HTSI editor’s letter: new conscious attitudes

It seems that as we get closer to elections in the UK and elsewhere across the world, politicians are becoming more opaque on issues of sustainability. Much lip service is paid at global summits to a commitment to net-zero CO2 emissions targets, but outside the glare of scrutiny, many of these goals are being quietly eradicated. This issue of HTSI, therefore, celebrates those people making an effort to do things in a kinder, more conscientious way, and to mitigate the damage done by humans.

Peter Barber is our Aesthete: the architect founded his practice in 1989 and has done much in the intervening decades to change the conversation regarding social housing. The self-confessed “scruff” has a passion for guitars, the work of fellow architect Luis Barragán, and finds most answers in the study of Le Corbusier. We then visit Alfie Nickerson, who has established an organic flower farm that embraces pests and weeds to produce blooms that are “perfectly imperfect”.

We’re also discussing more controversial elements of conscientious life, such as the very thorny issue of land management. Rosanna Dodds travelled to Scotland to report on the annual hunting season and speak to people across the board about the benefits and costs of traditional game shooting. 

Are you sitting on a cache of redundant smartphones? You can send them to a better place

Part of a delicate ecology in the countryside, game shooting contributes some £2bn to the UK economy and offers one way for landowners to manage moorland upkeep. Whether, in the 21st century, it’s the best way – an estimated 1.7mn collateral animals are trapped and some 100,000 non-game birds poisoned (by spent lead pellets) – is an argument that remains hotly contested. Are there alternative options or sources of revenue to be considered? “Another round” delivers a nuanced verdict.

No less controversial is the subject of waste tech. Rhodri Marsden goes to Breda to visit Apple’s Daisy, a robot designed to remove the precious metals and rare earth elements from old devices, and discovers that one tonne of recovered printed circuit boards, flexible electronics and camera modules contains the same amount of gold and copper you’d find in 2,000 tonnes of rock. Currently, Daisy’s skills are pitifully underused, as not enough tech is being offered up for recycling. Are you sitting on a cache of redundant smartphones? Send them to a better place: Daisy’s waiting to reclaim them.

Would you eat crickets for dinner? Alternative proteins (such as insects) and lab-grown meat products are now considered legitimate offerings on the menu. But while these new proteins (in the west, anyway) have a lot to offer – they can be more nutritious than their animal-based alternatives – they still have some branding issues. In his food column this week, Ajesh Patalay investigates the options and decides which, if any, he finds palatable. 

@jellison22