Green Economy

Recycling truck from Abruzzo in Italy, 2002

Zero Waste, 2008

In this article, first published in the Slow Food Almanac, Robin sets out the context for ‘Zero Waste’. Namely, the growing recognition that the extensive exploitation of the material world cannot be sustained indefinitely, together with growing evidence of the effectiveness of alternative approaches to waste disposal, such as community recycling and composting. As a movement, it started out as an approach to restore biological and material cycles but ultimately questioned the very ways in which things are produced. It requires all those involved in production to find innovative ways of enabling re-use, reduction, repair and recycling. In this sense, Zero Waste represents an ambition programme of redesigning the system of industrial production and consumption to safeguard the sustainability of our lifestyles, the environment and the planet.

Robin Murray, Joelle Van Tinteren and Norman Baker MP, Campaign against Newhaven Incinerator, East Sussex, 2006

London’s Alternative Waste Strategy, 1998-2006

Nicky Gavron writes about working with Robin on developing an alternative strategy to dumping London's waste in landfill in the South East in the early 2000s. Persuaded by Robin’s vision for Zero Waste and Creating Wealth from Waste, the then Secretary for the Environment gave the London Pride Waste Action partnership £12m to kick-start household recycling, jobs and industries across London. This was the catalyst for similar projects across the UK, and recycling rates exploded. Later, with Ken Livingstone at the head of the GLA, Robin worked with Nicky Gavron and others to prototype approaches to greening London’s homes.

The Energy Team, Lee High Road Green Homes Pilot. Haiyan Zang, Mathew Lockwood, Chris Vanstone, Colin Burns, Jennie Winhall, Nicholas Morton, Robin Murray, Kirstie Edmunds (L-R), 2005

Rethinking Energy, The Design Council, 2004-2006

With the establishment of the new London Assembly, and with Ken Livingstone as the Mayor of London, there was a significant opportunity to rethink energy in London from the early 2000s. Matthew Lockwood worked closely with Robin between 2004 and 2006 on a number of energy projects, most notably on prototyping a ‘green homes’ concierge service. Here, Robin applied some of the key themes in his thinking, especially post-Fordism and co-ordinated decentralisation, to the energy field, in a highly prescient way.

Robin’s Environmental Politics

Robin Stott examines Robin Murray’s views on the environment. Robin was acutely aware of the various and interconnected challenges facing the planet, and argued that effective action to tackle global heating and the environmental crisis in an equitable way will both mitigate future problems and do much to improve the present health of humanity. A population wide move to conserve energy, to generate renewables, to prioritise active transport, to growing food with minimal fossil fuel based inputs and to produce a no-waste, largely vegetarian diet, to care for agricultural land so that it becomes a significant carbon sink, are documented ways in which planetary and human health will improve in synergy.

Robin & Ecological Design

Hubert Murray sets out Robin’s views of ecological design; that his focus on systems, and networks, on the cybernetic interconnectedness of production, distribution, consumption, and re-creation, and the connections between the social, the economic and the technical constitutes his understanding of ecology. Processes are not linear and not even two- or even three-dimensional. Rather they are dynamic and multidirectional.

Remembrance of Robin

Philip Jessup reflects on his time working with Robin on a project of the London Climate Change Agency to create an initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from London’ domestic sector. There were initiatives from both the UK and Canada which if brought together, could provide an innovative framework for a future London domestic energy efficiency program. Robin and Philip therefore organised a ‘charette’ under the auspices of the Design Council to consider the elements that an energy awareness and saving package for the able to pay sector in London and the UK would need in order to succeed.