Welcome to Green'Ability

Welcome on the blog of the project: "Innovation and Sustainability in the Creative Industries".
This project tries to find innovative ways of communicating the ideas of sustainability and tries to suggest new green activities within the hair and beauty trades and the mediagraphics sector.

On this blog you can find information about the project goals, several activities and content about sustainability, innovation and education.

Leonardo Meeting in Málaga, February 19th-22th of 2013

Next week there will be a workconference in Malaga, Spain. During this conference students  will participate in workshops preparing issues of the project like a magazine and a sustainable hair and beauty show. More information on tab: "events".

Topic list for students

In the gadget right to this column you can find the topic list.

Leonardo Meeting in  Kirkcaldy, Scotland, May 14th-17th of 2013

The workconference in Scotland has a four day interesting program, developed by our partner the Adam Smith College in Kirkcaldy . Part of the program are presentations and there will be workshops: (Hairdressers )Working on Hairdressing Toolkit worksheets ; show preparation (hairdressing, beauty and fashion design); development of a magazine (graphic media). More information on tab: "events".

Toolbox

On the website is a link to the toolbox. This toolbox is the result of the research done by the students. Click on the toolboxpicture to link to the website. Click on Research Results-Toolbox.

Report of activities in  Kircaldy

by Christina Laing, Department Manager Adam Smith College, Scotland

The ISCI project visit to Scotland started with the planning of the week in January 2013.  Guest speakers with a passion for green issues were asked to come along from Southhampton University. They are involved in their great “Green Salon Make-Over” project which is aiming to teach hairdressers all about sustainability so that they can then inform and encourage their clients to be more sustainable.  Dr Denise Baden and Dr Swarna Prasad were invited to present on the first day of the project the 14^th May.  Denise was presenting somewhere else but Swarna kindly agreed to come along.                                                                                  

Elaine Crawford is sustainability lead at Dumfries and Galloway College and has been working closely with Adam Smith College and our students to help with her own MSC qualification.  Elaine has presented to our students and carried out a survey to assess where they are regarding how informed they are about sustainability. Our project students are currently working with the students to teach them what they are learning through the project and when Elaine speaks to them next and asks them the same questions, we hope to see a much more sustainability aware and informed group.  Elaine was invited to present in the afternoon on day one of the Scottish weeks activities.

Peggy Morgan is the lead for Colleges Scotland a body who are funded by the Scottish Government to

Peggy Morgan

support and encourage information sharing and best practice across Scottish Colleges. 

Peggy who is sustainability and sector lead for hair and beauty was invited to come along and present on the second day to the hairdressers all about how this works across Scotland for the hair and beauty sector.                               

Lorna Milton and her daughter Lauren had previously hosted a visit from myself and my Higher National hairdressing students to their Green Salon Elan Hairdressing in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire so they were both invited along to take part in the discussions following the presentations and to join us for a staff dinner to be held at the colleges Rotunda restaurant on the Tuesday evening.

Sean McDonnagh from Hair and Beauty World, (hair and beauty suppliers), was invited along as he had recently accompanied me to Italy to visit Maletti  (Hair and Beauty Furniture Suppliers) with a view to the college installing a vented green salon where Maletti would help sponsor some of the equipment to enable us to be the first green vented salon in the UK.

Goldwell  (cosmetics representatives), Dave Hutchison and Glen Robertson were invited along as they sponsored the goodie bags to be provided to the visitors and would be important to help us meet our project aims of encouraging the industry to move to more green products ranges.

Ann Millar of Renella hairdressing was also invited as she was previous chair of the Scottish HABIA (Hairdressing and Beauty Industry Authority) forum and she has presented in sustainability at various Scottish events and is involved in the Southampton project.

The rooms were booked (something that is always a problem as they are always filled with booked students using all the salons and classroom space).  The refreshments were ordered, goodie bags made up and programmes sent out to all the partners along with a delegate list.  All that remained was for everything to be confirmed a week before and the visitors to all arrive at the local Beveridge Park Hotel then the week could begin.

A week before all presenters were confirmed, goodie bags and folders were put together and Hazel Terry fashion lecturer at Adam Smith College made tartan name badges for everyone to wear to help us remember names.

The long awaited Tuesday arrived and it was great to meet up with old friends who had travelled from Spain, Malta, Denmark and the Netherlands to be here, lots of hugs and greetings took place then it was down to chatting over coffee and shortbread to catch up on everyone’s news.

The presentations all went very well and were informative and relevant to the project, lots of questions and discussions took place and partners asked questions and took copies of the presentations.

Time was spent discussing the work we wanted to get through in the project week and looking at the evaluation from the previous visit to Malaga.

The evening meal for staff was a great occasion and college students were thanked for the high quality of food and service.  Students went out together and socialized in the town and everyone had a good time.

On the second day (Wednesday), Media Graphics staff and students visited the colleges Stenton campus for a tour of the media graphics sound and video production studio’s and commented how they had been made very welcome.  They asked that a staff member from this area be involved in future trips.  The hairdressers stayed in the hotel and Peggy carried out her presentation which was really interesting and gave partners links to information which could be used in the project.

In the afternoon we spent time working on the magazine, flyer and Eco fashion show and toolkit at the college Priory Campus..

On the third day (Thursday), seen hairdressers having a tour of the salons and hair or beauty appointments whilst Multi-print media graphics printing and design company owner Jay provided a tour of his business premises for the media graphics staff and students and made them most welcome.

Thursday afternoon was spent in Edinburgh where some chose to see a show whilst others shopped or visited the castle and other tourist attractions.

On the fourth day (Friday) the last day seen us evaluate the week and Eva presented on Holland in preparation for the next trip in October.

The week was a great success where lots of work had taken place on the show, magazine, flyers and toolkit.  Old friendships were revived and new ones made and we all agreed that we are all on target to “make a difference” through this sustainability focused project.

I look forward to the next trip to Holland and to working to meet the aims of this valuable and very worthwhile project.