INTERVIEW
Pooran Desai, BioRegional
‘
There is a science
of happiness
Pooran Desai, founding director of leading sustainable development charity BioRegional,
thinks government policy lacks clarity of leadership. And, he says, most people think the
Code for Sustainable Homes is a real mess. Erik Jaques reports
P
ooran Desai, founding director of the majority of health problems are caused by
entrepreneurial sustainable development external influences.
’
Charcoal, a network production model that
coordinates local producers and enables them to
charity BioRegional and the UK’s leading “I realised more and more that I wanted to supply their product to B&Q.
sustainable development company, BioRegional create healthy ‘systems’,” he says. “Whether it’s The forestry management programme also
Quintain, understands elegance. an environmental or a social problem, I think includes TreeStations that develop new prod-
With a smile uncannily reminiscent of Barack I’m always attracted to things that I think, ‘Well, ucts and markets for timber and the waste mate-
Obama at his most expansive, and a graceful, this could be better!’” rial produced by tree surgeons.
unflappable demeanour, he’s got it himself. Desai formed entrepreneurial charity A fibres programme engages industry and
Projects carried out under the myriad incarna- BioRegional in 1992 with Sue Riddlestone (now farmers to establish sustainable paper and textile
tions of the BioRegional brand – ranging from his wife) at Sutton Ecology Centre as an production with local resources, and is linked in
stoking local production to applying sustainable antidote to the yoke of consumptive globalisa- with BioRegional MiniMills (UK) (a company
living blueprints to developments worth bil- tion. Although its working philosophy is pred- that develops and applies small-scale, clean tech-
lions – have it. icated on the concept of bioregionalism, nology to pulp straw and recover energy and
BioRegional Quintain’s latest contribution to which emerged in America in the late 70s as a pulping chemicals from effluent).
sustainable development in the UK, the zero- localist enviro-socio-political system, it has BioRegional also functions as a consultancy,
carbon emissions, zero-waste OneBrighton retained a market-led approach, enabling it not runs a company that promotes and facilitates
“living community” – which combines artful only to invent but also deliver practical reclamation and reuse of materials across the
design and a deep green credo with simple plan- solutions. After all, there is only so much you construction industry, while another of its com-
ning logic at the price of an average brownfield can do on grant funding. panies single-handedly revived South London’s
development – definitely has it. An acute awareness of sustainability’s historic lavender industry.
Unfortunately, according to Desai, UK systemic interdependencies and a passion for Then there is the much-lauded contribution
government sustainable development policy intellectual exegesis (Desai cites collaborations to pioneering sustainable communities; which
does not. “Policy has to be simple, very precise has received more awards than Steven Spielberg,
and aimed at getting rid of bad practice and including its most recent accolade this March,
supporting good practice; we shouldn’t try to
legislate for excellence,” he insists.
“One of the issues is just the way government
is operating at the moment, [that] the way it
‘
Policy has to be simple, very
a $765,000 grant by the Skoll Foundation,
precise and aimed at getting rid
the charity established by ebay’s first president
of bad practice and supporting Jeff Skoll.
good practice; we shouldn’t try
BioRegional’s work in this area harks back to
devises policy is done through stakeholder 1997 when the youthful organisation was look-
process and isn’t done with clear leadership or a
clear position.
“I don’t think you get clear regulatory out-
’
to legislate for excellence ing for new office space. Several kinetic brain-
storms and partnerships later, the Beddington
with environmental grandee and curmudgeon Zero Energy Development (BedZed) was born
comes or policy directions through a stakehold- James Lovelock and Dr Richard Stevens of (in 2002).
er approach, you end up designing things by BBC’s Make Slough Happy fame) are central to Still the UK’s largest and – aside from the
committee and it tends to be unsatisfactory. BioRegional’s efficacy. more modern OneBrighton – one of its most
Take the developments of the Code for “We don’t just sit in front of our computers coherently realised sustainable communities, it
Sustainable Homes – if you talk to anyone in with our models, we actually get out there and has exerted a tremendous influence on con-
the industry I think most people think it’s a meet and talk to people,” says Desai. struction archetypes, not least through prompt-
real mess. “One of the real dangers at the moment on ing the government to launch its much-trum-
“It has become a very, very strange bureau- the sustainability side, from governments and peted eco-towns initiative.
cratic, disjointed system because it doesn’t have sustainability consultants, is that they’re spend- Comprising 100 homes, community facilities
clarity of outcome.” ing too much time on their computers and not and 100 workspaces, BedZed is an aesthetic and
It is an accusation that could not be levelled enough of it out in the real world.” environmental triumph. Notwithstanding some
at Desai. Preternaturally bright, he passed Among BioRegional’s initial projects was a technological glitches (now resolved), residents,
though the educational hothouses of both drive to revive coppice management in the UK, including Desai himself, enjoy stylish lifestyles
Oxford and Cambridge, almost pursuing a leading to creation of its forestry management with 88% less space heating requirements, 57%
career as a physiologist before concluding that programme, and the formation of BioRegional less hot-water consumption, 25% less electrici-
20 May 2009 ❘ Sustainable Business
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