Eden’s Mission

Driven by the vision of a #pristineplanet, Eden’s inaugural mission is to have three quarters of English parishes be #pristineparishes by Christmas 2027.

Our approach is to build on the work of David Attenborough and others who are raising awareness and leading people to think, “I get it, but what can I do?” It’s a question that Eden, supported by CPRE Gloucestershire, the countryside charity, and the Gloucestershire Constabulary, is equipped to answer.

Our strategy is to mobilise the willing by inviting them to soirées and offering them free information, training, kit and a tried-and-tested method, in the form of Eden’s no-nonsense no-effort #pristineparish program.

The #pristineparish program involves picking your entire parish road network twice a week. Enough people have a visceral connection to their parish, whether or not they know exactly where the boundaries are, to want to own it and care for it.

Eden is an Impact Venture

Eden is an impact venture. By proving that cleaning up the country can be a profitable endeavour, we will attract investors, allowing us to tackle the litter emergency with speed.

The process of keeping a parish pristine then becomes embedded within and supported by the economy, rather than acting as an optional bolt-on, while competing for charitable donations with good causes.

Why a #pristineparish program?

Annual mass litter-picking events were dreamt up in bygone less littery days. A growing more mobile population coupled with more packaging has meant that traditional litter picking is no longer fit for purpose - litter builds up daily, causing harm to animals, both domestic and wild.

So our challenge is to persuade people that the litter-picking rulebook is obsolete and to have them move from occasionally clearing up their parish to relentlessly keeping their parish litter-free or pristine. This is done by conveying four key points:

1. They, and all other animals, will enjoy a pristine parish all year round

2. It takes more time but a lot less effort than an annual litter pick

3. It can be done at a brisk pace, and so doubles as exercise

4. It really cheers people up, both participants and passers-by!

A shift in mindset is required

The style of the recruitment soirées will herald a radical new approach and evoke a different mindset, one where the problem of litter is relegated to history and the norm is pristine countryside. As a harbinger of living in a nice setting, aperitifs and exquisite canapés will be provided and served by professional chefs in a nice setting.

Why call the get-together a “soirée”? It’s because the main target democratic, whether picker or patron, is an ABC1 baby boomer - the sort of person who would enjoy professionally made aperitifs and canapés served in a refined setting. It also serves to confound people’s expectations - who would associate litter with a soirée? Could this possibly be something new, something worth exploring?

We are up against the clock

We ask our soirée guests to imagine themselves in the world they ideally want, where all legacy litter has been cleared and the only rubbish to be picked up has only been there for a day or two.

It’s a world in which the pristine parish will not be the exception; rather it will be the wrapper on the pavement that is the exception - and a passer-by will feel an urge to bin it.

We are focused not on ending littering (in the main, we can’t identify litterers) but on ending litter (which we can identify). The first is impossible to do in the timeframe Mother Nature has given us. The second is doable.

Parish keeping is akin to house keeping

Once a #pristineparish program is established, there will be little litter. If litter is picked up within moments of it being dropped, it becomes a non-issue, like a vegetable peeling dropped and picked up from the floor. So litter per se will no longer be newsworthy. As #pristineparish regulars, we don’t show off the litter we pick up, like we don’t photograph the vegetable peeling after we’ve picked it up. We certainly don’t stand proudly beside piles of bin bags - because there won’t be any - let alone measure success by the height of the pile.

We downgrade parish cleaning from a special event to a weekly errand for a few people.

We make parish keeping part of the daily fabric, no different to house keeping - just the other side of the front gate. In fact, we can build it into our outdoor exercise regime - plogging (picking while jogging or hiking) is catching on worldwide.

Of course, in parishes without a #pristineparish program, where there is no or minimal litter-picking, then huge quantities of litter will be found and shocking imagery is useful for kickstarting a twice-weekly regime. The mass communal litter pick, with its attendant razzmatazz, will definitely be encouraged and supported, but only as the opening salvo of a newly introduced twice-weekly picking regime.

Why only/as much as twice a week?

A twice-weekly regime sits in the Goldilocks region between an organisational burden on the one hand and litteriness on the other.

Fewer than two picks of the entire parish per week means litter stays on the ground long enough for it to appear as if it's the status quo. Just one piece of litter left for up to a week is enough to suggest dysfunction and engender disquiet. By contrast, litter cleared within 3.5 days suggests that litter is being handled and that civic pride is the reason.

More than two picks a week could mean volunteers inadvertently doubling up on the same day on the same route. The reason is that a pick can take place on any one of three days - flexibility is built into the program to allow for inclement weather and last-minute calls on one's time. A pick scheduled for, say, Tuesday, can actually be done on the Monday or the Wednesday and still count as having been done on the Tuesday.

Were there three picks per week with 3-day flexibility, then we'd need nine days in the week to avoid overlap! Of course, volunteers could correspond to avoid overlap, but that takes time and defeats the purpose of a no-fuss schedule that manages itself with zero need for cross-checking.

A parish’s status is published online

We are working with Steve Green of Clean Ocean Sailing

The hook, the thing that will catch the public’s imagination right now, is that we are supporting Steve Green, of Clean Ocean Sailing, in his mission to keep the beaches of Cornwall free of litter - see video below. It’s also a neat way to connect the state of a beach with the state of the parishes upriver, and a reminder that we live in a small interdependent world. Rubbish on the beaches, where children play, is more jarring and has a more visceral effect on the human psyche than rubbish by the roadside, which goes mostly unremarked. A pristine beach has the power to inspire more than a pristine verge and that inspiration is then the motivation to clean up the verges that are a source of rubbish on our beaches.

The support for Steve makes the task of litter picking our roads personal, purposeful and urgent. And perhaps the most impactful contribution we could make to Steve is to get every Cornish parish to adopt the #pristineparish program. That’s a worthy early objective, a compelling milestone on our path to a #pristineplanet, and something a patron would gain massive kudos by funding.

Eden HQ recruits Prime Movers

Eden HQ invites locals to soirées

Soirées are set up, provisioned and funded by Eden HQ.

Soirée Purpose

The reason for the soirée is to enrol both pikkers and patrons and set up #pristineparish programs, with pikkers (in the main) looking after their own parishes, and patrons selecting (even bidding for) parishes where they want brand exposure.

Soirée organisation

Wherever a Prime Mover is located, Eden HQ will organise a soirée for parishes within an area dictated by the coverage of whatever local media is available. The soirée will either be in the PM’s house or at another house in the area with a room large enough to accommodate around 20 people. Either way, it will be hosted by the Prime Mover, funded by Eden HQ and sponsored by a company active in the local market, whose branding would be placed on all our local media advertising.

Soirée Presentation

Guests will see Rosie & Steve clearing the shoreline of plastic, discover how participating parishes have stopped contributing to their problem, and be invited to take part as a funder, organiser and/or litter picker in a #pristineparish program in their parish.

Eden HQ sets up a soirée

Eden HQ

• Places ads in local media to invite potential pickers and patrons to a scheduled soirée. The Flyer (shown) can be put through doors or disseminated as an insert, and an ad can be displayed on Nextdoor within an area up to 10 miles from the PM’s home. The Flyer and Nextdoor Ad solicit a response via a webpage for the respective soirée. A variation on the Double Page Spread (DPS shown above) can also be placed in local media with the place, date and time of the soirée.

• Replies to potential pikkers with (1) a link to a map of their parish (Example) and a request to familiarise themselves with it before the soirée and (2) a link to the Channel 4 Clean Ocean Sailing programme.

• Replies to potential patrons with commendations from other patrons who have seen brand awareness and sales measurably increase.

The infrastructure is set up

EDEN HQ SETS UP PARISH LITTER-PICKING calendars

Eden HQ

• Sets up a Calendar for each Parish, to be used for the scheduling of picks. Each picker is colour coded. A pick, when completed, is changed to green by the picker.

Eden HQ SETS UP patrol TRACKING

Eden HQ

• Sets up Clubs for participating parishes on Strava. Pickers who join a Parish Strava Club will be tracked by the Strava App so that hours on the roadside can be charged to their parish patron.

  The Eden App will eventually use Strava data to provide real-time “Brand on the Road” reports in a patron’s dashboard.

The soirée takes place

Keeping a parish pristine becomes a challenging, fun, addictive and great way to meet like-minded folk. The soirée is where everyone gets to meet each other.

Post-soirée admin