sustainable living

Saturday 27th March 2010 saw the Moss Side launch event of the Carbon Co-op, a new low-carbon social enterprise based in South Manchester. Founded by local residents, the Carbon Co-op aims to bring together friends, neighbours and communities in a bulk buying co-operative, purchasing low carbon technologies, from energy monitors to solar panels, at discount.

The new social enterprise aims to bring green jobs and help Manchester meet its ambitious carbon reduction targets.Read more

Growing Manchester is a new programme to support community growing projects in the city to become more sustainable in the long term and covers a wide range of issues such as maintaining soil fertility, your legal responsibilities, micro-trading and involving more people. The Programme offers a unique package of support including:Read more

Kindling has secured financial support to explore opportunities to increase 'low-carbon' food in Manchester via school meals, complimenting the city's Climate Change Action Plan, Manchester; A Certain Future.Read more

Kindling has been working with South Manchester Carbon Co-op in preparation to pilot this unique initiative on two streets in Rusholme, South Manchester. Our role has been to develop the carbon co-op manual - giving top energy-saving tips; money-saving offers on things like insulation, car sharing schemes, energy saving appliances; and examples of the amazing things that other communities have done to reduce their carbon emissions and energy bills.Read more

As part of the FeedingManchester events we have collectively been working on a definition of sustainable food. This is to ensure that any future action to green Manchester addresses our unsustainable food system, as well as being the foundation for the growing sustainable food movement in Greater Manchester.Read more

Kindling & the Carbon Co-op have organised a social evening for people involved in community energy projects in the Manchester area for Friday 19th February 2010.

"We thought it would be beneficial to organise a get together for all those of us involved in community renewable projects, be that: water turbine co-operatives; bio-mass and woodland management enterprises; waste-to-energy projects, solar energy collectives or those involved in community-focused action on insulation and energy efficiency".Read more

On Valentine’s Day 2009, Kindling launched its pocket-sized seasonal food calendar "The time is ripe", produced with the support of the Local Food Fund. The booklet and accompanying website aims to make the process of shopping for locally produced, seasonal fruit and vegetables easier. Alongside the seasonal food calendar are details of where to buy local, seasonal produce in Manchester as well as tips on selection and storage.Read more

We were very pleased to host Vicki Cooke, Seed Officer at the Heritage Seed Library, for seed saving workshops at allotment sites in both Levenshulme and Old Trafford.

The two workshops involved over twenty allotment holders and introduced the benefits of saving seeds from your successful plants, the basics of pollination and how different plants are pollinated in different ways and finally how to harvest suitable seeds.

For further information visit the seed saving gallery.