The last 12 months have been extraordinary on a Global level – which has unfortunately meant we weren’t able to accomplish as much as we’d hoped but looking back, it’s great to reflect on how much we’ve been able to do despite the various lockdowns.

Sustainable Development Goals

After our last AGM We decided as a team that we could work towards aligning with 3 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) as part of the decade of action and help to spread awareness of this important framework for the #DecadeOfAction

• SDG 12:  Responsible consumption and production:  Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns – awareness and pass it on events
• SDG 13:  Climate action:  Take urgent action to combat climate change and it’s impacts (includes Plastics due to fossil fuel) – Partnerships and communication
• SDG 15:  Life on Land:  Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss – promoting events which support these areas

Virtual Events

The team, especially Cath have done a great job of bringing together virtual topics of interest for the community with interesting information and ideas which support our efforts towards the Sustainable Development Goals

• SDG 15:  Life on Land
  • Helping Hedgehogs Hibernate – September
  • Providing for Pollinators – October
  • Selecting and Planting Garden Trees – March
• SDG 13:  Climate Action
  • Electric Vehicle Forum – November
  • How can we heat our homes without gas – May
• SDG 12:  Responsible consumption and production
  • Ethical Pensions – April

Pass it on

While in person events haven’t been possible Susanne was able to take our Pass it on events into the virtual world – setting up and moderating our TF10 “Virtual Pass it On” group.  This has helped our work on SDG 12 by helping improve Reuse and Rehoming to discourage waste.

Plastic Free Newport

We weren’t able to hold any events over the last year and are at risk of losing our “Active” (Single Use) Plastic Free Community status over the next few months to expand our Allies and Plastic Free Business’s.  Sadly some of our Plastic Free or Cup scheme businesses haven’t survived the last 12 months but we have made some recent progress.  Covid has also unfortunately led to many people being hesitant about reusables though scientists have proven they’re safe – and we’re therefore backing the campaign #ReturnToRefill

• Cup Scheme:  “Box of Goodness” joined us in May as a new Newport Cup partner.  They’ve also got great potential to be a Refill point and Plastic Free business so we look forward to developing our relationship.
  • 236 Cups out in the community and 727 in stock
• Pint Scheme:  While we didn’t have any community events to use the hire scheme, “The Honeysuckle Inn” took delivery of another 100 reusable pint glasses this year for their customers to use
  • 312 Pints out in the community and 588 in stock
  • We were also able to secure funding for some half pints thanks to donations from the Councillors pride fund from Cllr Janke and Cllr Nelson of £200 – so we now have 300 in stock
• Refill Scheme:  Over the course of 2021 City to Sea have been busy making changes to the App which can now show places which will accept your reusable coffee cup (as well as cup deposit schemes like ours), fountains and Plastic Free Shopping.
  • “The Emporium of the useful and curious” are the first plastic free shopping location to be listed for Newport
  • World Refill day is back so we’ve been donated reusable coffee cups by “Costa” on Newport High Street for our competition this year which is on June 16^th
• Collaborations
  • Simone has been representing Sustainable Newport as well as Telford in meetings with Shropshire Against Pointless Plastic
  • Simone has been representing Sustainable Newport in the Telford Plastic Free communities taskforce which Susanne has also been very influential in representing Hollinswood primary

Telford Climate Change Partnership

Sustainable Newport has been represented at the Climate Change partnership by Cath Edwards, and Susanne has also been making an impact representing Hollinswood Primary and helping to drive a new workshop through the schools in the borough.

Other Events

In the June Half Term Heather and her daughter kindly represented Sustainable Newport in running an event at “The Hub” – helping children to make homes for insects reusing Loo Rolls and other items. 

Summary

Overall despite a challenging year we’ve made some good progress on some crucial areas, and we look forward to growing our impact over the next year – working with some of the amazing new business’s and other allys from across our town, borough and country.  I want to give a big thankyou to all the committee and supporters for continuing to support our work and share the work we’re doing.  I’ve got more optimism on the progress which can be made across the board as we head towards COP 26 in November and beyond.

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