Resilience, opportunities and even more creative pivoting

Hello Green List friends

Like everyone else, here at The Green List we’ve been on the biggest roller coaster we hope to ever see. But our resilient little ship is righting itself now and we’re back to business in full swing focused on the most important thing of all – how to help our growing community of Greenlisters to keep their business as strong as possible.

We’re working hard on ways to bring as much information, inspiration and know how as possible to our Greenlisters so that you all have the best possible tools at your disposal.

New LIVE broadcast

First up will be a Green List live broadcast so Greenlisters can tune in to listen to good business advice or hear and learn from each other. It will be part interviews and part networking. All visitors will have a chance to put their hands up and ask questions and we will also test an informal virtual networking session after the main events.

If you have ideas about topics and people you want to learn from please send them in. There’s never been a better time to capture the attention of the most successful people on the planet right now, from business to sustainability.

Send in your ideas for who you might like to hear from to hello@thegreenlist.com.au

This is YOUR broadcast. Launching soon!

Meanwhile at our sister site The Fifth Estate we’re getting our toes in the water with all this new tech and launching the first series of live weekly events next Wednesdays 15 April at 1 pm.

Guests are Bryon Price of A.G. Coombs who is president of the Facility Management Association and Claire Bird who is a building fitness advisor and managing director at LITMAS Pty Ltd and president of the Australian Chapter of the global Indoor Air Quality Association.

Both these experts are knee deep in how to deal with the COVID-19 crisis for our buildings and there will be nothing they have to say that won’t be relevant to all of us in learning how to manage the challenges ahead.

Visitors will be charged a fee to attend or to download the session later, but for Greenlisters and paid subscriber members and advertisers access will be free.

The Fifth Estate is also soon launching its first series of podcasts around sustainability, called Interviews From The Front – How to Build a Better World.  So you may want to tune in to those as well.

These new ways of communicating are incredibly important right now because if one thing is certain, it’s that we will come out the other side of these challenges. Life might look a bit different there, but exactly what it will look like and feel like will be up to us.

In so many ways this COVID-19 shock we are all going through is a previously unimagined opportunity to reset the way we want to do business, live our lives, and interact with the planet. We’ve all seen how quickly nature is recovering when we give her breathing space.
There’s hope in that.

Now to business

A huge welcome to Murtaza Murtaza Poonawala and his Studio 5253 which produces a virtual reality tool that can transform how we envisage the world we want to build. It’s a fabulous tool for architects, builders, owners and even design teachers.

Murtaza is truly inspirational. “Imagine if you could use that technology to show in an almost realistic way what your new residential or commercial development will look like: the colours, the internal finishes, the views from the balconies,” he tells us.

“Imagine you can show your neighbours what the impact on the street will be – how your dream project may actually enhance the neighbourhood vibe instead of making it more dreary, as often happens.”

It’s a great and exciting story. Read it here.

Another of our Greenlisters, Sydney craft brewery Young Henrys, got some great kudos when it switched its manufacturing capacity from beer to hand sanitiser space to help with shortages.

As you can imagine, as a distiller, the company knows its way around high-grade, high-alcohol ethanol, the main ingredient in hand sanitiser. The first batch it made was just for staff, but the company is now giving some away to an organisation that was struggling to source the product.

The craft brewer doesn’t plan on profiteering off the exercise (Young Henrys Brewing and Distilling co-founder and director Oscar McMahon told the SMH it “just feels appropriate” in the current environment) but its low waste, low energy range of beers and spirits are still available at your local bottle-shop, thankfully.

Western Australia dazzled this week with a plan for bringing solar to all its rooftops that was lauded by the Australian Energy Market Operator managing director and CEO, Audrey Zibelman, as a way to “unlock the benefits of an energy future that is decentralised, democratised and digitalised.”

The plan involves neighbourhood batteries that allow customers to store excess solar electricity generated during the day and withdraw it at night or share it with their neighbours.

It would be good if all our state and territory governments could follow suit. It would make a big difference to a lot of businesses and households right now if they could be working from home using free solar electricity, instead of potentially facing bill shock for work related energy their employers usually pick up.

Also interesting is that while solar installations were dropping off in some areas The Fifth Estate found experts saying their work was considered an “essential service”, so likely to continue.

Perhaps people working at home might be able to say a new rooftop solar installation could be considered a work related expense, but please seek advice from a qualified accountant or financial advisor.

Pandemic or not, the rooftop solar market continues to go from strength-to-strength in overall numbers. Brisbane residential solar provider, Instyle Solar, was recently named Australia’s third fastest growing company in this year’s Australian Financial Review Fast 100 List, with a compound annual growth of 128 per cent from 2015 – 2019.

Better vibes working from home

And for those working at home, Greenlister Eminè Mehmet from WELL Space has eight handy tips to keep you focused and well balanced during these “difficult times”.

Here are some of her tips she recently sent out to her network:

• Breathing exercises. It’s more important than ever that we activate our lungs and make sure they are functioning. Under stress and anxiety, we hold our breath or go into shallow breathing. Get the blood moving through your lungs, take five minutes to do some deliberate lung breathing exercises, making sure you inflate every part.
• Set up your space to nourish you. Use photos, music, plants, flowers. Make it comfy.
• At the beginning and end of the day, smudge your space to remove stuck, stale and negative energy. I do this regularly throughout the day. I like the scent and it makes me feel good. You can use incense, Palo Santos, natural oils and natural scented candles or white sage. This energises the space and gives you a second wind. It’s like making sure you’re not sitting in the same muck the next day.
• Break the day in two. Don’t sit in front of your computer all day. Have a siesta, go for a walk (responsibly), tend to your garden.
• Stretch regularly, especially if you’ve been sitting down for a long time. Keep your body moving so that it’s in good working order. Don’t let it shut down.
• Check your posture. It’s so easy to slouch into a chair. This stops blood flowing properly and doesn’t help your muscular health either.
• Eat good healthy food that suits your body. Don’t overindulge or eat things you know don’t agree with you.
• Take time out to watch/listen to something that inspires you and soothes your soul.