Quality, not rubbish for Globally Local

• Sep. 27 by Natalie Adcock (0)

Going green shouldn’t have to come at the price of quality, Malcolm Currie of Globally Local told me this week. The product needs to be innovative and fit for a purpose – this isn’t just about reusing rubbish.

Globally Local helps local businesses of the Midlands Eco Partnership with their methods of running a company in the least environmentally damaging way. In some cases this way is actually the most useful, for example by using rapeseed oil from Birmingham instead of vegetable oil transported from Greece is both healthier and closer.

Malcolm explained to me that Globally Local’s work came under four categories.

Promotion

The first floor of the Globally Local building is home to many products including shoes of the Terra Plana fashion line, which uses eco-friendly and recycled materials with minimum glue construction. Malcolm is even offering students 75% off!

It’s a place for the small businesses of the Midlands Eco Partnership to showcase their work for others to examine and get involved with.

Workshops

The workshops are more domestic, such as one that explains the principles of recycling to home owners.

Many take place for children, where they can be creative with recycle materials such as making bags and purses from old materials and watering cans out of milk cartons.

Education

Globally Local visits primary and secondary schools to educate them about environmental issues.

Their main principle is that if they are educated about all environmental concerns, from recycling to the transport of food, then they will have a more comprehensive understanding and will start to ask questions like, where did my school uniform come from? What can I do to help the planet?

Events

Malcolm says that Globally Local and the Midlands Eco Partnership regularly hold events as a way to attract people and draw attention to new ideas.

Earlier this year they held a Green Dragons Den style event with a panel of environmental experts and people gave presentations on ideas such as a machine that turns waste vegetable oil into biodiesel fuel.

Inside these four categories, Malcolm explained that there are four principle themes: fashion, food, fuel and finance. He said:

“We demonstrate products of a more sustainable lifestyle without sacrificing style or fashion. High quality is always at the heart of our work and it encourages quality and good design. There is no excuse for unusable materials.”