Susty Fest – Thornbury’s Festival of Sustainability – was held in wonderful sunshine on Saturday 20 May at St Mary Centre in Thornbury. A collaboration of South Gloucestershire Council and Sustainable Thornbury, the aim of the event was to showcase local activities that are taking place to help restore nature and tackle climate change, as well as provide information about all sorts of ways to reduce our impact on the environment.
Stalls ranged from those mapping local wildlife, to electric vehicles and bikes, growing your own food, local churches with EcoChurch status, South Gloucestershire Councils’ Hedgehog Heroes project, estimating the carbon in your food, Thornbury Community Orchard, home energy efficiency and thermal imaging surveys, information about alternative energy sources like heat pumps and solar panels, the Thornbury composting site, the Thornbury Men’s Shed, Active West travel, locally made Castle Crafts, making wildflower seed bombs, and hearing how South Gloucestershire Council is tackling the Climate and Nature Emergency
Sustainable Thornbury also launched its Biodiversity Ring project at the event. The idea behind the Biodiversity Ring is to create a walking route around Thornbury that joins up existing biodiversity hotspots, using existing paths, like an “M25” for nature. Sustainable Thornbury published a map of the route which was available at Susty Fest, it can also be downloaded here.
Thanks to all our terrific stallholders, South Glos Council and St Mary Centre – it was a wonderful team effort.
All CATSA-CIC directors are also members of Sustainable Thornbury, and part of the inspiration to create CATSA-CIC came from hosting events like Susty Fest. Creating spaces and opportunities for conversations about the climate and nature emergency is part of the role we’d like to play in our community.
