CITY ON THE GREEN HOW DUNDEE IS PIONEERING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
CITY ON THE GREEN HOW DUNDEE IS PIONEERING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL PROJECT
DIRECTED BY: JESS COLLINS
ARTICLE WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE LAFFERTY
We all want a cleaner, greener world in which to live and thrive yet nudging people towards a sustainable future is easier said than done. But one local authority is facing that challenge head on.
Dundee City Council, a local authority for a condensed eight mile by threemile city with a population of 150,000 people that was once known for its whaling, jute production and journalism, is at the forefront of driving environmental change with a bold mix of communication, out of the box thinking and cutting-edge technology.
This is much to do with the kind of place the Scottish east coast city has become and the age profile of its citizens. It is now home to two universities and hosts a dynamic young workforce. Fully one
in seven Dundonians are students. Ideal territory, then, for forward-looking green initiatives to take root.
Fraser Crichton, a farmer’s son who joined Dundee City Council 23 years ago, rising to become its corporate fleet operations manager, believes constant engagement with new technologies like Electric Vehicle (EV) charging will be key to the city maintaining its leading position in urban sustainability.
“The innovation over the last 10 years is incredible,” he marvels.
Crichton now heads up Dundee City Council’s 10-year EV Strategy plan and vision, which he describes as both simple and complex.
At the simple end it entails such policies
as a huge push to reduce the number of vehicles by promoting cycling and improvements in the local bus and train services.
Somewhat more complex are the significant sustainability initiatives the council is implementing. One example is its school renewal programme in which it is investing £100 million. The programme will see the amalgamation of two schools in a building with solar panels on top and heat pumps underneath. Yet even better, the renewable energy in the school will be used not solely for the school itself but will be made available to the whole community, for charging infrastructure, minibuses and surrounding houses.
There is also a £17 million levelling up project from the UK government in the offing, which will see a concrete multistorey car park, a classic of the 1970s brutalist school, lose its ugly facade, and undergo structural improvements. It will be supplied with battery storage and chargers and have solar panels installed on its roof. At the same time, the number of its parking spaces will be halved 350 to maximise space.
Crichton explains: “We want the ability not just to have people park in their cars, but also park their cars where they have space to open their doors; disabled communities will be able to use it so that the chargers that we are putting in place have an area where you can get your wheelchair around.”
Dundee’s residents are being closely involved in the council’s sustainability efforts, which is vitally important because, as Critchton stresses, people can find change difficult.
Community engagement on the city council’s environment projects starts six months in advance with focus groups held to ensure the community is kept fully informed of the details of and reasons for the city council’s initiatives.
Key to the council’s green vision is its inclusivity. It is not just building
this infrastructure or changing the transportation in the city for certain sectors but across the board, Crichton stresses.
The implementation of EV infrastructure illustrates the efforts the council is making to put social equity at the heart of its environmental plans. In 2016 Dundee was given central government funding to build three EV charging hubs across the city. The first one was intentionally built in a working-class area.
Crichton notes: “We understood that people might have a driving licence but could not afford to have a vehicle. So, we put on a lot of car clubs. We used a system where the hub was next to an employment centre. An example would be if there was a job 10 miles away. We knew that somebody had a licence but didn't have a car so we could give them the carpool to go to that job interview.”
Dundee City Council is also using the power of ordinary human interaction to embed ESG principles into its operation and get the word out about them. The city’s taxi drivers who would once talk about the weather are now chattering away about their new EVs, Crichton observes approvingly.
“They're promoting the EVs as opposed to the promotion coming out of the local authority and therefore the policies that we put in place for EVs had a much bigger knock-on effect with the community,” he says.
Another task the council has set itself is reversing the decline in people utilising its fine parks and green spaces. To that end it is putting on festivals and encouraging outdoor events in open spaces.
As part of its EV offering Dundee City Council has also partnered with Bluewater Group to enhance its charging hubs and put them to other smart uses. It’s another multi-purpose initiative that helps reduce single-use plastic consumption and improves access to clean drinking water as well as charging vehicles.
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL
Fraser Crichton, Corporate Fleet Operations Manager,
The Total Transformation
Home
Work
of Tap Water
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Worried About Tap Water Quality and the Impact of Single-Use Plastic Bottles?
The water purification solutions provider ensuring access to clean and sustainable drinking water across the world
Shockingly, the assumption that sourcing clean drinking water is a problem only for those in developing countries is swiftly becoming a fallacy.
A study carried out in London, UK, by water purification solutions provider, Bluewater Group, found that the level of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the capital are higher than those accepted by the European Union. This makes the UK’s drinking water amongst the worst in Europe.
But it's not just an issue for the UK. An extensive study carried out by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill indicated that 40% of people worldwide are falling out of love with tap water amid fears it is unsafe.
Alongside these concerns about the quality of water coming out of our taps, the environmental devastation of single-use plastic bottles continues to grow. Some 600 billion plastic bottles are used globally every year with only around 9 percent being recycled, with the remainder ending up being landfilled, incinerated, or leaking into our natural environment to pollute our lakes, rivers, oceans, and food system.
And although we have been led to believe that bottled water is better than tap, researchers are now raising the alarm on worrying levels of microand nanoplastic as well as toxic chemicals being detected in bottled water.
So, what is the solution to accessing clean and sustainable drinking water? According to Sweden’s Bluewater the answer is to completely transform your tap water using advanced purification and mineralisation technologies.
Established in 2013 by eco-preneur Bengt Rittri (the
innovator behind Blueair, which was sold to Unilever in 2016), Bluewater has designed and delivered a suite of products to remove the “hidden nasties” from drinking water, whether at work, rest, or play.
Its range of water purifiers uses Bluewater’s IP technology of ‘SuperiorOsmosisTM’, or ‘2nd generation reverse osmosis’, which not only purifies drinking water, but reduces water waste by up to 70% and uses less energy than a single lightbulb.
Its most recent product to launch, the Bluewater Flow, is revolutionising the water dispenser market, and has already seen great success in the US with over 14,000 installations at premium brands such as Red Bull, Apple, Marriott, Peloton, United Airlines, and Google as well as many state schools and other educational institutions.
The self-sanitising, free-standing Bluewater Flow indoor refill stations are designed for simple installation and connect to any locally available potable water line within a 100-foot range. “Bluewater Flow 7 x Advanced Purification uses an existing water source and removes up to 99% of any impurities that can be found in typical tap water,” explained Bengt Rittri, founder and CEO of the brand. “The Bluewater Flow purified water system also improves the water by adding trace elements of essential minerals and electrolytes, and finally, finishes the water through a coconut carbon filter for a crisp, fresh, delicious taste”.
In the UK, Bluewater foresees the Bluewater Flow as the perfect cost-efficient and sustainable drinking water solution for spaces such as hospitals, gyms, offices, schools and universities, replacing traditional plastic ‘drum-barrel’ water coolers which come with the increased risk of bacteria build-up.
“Our commitment to innovation and sustainability is exemplified by the Bluewater Flow station which delivers business customers the opportunity to provide healthier drinking water to customers and staff while reducing their environmental impact,” Bengt added.
WATCH OUR VIDEO INTERVIEW HERE
of Tap Water
Committing to ongoing innovation and the purposedriven disruption of the global plastic bottled water market, Bengt and his team at Bluewater constantly strive to find transformative new ways to give people access to purified and delicious drinking water.
A project with Dundee City Council, at the stateof-the-art Clepington Road EV charging hub, saw Bluewater’s urban dispensing solutions installed to provide drivers with an on-site drinking water solution without the damage of single-use plastics. Bluewater’s integrated media screen solution simultaneously provides a high-bright and fully customisable content platform.
Play
Worried about the quality of your tap water? Concerned about the health impacts of plastic bottles? Then it’s time to discover the pioneering solutions from Bluewater to completely transform your tap water into locally purified, mineralised, and delicious hydration.
“This gives councils, municipalities, and public bodies the opportunity to monetise the dispenser, returning on the investment, making it a sustainable and profitable business decision” shared Philip Russell, managing director of the Bluewater UK’s operation
For over a decade, Bluewater has been changing the way the world drinks and uses tap water by offering the most planet-friendly technologies for home, work, and play.
Bluewater’s state-of-the-art products, with unique features like SuperiorOsmosis™ purification and LiquidRock™
of Bluewater dispensers and stainless steel refillable bottles.
Whilst Bluewater is a for-profit business, it also ensures it is purpose driven, launched with a ‘Planet Plan’ rather than a business plan. The Stockholm headquartered Group is now in the process of launching its own foundation to support communities in Africa, providing people with a healthier future through improved drinking water provision.
mineralisation, make it quick and easy for everyone to access premium, sustainable, and refreshing hydration.
“We want to support these communities in receiving access to our water purification products, as well as provide educational programmes to schools,” said Philip, who also serves as the group’s worldwide Chief Purpose Officer.
Bluewater’s global presence provides drinking water purification solutions for consumers, hotels, catering operations, event venues, and educational institutions, with a product for every need and lifestyle.
Bluewater is also making an impact in the global events space, helping international events such as The Open, the America's Cup, the Cape Town Marathon, and the Desert Vipers cricket team reduce use of single use plastics via the deployment
As an increasing number of people are asking “what is the best water to drink?”, Bluewater confidently asserts that the best solution is to use your local water source and to transform it through advanced purification technologies to create pure, delicious, and planet-friendly on-site refills.
Help end the plague of plastic. Start enjoying clean hydration you can trust, today.
bluewatergroup.com
bluewatergroup.com
Crichton says: “We roughly eat a credit card of plastic a week when we are drinking the water out of our taps in this country.”
The scheme emerged when he spoke to Bluewater about the city’s charging infrastructure and the company suggested capturing water from it which it could filter; drivers charging their cars would be able to get clean water that had been nowhere near the draining system.
Crichton says: “if you go to our fourth hub in the city, you roll up there with your
plastic bottle, reusable plastic bottle, put your drinking water under the screen next to where you're charging your car, and there you go, presto, you've got clean drinking water that's just fallen from the sky and has just been filtered through.”
The council’s sustainability goals are also being supported by digital transformation, with smart technologies improving energy efficiency and slashing emissions in the city.
Most of its renewable solar energy comes from battery storage, with the majority being second life batteries, Crichton
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL
observes. An electric car that's run for 15 years with a battery that has degenerated to about 90% will be stacked up in a container. Then when the solar power hits the hubs, it goes stored in this system. Following the morning school runs a fleet of taxis will all arrive at the hub at the same time to charge up. The system’s algorithms have established this pattern, that high peak electricity use is at 9am, and the solar energy stored the day before is released. But the innovative technology used in Dundee is reducing that charge by using the solar from the day before.
Dundee City Council plans to continue leading in sustainable urban living and influence environmental change nationally and internationally. It has an environmental fund of £750,000 and engages with the community encouraging people to raise their environmental plans and strategies, which can be as modest as £5-10,000.
Part of Dundee’s success in driving environmental change has been down to a dogged refusal to be constrained by local factors. Crichton recalls a thoughtprovoking chat about cycling he had with
a denizen of Helsinki. At the time he didn’t think a cycling project would work in his native city and mentioned the chill, rain-lashed weather for which it is known by way of explanation.
His interlocutor was baffled by his response and showed Crichton a video of Helsinkians cycling through snowy Finnish streets banked with six feet drifts of snow either side of the path. If cycling was possible in Helsinki’s winter conditions why not in rainy Dundee, she wondered. Crichton saw her point.
“You know, it's all a mindset,” remarks Crichton, adding: “Don't close your mind. Just because you think at the beginning it doesn't work, just spend a bit more time and then look around.”
www.dundeecity.gov.uk
www.dundeecity.gov.uk
