The idea for the brand came from conversations with local groups, organisations and businesses around Bristol. People working on nature recovery and climate action felt as though most people in Bristol weren’t aware of how much was going on.

Most people are more likely to take action if they are part of a thriving movement. We all feel disempowered and unmotivated when we think we are working in isolation. Whereas when we realise others were working on other, different environmental projects and initiatives, we become more motivated and feel empowered.

A brand is a simple, low cost and effective way of starting to address this, by enabling us to picture all the activity going on around the city.

When businesses and organisations apply to use the branding, the Bristol City Office will use a simple and quick assessment process about the nature of their public commitments, plans and strategies for climate and nature recovery action, and resources allocated to implement these.

When a community group in South Bristol organise a pedal-powered tour of growing spaces, a CIC in Southmead run a short course on draught proofing your home, an independent web design company choose a low carbon cloud storage option, or Bristol Waste and Bristol Water run campaigns to reduce water use or improve food waste recycling for example – all these can carry the brand and help everyone understand just how much activity is contributing.

It might even help us as a city understand where the gaps are too!

• About over-inflating what’s happening
• About papering over the gaps in action
• An environmental performance monitoring scheme or benchmark of corporate environmental performance excellence. The brand is open to all who are putting in meaningful effort, it is not about claiming to be perfect.  There are stringent badges of achievement for gold standard efforts, such as ISO14001.