Bristol Green Capital: success or flop?

Standing in front of six rows of primary school children sitting mesmerised in assembly, Martin Kiszko, 57, punches the sky triumphantly and screams: “poo power”.

A wall-of-sound echo returns as the children join in unison to mimic the long-haired performer, their tiny voices trailing off into murmurs of laughter as their teachers look on with brave smiles.

Martin, the Bristol 2015 European Green Capital poet in residence, is on one of his last rounds of entertaining youngsters and spreading the word – mostly through toilet humour – about all things green, including buses powered by human excrement.

“If I could at the very least transform how one child thinks about the environment and he or she grows up to be the prime minister then, job done,” he tells me, rather ambitiously in the hall of St Teresa’s Catholic Primary School, Monks Park, as he packs away his props.

Martin sits at one end of the spectrum of a debate about the Green Capital year which has been rumbling away since a large part of the total of £8.2 million of government and council funding was first allocated in late 2014.

As a performance artist he has been scoffed at by critics who are still livid at the number of arts projects in comparison to practical green solutions which found their way to a share of the £1.35 million dished out in Strategic Grants.

It’s a debate that took an early scalp in the form of one of the mayor’s cabinet members who resigned after telling an urban farmer to fuck off. A debate that reared its ugly head again toward the end of the 2015 programme to the unveiling of a singing tree which was supposed to be powered by its falling nuts.

But as the city finally prepares to hand on the green baton – to Ljubljana, in Slovenia – and the dust settles, is it fair to call it a flop?

Over in a tiny corner of St Philip’s Marsh lies a small bit of wasteland under the swinging cranes of the rising Bristol Arena project just across the river. Behind the padlocked doors of the small site, two shipping containers sit with the words “Grow Bristol” on them.

It’s here that we are greeted by Pete Whiting, a man who thinks he might hold the key to sustainable living through innovative urban farming methods.

“We want to grow food here – micro-greens, herbs and salads – and sell it locally and make a case in order to scale it up to a food production which will eventually employ six or seven people and help feed Bristol,” he says.

Funded by £20,000 from the Green Capital pot, Pete and business partner Dermot O’Regan are building an experiment in aquaponics – fish-powered food production.

Through a complex system of filters, pumps and pipes, water is fertilized by fish and run past the roots of plants before returning to the tanks where the fish live.

The set-up creates a mini ecosystem that is low cost, sustainable and has next to zero “food miles”. The plants are grown to eat in six-week cycles and the fish also end up on the plate.

“It’s about food meters, not food miles here. It’s about being locally grown, not locally sourced,” Pete explains enthusiastically as a volunteer student screws in the fixings of the special LED hanging grow lights.

“We want a food production business right here in the heart of Bristol where we can grow sustainable and fresh food for the city,” he adds.

Of course, as with many Green Capital projects, this is just an experiment and an example. It will soon be open to the public for them to pop in, see and learn, Pete hopes.

“We’ve toured around Bristol with a little model already,” he says. “People come to us and ask what use it is and we explain to them that the industrial food system is broken and it’s damaging the environment and it’s not resilient to climate change in the future. Then the people are like ‘ahh, OK’.

“This understanding what we want to build on through a dialogue about the future of urban farming.”

Almost a stone’s throw from Grow Bristol on what is becoming Arena Island is the former site where dreams of urban farming are already a reality.

But the difference here is that the Severn Project, which produces food for grocers and Michelin-starred restaurants around Bristol, didn’t get the money they bid for from the Green Capital to scale up production.

At the time, this led to a rather heated debate between outspoken owner Steve Glover and the then-member of George Ferguson’s cabinet member Gus Hoyt which led to Hoyt’s resignation for swearing in a leaked text message.

Glover has been critical of the Green Capital project since, taking a particularly vicious swipe at the TreeSong project by the Bristol Ensemble – the tree that failed to produce music from falling nuts.

“Generally, fruit falling from a tree symbolises waste. And this is a complete waste. Of public money,” he said when the news broke that TreeSong had no nuts.

He compared the project to others which he claimed failed to meet their targets, adding: “And many people from Bristol are still completely unaware of what Green Capital is.”

This is a point that Martin, our poet back at the school, has a theory about. Sheepishly he tells me: “In all my work around the city I’ve tried to engage with a lot of people. I have to say only about 60 per cent know it is the year of Green Capital.”

Down in the sunken underpass of the Bearpit, work is underway to spread the word a little further. Shipping containers – bought by the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC) through a £50,000 Green Capital grant – have been lifted into the centre of the roundabout.

The containers here will soon open up as a stage for performances, music, theatre and exhibitions.

Pitched as way to “encourage local artists to debate green issues”, the project aims to engage people about the kinds of issues the Green Capital are trying to promote.

Although Chris Chalkley, PRSC’s founder, says this latest edition to the Bearpit is just a contribution to the on-going debate he has been spreading through public art all around the area for years.

“It’s part of a holistic approach,” he says. “Grant money like this comes to projects like this really rarely. We see it more as some capital to generate more of what we’ve already been doing.”

He says the money and shipping containers will build on establishing an independent, thought-provoking “self-regulating” area – “a space for everybody, by everybody”.

Chalkley stands directly under a massive cube emblazoned with climate change messages that bear down on the circling rush hour traffic. He’s been offered £40,000 to put genuine advertising here, but has – politely, I’m sure – declined the offer.

Looking down at the new performance space below – an “urban Minac”, as he calls it – he’s adamant it will help create a green legacy which will live on.

“Build it and they will come,” he says, before reminding us that “green issues don’t finish at the end of 2015. Green issues aren’t just for one year.”

One of the projects which it is hoped will also have a lasting legacy are the planters being installed in the Bearpit and around the city by Incredible Edible.

If you’ve spent time anywhere near the city centre over the past year, you will probably have noticed the “urban growing trail” of miniature vegetable gardens which Incredible Edible hopes will “inspire and educate” and also “provide free food for people and pollinators”.

But it is behind the scenes where perhaps the more impressive work is being done by Incredible Edible. Through a separate, joint £43,880 grant with Fare Share, the company is in the early stages of developing a way of redistributing food destined for the bins.

They have set up Food Route, a service where “suppliers” – like cafes and restaurants – can send a text message of what they are about to throw away as waste.

This is then relayed to dozens of “receivers” – like homeless shelters and community organisations – looking to save money and the food is picked up and put to good use, feeding the hungry and saving landfill space.

“It’s a very local way of dealing with an issue of waste which is completely international,” Sara Venn says as she rushes between meetings. “It’s very simple, but some of the best solutions are,” she adds.

The Food Route project is one of many projects bubbling away quietly in the background of the Europe’s Green Capital. “There are a lot of good things happening under the surface,” says Traci Lewis, an independent sustainability consultant who has been keeping a close eye on the whole Green Capital year.

“I think overall it has been a success. I have heard quite a bit of criticism. But you have got to take the long-term perspective. A lot of it is about expectations.

“People will be disappointed if they expected to see all-singing, all-dancing new infrastructure projects or transport systems.”

She points out that as well as the Green Capital grants which were dished out, the Bristol 2015 organisation has been teaming up with sponsors and creating networks through business and public projects.

Bristol Energy, a newly-established municipal energy company which hopes to offer cheap fuel to low-income homes, is one of many that has benefited. And the council has been working with schools to implement its one tree per child project which will see 36,000 children plant a tree each.

However, not all of the council’s spin-off projects have gone to plan. Warm Up Bristol, a £60 million, four-year home insulation project launched in 2014, which has adopted the Bristol 2015 logo, was thrown into chaos last summer when contractors went bust, leaving homes half finished.

But then you have the so-called “poo bus”, running on human excrement gas, which was launched on the “number 2” route, gaining national headlines and most importantly getting people talking. It is hoped 100 similar buses will be introduced next year following the successful trial.

Another person who should be well placed to make a judgement on how the year has gone is the leader of the Green group of councillors, Ani Stafford-Townsend. She says Bristol has lived up to its title as European Green Capital, no matter what the critics say.

Among other things she points to the 850 local organisations who have come together to commit to follow through with the green agenda. She also notes the unprecedented political cooperation.

“All four party groups have now publicly endorsed a zero emissions goal by 2050 for the city. The climate change negotiations in Paris the city was central to the local government presence.

“All of this is not because we have solved all the problems and have all the answers, but because we are actively engaged and known for wanting to improve,” she says.

She believes the £1.5 million of council investment is good value for the city and has helped attract further government money and sponsorship which has been put on the right route for a more sustainable future.

“An awful lot of the real good that has been done with the money hasn’t been visible. There’s going to be a follow on effect for several years as inwards investment and tourism flow into Bristol – all uncounted but most likely,” she adds.

Traci is thinking along the same lines. “People have got to remember that this is a platform,” she says of the Green Capital year. “In many ways this whole year is about behavioural change. It’s about building slowly for the future.”

The very foundations upon which that future will be built are being tested in the assembly hall of the school in Monks Park, where some children have been ordered to wait in silence after the excitement of toilet humour got the better of them.

“I think the green messages definitely are sinking in,” says the poet in residence as the children finally file back to their classrooms, still sniggering amongst themselves.

“The feedback from teachers say how the kids have been writing their own material or have been captivated and are revisiting the issues. I really do think it’s making a significant contribution, but it’s doing it through poo power and humour, of course.”

Top picture from from Darren Shepherd