Island Innovation
This event has now finished.
ENV/105x, Environment Building, Campus West, University of York (Map)
Event details
The Isles of Scilly are an archipelago of 150 islands (5 of which are inhabited) 30 miles off Land’s End in the Atlantic Ocean. With a year-round population of 2,000 people and an economy that is 90% tourism, the islands appear idyllic but beneath the surface they present an eclectic mix of challenges and opportunities. Our focus in this talk is the effort to develop a viable and sustainable solution to the management of food waste on the islands, which touches on a wide variety of challenges and requires a holistic, interdisciplinary approach, including:
- Costs: freight on or off the islands is extremely expensive, leading to residual waste disposal costs of £600 per tonne. Scale: a population of only 2,000 spread unevenly over 5 inhabited islands.
- Legal & Regulatory: due to its status as a sui generis unitary authority, several key pieces of primary legislation (and associated statutory instruments) do not apply here, creating a unique regulatory and legal environment.
- Logistics: weather-related disruption to shipping is common-place and freight handling facilities are basic and limited in the size of what they can handle.
- Circularity: outputs from any recycling process need to be usable and useful on the islands, and of appropriate quality and quantity.
- Community: when operating in highly localised environments, community support is essential for the long-term viability of any infrastructure solution.
- Robustness: unreliable and expensive transport links and the harsh marine environment present challenges for the maintenance and longevity of plant and machinery.
- Nature: the islands have a wide assortment of environmental and scientific designations, and in particular are home to globally significant populations of endangered seabirds.
This talk will explore these challenges in detail and our current activities to develop an appropriate food waste management solution to address them. It will also touch on the experience and learnings from previous attempts to address sustainability challenges on Scilly including in the areas of renewable energy and electric mobility.
Bio
About George
George Goldberg is Executive Director of the Isles of Scilly Community Venture, where he leads a dedicated team of 6 staff all based on the Isles of Scilly with skillsets spanning operations, project management, marketing and design, electronics and software development. George started out in electronic engineering, completed a PhD in Transport Engineering at Imperial College London, worked for 5 years at a Silicon Valley software company before joining IOSCV in 2021. Hailing originally from Cornwall, he now lives and works on the most populous of Scilly’s islands – St Mary’s.
About IOSCV
The Isles of Scilly Community Venture is a non-profit Community Interest Company based on the Isles of Scilly focused on developing and operating infrastructure for the long-term sustainability of our island community. IOSCV operates renewable energy generation assets across 13 sites on Scilly, the islands’ public EV charging infrastructure, and a 14-vehicle community car-share scheme. IOSCV are currently working in partnership with the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, the University of Exeter and Five Islands Academy on the Isles of Scilly Community Research Network, and are working closely with the Council of the Isles of Scilly, the University of York and the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust to develop and implement a solution to the food waste management challenges currently facing the islands.