I am in Brixton, South London, where an urban farming event is taking place.
Let’s check it out.
Very nice.
Once you have grown your own tomatoes or cucumbers or whatever it is,
you can’t really go back to eating them from the supermarket.
The ones you buy at the supermarket, they don't taste like that.
Urban Growth is a social organization which runs weekly drop-in sessions for people looking to learn
how to grow their own vegetables, pick up general gardening tips and help keep their local space green.
Lots of people have come and learned skills, and then gone on to study further
and made gardening their career, which is lovely.
Over the past couple of years, as a result of the pandemic,
there’s been a big increase in the number of people who are growing their own veg
or want to learn the skills of how to grow their own vegetables,
and also how to do gardening, and how to do something tangible that actually makes a difference.
With the exception of 2018, the number of hours volunteered at Urban Growth has increased every year since its founding.
In 2019, volunteer hours surged to more than 1,750, and that was before the pandemic.
Urban Growth says lockdowns and social restrictions in 2020 and 2021 piqued even more people’s interests.
We have been inundated this year with requests for us to help set up gardening clubs all over London actually,
and I think lots of people understand that people really want that and need that.
Why did you decide to come here today, Nadia?
So, I just moved very close by.
Why gardening?
A friend of mine had an allotment, which I have been a lot in the last
kind of six months and kind of gave me a gardening bug.
And in lockdown, I ordered some seedlings and grew some stuff which was pretty unsuccessful,
so I was like maybe I'm doing something wrong. I also got made redundant recently,
so I'm like maybe I'll just do something completely different and retrain as something else.
I'd kind of been thinking about it for a while, and never really had the guts to actually do something different.
From urban farming workshops to clothing swaps or vintage fairs,
events with sustainability at their core are growing in popularity.
I spoke to Sabeha Mohamed at Eventbrite, a platform where event organisers can promote their sessions.
She told me that in the second quarter of 2021, more than 90,000 attendees participated
in events centered around recycling, upcycling, and other sustainable themes.
We are noticing a real trend in sustainability events coming up.
This year we have seen our largest amount of attendees for sustainable events,
more than doubling the second quarter of last year.
The themes kind of vary between sustainable fashion, growing your own food,
and so there is a wide breadth, but people are really becoming
more conscious of their impact on the world and how they can do better.
Hannah Porter, who organizes workshops where she teaches people how to mend their clothes,
has also experienced more interest in her work.
There has definitely been more people wanting to do workshops since the lockdown, which is really great.
But obviously with Covid, I had a load of workshops booked and I had to cancel pretty much all of them
because of the lockdown so then I ended up doing a lot of online workshops where I would send packs out to people.
I found that really good, a lot of people, I think because they were stuck at home
they really wanted to learn how to mend their clothing because they weren't able to go shopping.
So I saw a real rise in that sense.
What would you say to people who are thinking 'oh mending my clothes just sounds like a lot of work, why should I do it?'
I think what I would say to people is just think about the repercussions
of throwing your clothes away and how the waste really does
impact the planet and everyone living on it.
Not only is it a really useful skill to have, but it's also very mindful
and it can be quite therapeutic and relaxing as well so it is good for your mind.
Because it's not just about fixing, you can make them more trendy.
That’s it, exactly. So you can make them,
you can customize them as well so they are their own pieces.
The motivation behind attending these events varies. For some, it’s about learning a new skill.
For others, it’s about improving their mental health or contributing to a more conscious planet.
But are sustainable events just having a moment, or are they here to stay?
What’s happened with the pandemic is that it is has forced people to reflect
and be conscious about their impact in the world so I don’t see these events going away.
I do actually see there being a boom and whether they vary in terms
of sustainable fashion or climate change or our impact on food and wastage,
I think these events will continue for the future.