“It ain’t just a techno fix. It’s not just about shifting an energy system into renewables. it’s not just about shifting from fossil fuels to green energy. It is actually about reimagining how so many of these systems can and should work… The size of the solutions have to fit the size of the problems. If what needs to be done doesn’t fit within commercial and political realities, then we have to change those realities.” ~ Ed Gillespie
E59 ED GILLESPIE ON GOING BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY, NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND SYSTEMS CHANGE
BUILDING A BRIGHT GREEN FUTURE: HANDICRAFT AND SPACECRAFT
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About this interview:
What innovation is needed now to steer us towards a beautiful future?
In this episode Amisha sits down with environmental entrepreneur and author, Ed Gillespie. As a twenty year veteran of the sustainability movement, Ed shares his perspective on where we stand today with regard to climate crisis and the sustainability of our major systems, examples of what has already been achieved and is already being done to change things for the better, and where he is placing his energy now to support that transition.
Ed shares with us some of the projects he has worked on in the past and is supporting today, which are harnessing the dual forces of “handicraft and spacecraft” to create more intelligent, sustainable processes and systems to support human life.
Together Ed and Amisha discuss ‘flight shaming’ and slow travel, little robot farmers called Tom, Dick and Harry, and the end of our civilisation. They speak about how and why the Extinction Rebellion movement is finding success where others have not, redressing the pressure imbalance between individual citizens and the behaviour of governments and businesses, and how we might remember and reconnect to create a fertile, fun-filled future for our planet.
“This civilisation is finished, but it might birth something else very interesting. Either we wriggle through on the cliff edge, or we totally fall apart, or something is born out of where we are right now which can be very beautiful. It will not be about material stuff, it will be about connection and relationship, and that will be with each other and with the land on which we live.” ~ Ed Gillespie
Ed Gillespie is a writer, communications specialist, serial entrepreneur and futurist. He is the author of ‘Only Planet – a flight-free adventure around the world’ a book about his circumnavigation of the globe without getting on a plane. Ed’s core talent is to take the complex, interconnected, interdependent nature of the many challenges the world faces, from climate change to disruptive innovation, and make common sense of them for non-specialist audiences.
Ed is co-founder of Futerra, a change agency that specialises in business transformation and creative communications and campaigns. For the last fourteen years Futerra has become internationally renowned for it’s influential and award-winning work on some of the biggest corporate sustainability initiatives, from Unilever’s ‘Sustainable Living Plan’, through Mondelez’s ‘Coffee Made Happy’ to SAB Miller’s ‘Prosper’. Ed is also actively involved in a number of pioneering businesses as a Director or Investor, from Zero Carbon Food, a renewable energy powered, LED-lit, hydroponic farm in a disused underground tunnel in South London, to Loco2.com a pan European rail-ticket agency that makes it as easy to book a trans-continental train as a plane. He is also a London Sustainable Development Commissioner, advising the Mayor and the Greater London Authority on green entrepreneurship and clean-tech.
To find out more about Ed, visit www.onlyplanet.co.uk
To connect or work with Amisha, visit www.amisha.co.uk
Links from this episode:
Werner Herzog film about the internet
Alex Steffen on Predatory Delay
Jonathan Haidt – The Righteous Mind
The Future Is Beautiful Patron Video Circle
The Future Is Beautiful book (gift)
Amisha’s Presence Mentoring Programme
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