collapse down on our new sofa and watch our new flat screen TV and the commercials tell us “You need to make yourself feel better by buying more stuff” so we head to the shops to buy something to feel better, then we have to work to pay for the stuff we’ve just bought so we come home and we’re more tired so we sit down and watch more TV and again it tells you to ‘make yourself feel better, buy more stuff!’ and we’re on this crazy work-watch-spend treadmill and (depending what the purchases are…) we could just stop!

Also on the subject of ‘enough’. There is the ever-increasing issue that only the Chinese and a bunch of environmentalists seem to have the guts to talk about. The global population increase. The increasing human population shares the earth’s resources with other living organisms. With finite resources we are now in the midst of what is being called ‘The sixth extinction’. Living organisms becoming extinct at the rate of 100-1000 times that of natural extinction rates. The five previous periods of extinction occurred in prehistoric times.

BUT – limiting the population is pretty unreasonable and curbing consumption isn’t that feasible either.

We have two options it seems:
1) Deal with the consequences of living in unsustainably in a finite world
Or
2) Confront the problems caused by our actions by trying to live within our means.

It seems that living according to the earth’s ability to support us is the much wiser choice.

So as a start, let’s try to unwrap this idea of ‘sustainability’ tonight by first asking the question:
‘why is sustainability important?’.
We’ll do this by briefly covering the state of the worlds ecological and socio-economic systems. Next we’ll look at a powerful way or metaphor to further illustrate ‘sustainability’ and what that means for business. In doing that you will hopefully see it’s not all doom and gloom for finally we’ll touch on some of the benefits available to business who decide to take on the Mount Sustainability challenge by being proactive.

I will then hand over to our speakers for the evening. Tonight as businesses and individuals, be inspired and encouraged by people carrying out sustainability practices as part of their core business. Businesses that from just what they do - are on their way up Mt Sustainability and through what they do are helping the community toward that goal also.

Why is sustainability important and what does it mean for business?
As we’ve discussed it is simply common sense to sustain our environment, not least because it sustains us. You probably heard or read a variety of reports warning of the current state of the world’s oceans, contamination of our air or other alarming stories about the Earth. Just take the oceans for example. They provide us with 1,000 million tonnes of wild seafood a year – around 140kg for every man woman and child on the earth. Wearing an economist’s hat – to continue making a profit - it makes sense to protect the environment and what it produces.

Another way we could talk about sustainability is that it is essentially a “supply and demand” issue.
• On the one hand, there are problems which have to do with the decreasing SUPPLY of natural resources and the decreasing capacity of the Earth to provide what we call ecosystem services – such as filtering our water, regulating our climate and cleaning our air.
• On the other hand, we are also faced with clearly increasing DEMAND for those natural resources and ecosystem services. The concept of ecological footprint, which measures how much land and water area a human population uses, is one of the ways used to communicate this. Our planetary impact, (ecological footprint) per person in the UK is 5.4 global hectares (and if you’re wondering - global hectares are pretty much equivalent to a normal hectare). If the UK’s footprint was to be distributed evenly among the global population, the UK is currently overshooting that by a factor of three. In other words - if everyone lived like we do in the UK, we would need three more planets to support out current lifestyles. And guess what? – we’ve only got one.

We touched on population briefly but to put some figures around it the global population grows by approximately 78 million people every year. We are currently sitting at about 6.8 billion and by 2012 we’re set to stampede through the 7 billion mark. It is estimated that the world population in 2050 will be 9.1 billion - a rise of 6.6 billion in 100 years.

Not only are there more people, each one of us uses a lot more resources than we used to. Consider the consumption of these products in the 1950s to what we use now:
• Wood and wood products
• Fish
• Grain and grain products
• Liquid fuel
• Water

If we take a number of issues we are facing, we can (with a little difficulty) categorize them into ether a supply issue, or a demand issue:
Supply
• Freshwater Supplies
• Biodiversity
• Fisheries
• Decline of Frontier Forests
• Coral Reefs
• Desertification
Demand
• Population
• Consumption of Coal
• Water Consumption
• Consumption of Coal
• Poverty
• Climate Change
• Waste Electronics
• Pesticides in Humans
• Paper & Wood Consumption

So with our increasing demand for these things and the decreasing supply of them, the current situation of people on Earth can be viewed as a funnel with ever-diminishing room to manoeuvre. Life-support systems for our continued existence on the planet—those providing clean air, clean water, and clean food—are in decline. This reality increasingly backed by fact is harder and harder to ignore. At the same time, global population and global demand for the Earth’s resources and services are increasing.

In the quest for our own good health, welfare and economic prosperity, we are systematically
destroying the system that we, as humans, are completely dependent upon – nature.

So how much time do we have to turn things around? Fifty years? Maybe more? Maybe less than a few generations before the walls of the funnel finally close? No one can know for sure how much time we have. But in 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists, numbering some 2,000 including more than 100 Nobel Laureates, told us that we had “one to a few decades” to reverse course. It has taken billions of years for life to evolve on Earth, yet the damage we’ve done has happened in a relative blink of an eye.

We have little choice but to heed the warnings. If we don’t want to leave Earth to hardy weeds and insects, we must ensure that the neck of the funnel remains open. There are many additional rewards awaiting organizations and communities who navigate to the centre of the funnel. This is what we’ll consider now.

What does it mean for business?
The funnel is all about unsustainable consumption. Its constricting walls and decreasing room to manoeuvre helps us see the basic flaws in our society, now and into the future. Every organization and community in the world demonstrates their grasp of these problems by the direction they’re moving in. They’re either ignoring the problem or proactively being part of the solution.

For those that are ignoring the problem, the narrowing walls of the funnel imply big risks. Increasing resource and waste management costs, and growing public demand for better social and environmental performance, could have dramatic and unpredictable consequences. Some will even “hit the walls of the funnel,” in the form of consumer boycotts, loss of reputation, skyrocketing legal bills, or maybe just being on the wrong side of new laws. Even organizations and communities that are seemingly not performing worse over time, will for the most part hit the wall in the future. The walls are closing in on everyone. That’s why it’s so important to start investing in sustainability NOW. The longer we wait to plan for change, the more constraints we will face over time, and the fewer options we will have.

But it’s not all about avoiding catastrophe. Making proactive investments towards the opening of the funnel allows an organization or community to reap huge strategic benefits, to seize new opportunities.

What does the funnel mean for your business or Crystal Palace as a community?

Benefits and reasons why sustainability should be considered as not just fundamental but strategic. These benefits are strategic, they don’t just make good business sense or state the obvious like 'being an ethical business or community’ or ‘reducing risk’, they are strategies that if taken on could put you ahead of competition and save you some unnecessary costs down the line.
• Avoiding increasing costs for resources or waste management. Finite resources = increased cost;
• Staying ahead of new environmental laws and taxes. Legislation – because we have no choice;
• Strengthening reputation, customer loyalty and stakeholder relations. The awareness of environmental changes such as climate change, land use and energy demand is now significant throughout the world;
• Employee retention and productivity / citizen engagement and participation;
• Expectation - The business community is expected to take a leadership role as good
corporate citizens;
• New revenue opportunities and increased market share – it’s an exciting time to be innovative! ‘the size of the problem = the size of the opportunity’.

From this we can conclude that not only does sustainability make good business sense. It can
open up new strategic pathways to put your business ahead.

So with the view that there is really no other way and that business should rise up to meet this challenge – let’s take a quick look at Crystal Palace and our journey up Mount Sustainability:
• We are advantaged: We’re HIGH UP. We’re on a hill already. And at least all that cleaner air might mean clearer heads as we muddle through all of this. We also don’t need to be too concerned with flooding!

But seriously we have other things on our side: Sustainability is now central to the plans of local and wider authorities. It is right up there on their agendas and for good reason too. But because of this there is increasing support available. And being central to five boroughs and given the relationships we are forming at the moment, we can tap into all the support offered throughout:
• ENVIBE –a local programme offering free hands on support and advice to businesses looking to increase their environmental performance: www.envibe.co.uk
• ENVIROWISE - national programme offering free independent advice to business on how to reduce waste and increase profits: http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/
• CEN – a not for profit energy agency providing impartial advice and support to small and medium sized organisations looking to reduce energy costs and help protect the environment. Contact CEN through energy@envibe.co.uk
• GREEN PROCUREMENT - Run by London Remade, the Mayor’s Green Procurement Code helps organisations across the Capital specify, source and procure recycled and sustainable products and materials. For more information contact procurement@envibe.co.uk
and many more.

We have mediums through which success can be celebrated such as the Chamber Journal, the
Transmitter, Crystal Palace Local, Virtual Norwood and local papers. That’s just currently and that’s not all of them.

We have champions already amongst us that are helping the community Climb Mt Sustainability
through their business activities. As Chamber members we have people that:
• are transport network experts
• conduct land toxicity testing
• recycle clothing, furniture and treasures
• provide skill swapping forums
• are quantity surveyors
• provide healthy, nutritious food
And we have the markets of which you are all a part of, but these also give the local community the chance to sell their produce and exhibit their crafts.

Clearly our best asset are the people that make Crystal Palace what it is. Our willingness to share, encourage, enjoy and celebrate the values that are so important to us as a community and to us as individuals. We have a long way to go UP, but together we can give it a good shot. Crystal Palace for all its inhabitants and all its potential could indeed be that shining example.