The Eden Bulletin

by Gray Elkington

Updated: 8 January 2025

Status: The #PristineParish Program remains in start-up mode and will do so until the Eden App has been deployed.

Mission: By 2035, the intent is to have enrolled at least 1,000 UK parishes and to be making inroads abroad.

Conditions: Mission success is conditional on the program being transformative, achievable, sustainable and scalable.

The Four Conditions

The #PristineParish Program must be:

✓ Transformative: The twice-weekly regime means there is 98.08% less litter on any one day than in parishes that organise a biannual litter pick. Calculation here.

✓ Achievable: The goal is for a minimum of 70% of the twice-weekly piks to be done. Results for 2024: Upper Rissington 72%; Little Rissington 94%.

✓ Sustainable: Once set up, a #PristineParish Program is a perpetual motion machine and would likely pertain even in the absence of Eden. To wit, Great Rissington.

⏱ Scalable: Eden and Regen, a US-based ecocredit registry, are devising an Environmental Stewardship Credit to fund the expansion of the #PristineParish Program.

There can be no doubt that the #PP Program is transformative, both of the environment and of community wellbeing. What else keeps us pounding the beat?

The pilot parishes in the Rissingtons have shown that a twice-weekly regime is achievable, not least by re-purposing the daily dog-walk or weekly constitutional as community service.

A local champion need only press-gang pikkers from time to time and allocate DofE volunteers to make a #PP Program infinitely sustainable, as grabbers and vests get passed on from retiring pikkers to newcomers.

Time will tell, but it seems that the #PP Program can become scalable thanks to the recent invention of a new credit class that rewards environmental stewardship in the same way that carbon credits reward carbon sequestration.

Eden to Issue Credits

Eden has devised the #PristinePlanet Credit Class, which will accredit methodologies that remove pollutants, including Eden’s #PristineParish Methodology. Regen is currently assessing both. Please feel free to comment on them.

When both Credit Class and Methodology are accepted - and it will likely take many months working with Regen to hone them - Eden can then issue credits, which can be purchased in the Regen Marketplace.

In Business for Good

Eden has been working on further revenue streams. One is selling advertising in the Eden Chronicle, and this has produced almost as much revenue as the hi-vis branding.

Other funding ideas are still in the lab being worked on by operatives in white coats and deep thought.

Amazon spent seven years making losses. Eden has spent six years doing likewise and aims to cover costs in its seventh year. Once covering costs, expansion will (must) be exponential. Eden will then be able to apply to be a B Corp, i.e., a purpose-led for-profit social enterprise where financial returns flow directly from creating environmental benefits.

The intention is for the market itself to push the new paradigm at a speed that only the market can manage… as happened to Amazon. Fanciful… maybe. But one has to dream big.

For we don’t have time on our side.

Why is Revenue Needed?

Regen’s fee for co-creating the #PristineParish Methodology is $3,150. ESRI’s mapping service, used to calculate and depict #PristineParish Walks, is over £1,000 per year. The cost of equipping a pikker is £30 and to date there have been 91 pikkers across the Rissingtons and Stow. The mission to enrol 1,000 parishes will entail equipping at least 10,000 more. I’ve done the math… thus the need for multiple sources of revenue!

Lend support by becoming a #PristinePlanet Patron.

The Eden Engine

After five years of thinking and tinkering, we’re now a little wiser about how to (a) mobilise and (b) organise a parish such that each new parish becomes an extra cylinder in the Eden Engine of Environmental Regeneration throughout the UK and beyond... or as my toddling Buzz-Lightyear nephew used to shout, "To Infidy and Be Odd!" - something I'm tempted to adopt as our war cry.

Of course, we still have much to learn. Importantly, I'd love to know what got you involved. What was the trigger? And what keeps you involved?

One trigger is the Duke of Edinburgh Award. To date there have been 19 DofE #PristineParish Volunteerships in the Rissingtons and Stow. As their Assessor, I write a report on their achievements and learnings.

Youngsters love to litter pick and Eden arguably provides the only way to operate to a schedule that matches the DofE regime.

So I plan to approach schools once Eden has been granted the Credit Class and Methodology, because of the reassurance, teaching points and, crucially, funding that the credits will provide.

In the meantime, if you have a relevant contact in any local school, please let me know. I'd like to co-develop a joint DofE/#PP Scheme with them, ready to roll when Regen gives the thumbs-up.

What could be better?

If you have any suggestions for improving and/or spreading the #PristineParish Program or any advice at all, please contact me directly or use the form below.