Beat the Winter Blues by Going Green!
Welcome to the Future Economy Network's February update! The team has once again been busy this month; organising events, securing partners for our Festival of Sustainable Business and welcoming new team members. These activities amongst others, have helped us all beat those winter blues...in effect, we are beating the blues by going green!
Since our last newsletter, the team has organised 5 events; Decentralised Energy Systems (Part 2), Business models for Sustainability, Emerging Clean Tech, The B-Corp Journey and Sustainability Success Stories, which ensured an enormous 474 attendees this month were acquiring new sustainability knowledge and networking opportunities!
We were also delighted to announce that Brunel Group will be partnering with us again this year as one of our headline sponsors at the Festival of Sustainable Business, taking place on 1st October 2020. Many thanks to Brunel Group for your continued support, the team looks forward to working with you in the coming months!
This month also saw us welcoming two new members to the team; Fenna, who is overseeing our retail, event, cafe and co-working space and Tom, who is sorting all things operational within Future Leap; our sustainable business hub. Both Fenna and Tom are a huge asset to the team and we are loving working with them both.
Finally, although the above is all very positive stuff and has certainly helped us beat those winter blues, we thought it would be useful to share other techniques that we have put in place during these slightly dreary February days. Could your workplace consider some of these too?
The team vocalises a daily gratitude (or moan, or both!) every morning. This can be as minor as having a really nice bus journey in or can be more meaningful, such as insights from a recent sustainability talk.
The team ensures to have at least 30 minutes of health and wellbeing activities during their lunch break. So far, we have gone jogging, done aerobics, gone for lunch together, done some knitting, practiced yoga, played card monopoly, enjoyed exchanging our unwanted xmas presents in 'the parcel game' and carried out some mental health workshops.
We've installed a green wall and many plants in the Hub, all using recycled plant pots and planted in peat free soil.
We have invited our chosen charities to deliver talks to the team so we better understand their remit and can more effectively support their good causes.
We have organised a Health and Wellbeing event in recognition of the need to address eco-anxiety.
Let us know if you do anything within your workplace which aids the sustainability of your team, as we might be able to adopt these too! Until next time, here's to fighting the blues by going green!
Katherine Piper
Director of The Future Economy Network