The Rebearth Adventure – Enter our playground with The Rebearth Blog Page

Well well, the financial systems are in melt down so lets forget about ice berg melt down and it’s impact on the credits that the planet has left! If it isn’t difficult enough trying to start up an ethical business in a profit orientated world why don’t the financial regulators screw up the economy as well as Earth just to make it that little bit harder. My congratulations to the greedy *ankers, corporate hooligans and their government backers around the globe for implementing a credit crunch to deflect attention away from a far more important cruch. That being the crunch the Planet feels every day because of their irresponsible environmental actions. The UK government were starting to wake up and address global warming issues a new minister for the Environment and policies to discourage the use of gas guzzling vehicles and endorsing green power schemes but whoops they seem to have quickly changed tack now that they have helped create an economic recession where finance is obviously too tight to carry through with their promises. On the 11th of November - “The Daily Telegraph disclosed on Tuesday that the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, is expected to announce in his pre-Budget Report that changes to Vehicle Excise Duty, which will see above-inflation rises for all cars on the road since 2001, will not be introduced for at least a year.” On the 3rd of November this headline appeared in the Guardian - “The planet is the big loser in Brown’s economic assault as Labour looks set to let airports expand in the name of fighting recession. And the new climate secretary is silent. As for our friends in the corporate world, - Fred Pearce in the Guardian on the 20th of November writes  - “We can’t put all our energy in one barrel,” says the BPbillboard poster. The slogan is accompanied by fetching images of green plants, wind turbines and the sun. And BP’sown logo, with its green tagline: Beyond Petroleum. But this is confection. Until 2004, BP was called British Petroleum. And in the real world of business, the giant energy company continues to plunder most of its profits from - and sink the great bulk of its investment into - barrels of oil. Who is it kidding? Well us, it hopes” Well back to business - sales seem to be taking off little by little in large part thanks to James and his great All things green website, well worth a visit for all your environmentally friendly needs. The organic cotton Beanie Hats seem to flavour of the month, a month which is seeing temperatures take a sudden dip here in the UK, as supplied to Rebearth by my friend Eric at Green Boat Stuff another great site for nautical fans wanting to keep there impact minimal. Next Wednesday I am attending a Ladies night at Taunton’s College in Southampton to help them raise funds for their annual build a school project in Tanzania, coincidentally this also happens to be the date and venue for the college’s first Green Fair to try and raise awareness of global climate change and how young people can reduce their carbon footprint. Finally for those of you who fancy becoming more hands on in helping to “protect our playground” the next Marine Conservation Society, Friends of Lepe and Rebearth Beach Clean Litter pick will take place on Sunday 11th of January 2009  starting at the Beach Office at 10.00, come and join us to help preserve this beautiful place for all of our future adventures. (http://www.adoptabeach.org.uk/results.php?BeachRegion=South%20East)Peace, love and keep it green. P.S As a new member of the Southampton sustainable forum a quick plug for their Xmas get together on December the 4th contact matthew.amesbury@environmentcentre.com for more details.

The end of September means the launch of Rebearth’s initial marketing campaign. With a focus on educating the market to the ethos of Rebearth, environmental protection and conservation, we set about getting our message into the global community. You can now find a number of eco friendly websites featuring the rebearth range of environmentally friendly outdoor adventure apparel & equipment from allthingsgreen.net, gogreen, greenfinder and New Consumer to the achievement of accredited membership of Ethical Junction. Following on from the success of Rebearth’s first venture out of the office at the Beach clean 2008 event at Lepe, we have spent the last two weeks helping to welcome new students to the two universities, located in Southampton, Southampton & Solent. With stands at Fresher’s Fayres we aimed to spread the word of environmental awareness as well as our role in helping studens to protect their playgrounds. We met up with Southampton’s Sustainability forum and are investigating a relationship to bring the people of our city information and advice on how they can reduce their carbon footprint and live a greener, more eco conscious lifestyle.

If you woke up one beautifully sunny autumn day, how would you choose to spend it? Here at Rebearth we would not have to think for long, for us the obvious place is the beach.  This time however, not to indulge our love of water sports but to inaugurate the first annual beach clean litter pick at Lepe beach in Hampshire.  As part of our Earth Tax Rebearth Future Adventure & the Friends of Lepe have adopted Lepe Beach in association with the MCS Adopt a Beach scheme.

We met up with Lepe Country Park Staff, New Forest National Park staff, Friends of Lepe Country Park and an array of MCS volunteers and set out with litter pickers, gloves and bags to collect litter from the first half kilometre.  After refreshments kindly supplied by Lepe Country park staff we arrived at the survey zone, where not a pebble or piece of seaweed was left unturned in our quest to find and remove as much litter as possible.  Having trawled the survey zone we reconvened to sort, classify and record our findings ready to be submitted to and published in the MCS National Beach Clean 2008 litter survey (for details please visit the MCS website from the Rebearth links page).

In total we collected 22 bin liners full of assorted rubbish plus a plough attachment for a tractor and some nasty rusted barbed wire.  A couple of hours later and with the sun still shining on our backs we returned to the Lepe Country Park office where all involved expressed their pleasure in playing their part in keeping this beautiful stretch of UK coastline cleaner and safer for all visitors, human, animal, bird and marine life.

  As part of Rebearth’s adoption of Lepe beach we will be carrying out litter picks on a quarterly basis with the next one taking place over the Xmas period.  All who attended today were keen to repeat the day’s activities, so with the added incentive of mince pies, we invite you to come along and join us and become not only a Friend of Lepe Country Park and Rebearth but more importantly of planet earth.  Details of the next Beach Clean are available on the MCS Adopt a Beach website.

Construction time on the website continues, Finishing touches, payment processing systems and getting the domain registration transferred. E commerce bringing the world together oh so slowly, technology is fast but putting it all in place to go live is a real test of patience. In the mean time I have been putting the initial phase of the marketing campaign in place. Lepe Beach has been adopted and the first litter pick along with the MCS beach survey is all booked for Saturday 20th of September so if you are in the area and have a spare hour or 3 come to the inaugral Lepe Country Park/Rebearth Environmental event. Business wise we are currently investigating some exciting new eco friendly products i.e. sun protection, insect repellant and waterproof jackets made from recycled materials. On a personal note, a broken finger has kept me out of the water for too long already so a surfari to the west country and a couple of kayaking trips have had to be shelved much to my chagrin. Still both the Southampton Universities’ Fresher’s events are booked in for Sept/Oct and the end of the site construction should be completed so that Rebearth can emerge for the start of September to help us all do our part in protecting our playground. 

Work on the website store is well underway. I’m currently uploading the product catalogue, a long and labourious process for a novice at e-commerce. The designers are putting the final touches to the visual display of the site and the tech guys are sorting the secure payment section of the store. Must confess I got distracted away from the business yesterday to take a wonderful paddle up the river Hamble in my kayak. Easy going up the river from Swanwick by my house to Botley Mill with the tide where I was rewarded with an eyeball with a couple of young otters. I thought I had seen them in the water last year but wasn’t sure however seeing them on the river bank just 6 feet from me was an amazing encounter and experience. Had to fight the tide and force 5 winds on the return leg and got back shattered but totally exhilarated. Spending today uploading and editing images for the website which I hope will be getting there soon!

The Original concept behind Rebearth Future Adventure began in the Autumn of 2005, whilst out for a paddle in my kayak on the upper reaches of the river Hamble, The peace and serenity of this place is where I go to escape. Whilst out on the water there, I noticed a large amount of plastic packaging floating on the surface of the water bearing the name of a large marine leisure supplier. This sparked off the thought that leisure in the natural environment has such a detrimental impact on the thing that all outdoor adventure participants love, Nature as a playground.

When I got home I started to look at what the outdoor adventure market suppliers were doing to address this issue and saddened to see that with a few exceptions none of them had an environmental sustainability ethos, processes, procedures or products. Many merely adding a product or two to their range to pay lip service to environmental sustainability when the majority of their business is eco unfriendly.

I started to investigate the new environmentally friendly products available and the new technologies which facilitate environmental sustainability in the apparel and safety equipment markets and came across two wonderful companies Howies and Finisterre who shared my ideas.

I felt that, as these two operate in niche adventure markets, I felt that there was an opportunity to try to develop a multi discipline outdoor adventure range of products for the full range of outdoor adventure pursuits. As they say great Oaks grow from small acorns, As a result I took the risky step of decreasing my hours of work in my professional life as a lecturer and immersed myself in attempting to establish Rebearth future Adventure, A business that bases all aspects of its operations on “Protecting Our Playground.”

Now as a small sapling Rebearth enters the market to help you the outdoor adventure enthusiast play your part in sustaining the natural environment for all of our future adventures.

As the sapling that is Rebearth grows and new environmentally friendly technologies allow more and more outdoor adventure apparel and equipment to be constructed from environmentally sustainable, recyclable, biodegradable and minimal emission producing raw materials so will the Rebearth Future Adventure range so please check back to see what is coming over the horizon to help Rebearth grow into a mighty Oak helping you to play your part in “Protecting Our Playground”