One Planet Living - 7. Sustainable Food

Green Centre SUSTAINABLE FOOD actions

1. Local actions
Our starting point was to identify some simple ideas to include in our work on a daily basis:

• to eat plant based and seasonal
• to buy local and loose
• to buy organic

In an effort to further our understanding about sustainable food we have engaged with Brighton and Hove Food Partnership:

• in 2006 we participated in the Grow Your Neighbours Own scheme by sharing the Green Centre garden with local gardeners.
• we developed a long and fruitful collaboration with the Craven Vale Children's Allotment sharing resources, running workshops and team building days. 
• we explored square food gardening and companion planting and grew potatoes, onions, carrots, courgettes, squash, salad leaves, cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries (red and white), apples and a variety of herbs. 
• we grew Comfrey to make plant food and introduced three different kinds of composting; cold composting, hot composting and a wormery.
• we installed a sophisticated rainwater harvesting system which included a 750 litre tank and additional smaller tanks.
• we ran food growing workshops for the local community and founded the Mile of Potatoes, a city wide growing project. 

2. National actions
On a national level we have focused our efforts on food waste:

• we engaged with The Real Junk Food Project to highlight the fight against food waste.
• we supported The Real Junk Food Project Brighton in their efforts to set up a community cafe by providing kitchen equipment, crockery, etc.
• we support and raise awareness of a plant based diet through Meat Free Monday and National Vegetarian Week.

3. Global actions
We are mindful of issues related to food security across the globe and focus our efforts on encouraging people to adopt a more sustainable plant based diet:

• we support and raise awareness of World Vegetarian Day
• we support and raise awarenes of World Vegan Day and World Vegan Month.