My wife and I spent Saturday at this conference at Oxford Brookes University, which was called by Oxford Inspires working with the Environmental Change Institute of Oxford University and the Environmental Information Exchange of Brookes University, 'generously supported' by the County Council. We felt it might be helpful, not least since it seemed to be a most useful day all round, if I jotted down some indication of the contents and 'results'. So here goes - please read this as one man's personal attempt to record the things that struck me as valuable and important.

We must have been a little over 100 people, almost all professionally involved in some way, with a strong emphasis on people involved with the 2 universities and with the County Council. It was an undoubtedly impressive gathering, with a great deal of expertise and know-how around. It was also unusually well arranged, with a pair of lively musicians striking up again and again in the 'free moments' and a most intriguing and tasty service of local / organic foods at lunch and the other breaks.

1. Richard Dudding, Director for Environment and Economy in the County Council, was lively and critical in offering an overall survey of how well our county was doing. From a current project 'Understanding Oxfordshire' he had a number of very useful maps which give comparative colour readings for how well different wards in the county are doing in relation to Health, Employment, Education, etc. Striking that while we are a leading county in many ways, not least in wealth and employment, the educational results in our schools are less than the average for England (and a question about the effect of the high proportion of pupils in fee-paying schools didn't seem to be accepted as the 'main' reason why this should be so). So Richard was deliberately encouraging us all to press further in working on the environmental needs and opportunities.

2. Brenda Boardman of the Environmental Change Institute in Oxford University gave a hard-hitting exposition of the project: 'The 40% house', i.e. what needs to be done for the housing in this county to reach the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2050. She and her colleagues have obviously done a huge amount of work on the many aspects of this challenge (recorded in a four-page summary leaflet on our chairs, and in the book: 40% House, of which she was giving out copies to several of us who showed an interest). Among other things she touched on just how many houses we will be needing for how large a population over the next 45 years (all full of tricky questions of how to measure, let alone how to plan for the increase needed). One thing she stressed has to do with the fact that so many of the houses we occupy (e.g. the one I am writing from!) were built before much heat-saving was in view, so that it might be appropriate to increase the rate of demolition and rebuilding enormously! Hardly likely to be welcome. She also emphasised that we may well need many more smaller houses for single people, and to encourage the elderly to move into something like sheltered accommodation in good time rather than hang on to whole houses that emit more than their fair share. In respect of the challenge to reduce the emissions very sharply, she suggested it might be possible to get there, but only by far, far greater awareness of the necessity to be working towards that, starting from NOW!

3. Robin Buxton, chairman of the Oxfordshire Nature Conservation Forum (ONCF), used the experience of that body to point out various things that helped to make it a singularly successful network for mutual information, mutual encouragement and the reaching of shared decisions about priorities and methods. As a person who has spent virtually all my life in precisely that sort of goodwill-based forum / network structure, I found this sensible if not particularly striking, but it was interesting how many others referred to it later in the day as particularly meaningful for them.

4. Robin Murray, now attached to the Design Council's Innovation Unit on Zero Waste, after service in the same field in Canada, was for me the most inspiring and educative speaker of the day. He laid out for us, and clearly had plenty of actual experience from which to do so, a policy of Zero Waste - seeing Waste as 'not a problem but a resource'. This is not just 'another good idea' he said, rather a 'fundamental change of system' in our thinking and our acting. He began by suggesting: 'there is nothing like the idea of incinerating large quantities of waste to get people inspired and energised', even if it remains a very bad idea actually to install it! He evidently thought that this argument is likely to crop up in this county too! He then stressed that it is less sensible to focus on targets (for the reduction of waste sent to landfill) than on how we can make positive use of precisely everything we tend to throw away. And this no less in regard to business waste (something like 75% of the whole) than in regard to domestic. He laid out 5 principles:

e) a flexible, open, and decentralised system. In waste - and, I would guess, in many other connections - he is pleading for a far more local, small-scale approach which can deal with things without getting involved in the massive administrative / transport / accounting (etc.) dimensions of so many of our huge 'business' systems, from Tesco to national government.

He insisted that he was not only speaking of domestic waste. One of his 'models' was precisely the new Toyota factory in Derbyshire, where he said they were down to a level of 3% waste, and regarded most of that as indicating that their suppliers were not sufficiently taking into account the re-use of the materials involved in what they were supplying!

5. Rebecca Willis, listed as Associate Director of the Green Alliance, yet who was introduced (I hope I recorded correctly) as 'from Whitehall', said she was there 'to give you the energy solutions' - 'where Brenda meets Robin'! She went on to talk also very factually and encouragingly about 'micro-solutions', not least micro-generators in each and every house and office - whether solar panels, wind generators on a school roof, or micro-combined heat and power systems (we were shown pictures of these in situ, including the last looking no bigger than a household fridge under a work-top as you will see in any tolerably modern kitchen!). She stressed not least that the cost of such energy sources, spread out over hundreds and thousands of houses, is still tiny in comparison to the cost to the public purse of huge power stations, oil or gas-based or nuclear, let alone far more successful in getting us all aware of our own challenges and responsibilities to do with heat and energy and greenhouse gas emissions. She also gave us a handy list of possibilities to explore:

f) It is urgent to decentralise our total energy system far more than we yet have - this speaks volumes against any recourse to nuclear energy, which by definition has to be horribly big, protected, centralised, etc. (Robin Buxton spoke up for the presence in this county of the work being done towards producing energy from nuclear FUSION, but Rebecca appealed that we be not sidetracked by any promise held out from that!)

In a further comment on this speech, Sue Roaf, of Brookes University, and the person who is widely known for having built her own house in N. Oxford with its own energy supplies, announced that in 2006 Oxford is to host an international conference for 'Solar Cities' in which some 50 major cities from around the world will be sharing and networking their various attempts at local energy-sourcing (April 3-6, 2006 - see website: www.solarcities.org.uk)

6. Adam Twine, a farmer from near Faringdon, told the story of his plan to build a wind-farm, first conceived and worked on with friends in 1991, and of the long, long struggle with the planning system and authorities that is still by no means over! His basic rationale was and remains to do what he could with the wind power available on his own farmland to avoid the destruction of up to a quarter of all the species at present living on this planet by the climate change that is now threatening us all. This was a moving and enlightening account, with much stress on the way the media seize on a 'favourite' 'cause' while all the time emphasising those aspects of it which suit their purposes of 'controversy' and 'yet more copies to be sold, yet more money to be made'. See Energy4All

7. Elizabeth Wilson, of Brookes' Environmental Planning Dept. emphasised the appropriate processes for thinking out what most needed to be achieved, and then acting towards it in shared conviction and shared ways. (I guess we had mostly had enough of speeches by this point, but she was entirely sensible!)

Then we went off into relatively small groups (perhaps because some were starting to slope away by 2.30) - all to work on the two leading questions: what are we going to do differently? and: how are we going to do it? In mine we worked really rather purposefully for the half hour we had, perhaps not exactly saying more than we had heard already, but certainly making much of it, above all the goal of Zero Waste, our own.

2. 'Can our schools do a Jamie Oliver on their environmental footprints?' e.g. by putting a wind turbine on their roof, or initiating a green-purchasing scheme for all they buy in, by no means only their food? He looked for the day when teenagers could serve as environmental managers of their own schools.

b) in regard to Oxfordshire's zero waste strategy, groups had wondered about a 'centre for sustainable excellence', about training for elected members of county and district councils in this whole field; as about training for house builders and all people concerned with housing so that no more sub-standard houses are ever built again !

5. He felt the day had been an encouraging example of people motivating themselves and one another for long-range tasks. He was personally delighted that Oxford Inspires had broken beyond the 'cultural' field in which it was normally expected to operate into another no less exciting and important area of work. It was clear to us all that some far-reaching 'paradigm shifts' are necessary, indeed he said he couldn't help contrasting the day's long-range discussions with the short-termism that seemed to be dominating the current electioneering.

In the closing minutes various other things were mentioned. Sue Roaf, for example, invited anyone interested in eco-housing to 'come to tea' on 28th May. Also those concerned for eco-purchasing to come to Brookes on June 9th at 4.30, for a meeting with the local authorities and the two universities to see how this could be done even more efficiently and imaginatively than at present. But I think - and hope - that I have at least indicated the main content of the day.