Scottish Ecological Design Association

You are invited to another of SEDA's regular Greendrinks nights in Edinburgh. All ages and backgrounds welcome, whether SEDA members or not. Catch up with people you only see online, or make new connections. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/seda-green...

The need for food security has been highlighted by recent climate change impacts and trade disruptions. What is the nature of the problem in Scotland, and what interventions are needed? 📅 4-6.30pm, Tuesday, 10 November 📍Edinburgh Climate Change Institute 🎟️ www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/food-secur...

TODAY! – the third and final event in our ‘Championing the Local’ series. We’ll explore why some decisions about land use are best made at landscape scale, and how bioregions and RLUPs can enable this. ⏰ 4-6pm 📆 Mon 21 Sept 📌 online 🔗 seda.scot/championing-...

Just one week to go until the third of our ‘Championing the Local’ series. We’ll explore why some decisions about land use are best made at landscape-scale, and how RLUPs and bioregions with natural, not political, boundaries enable this. ⏰ 4-6pm 📆 Mon 21 Sept 📌 online 🔗 seda.scot/championing-...

SEDA is seeking a volunteer gamer to play and help promote Stone & Veil, an exciting new interactive game addressing soil health, land use and Highland mythology. The game has been co-developed by Abertay University, Fish Tin Games, James Hutton Institute and SEDA Land. seda.scot/seda-land-ga...

Next Wednesday, 16 September, is SCOTTISH HOUSING DAY, which includes a host of community events around Scotland. www.scottishhousingday.co.uk Held in partnership with orgs including @sfha.bsky.social @stir.ac.uk @edinburghtenants.bsky.social @cohousingscotland.bsky.social @cihscotland.bsky.social

This finally gives SMEs the chance to compete with larger organisations in the onerous local authority procurement system.

The joy of these examples of collaboration between a community and local authority is that they are equal partnerships. Both, in their different ways, are benefiting from collaboration with their council through sustainable means.

Green groups call for Andy Burnham to break his silence on climate change: www.theguardian.com/environment/... Pleased to be a signatory to this joint letter organised by @gndrising.bsky.social: www.gndrising.org/updates/gree...

What new prime minister Andy Burnham can learn from Scotland. @rossaitchison.bsky.social says: “The solution lies in following an ambitious, place-based methodology, while making sure we provide the local powers with the right resources and investment to deliver it.” @news.architectsjournal.co.uk

More than 50 environmental charities are urging the Scottish Government to commit to doubling the area of organic farmland by 2031. @scotlink.bsky.social said increasing organic farming could help farm businesses, cut emissions, and reduce fertiliser and pesticide use. @soilassocscot.bsky.social

“Scotland made climate change — can it now solve it? How the story of one country is the story of the world,” with @dominicmhinde.bsky.social, author of Drifting North: Finding a Sustainable Future in Scotland’s Past. Sunday, 23 August, at Shilling Brewing Co, 92 West George St, Glasgow G2 1PJ

Arthur’s Seat has been hit by another wildfire. 💔 The smoke hanging over Edinburgh is a stark reminder that climate change is already being felt here in Scotland, increasing the risk of more frequent and intense wildfires. It's time to turn the temperature down. 🔥

Is Scotland sufficiently ambitious when it comes to housing? This was Herald editor @salmondsalmond.bsky.social's question to Scottish National Investment Bank investment director Nicola Douglas. “We should be [more] open to looking at other models across the UK and Europe,” was Douglas’s answer.

We are holding a series of three conversations on Community Wealth Building, with the focus on local value chains, on 7, 14, and 21 Sept 2026. The series is intended to help communities realise their ambitions and persuade local authorities of the part they can play in enhancing local economies.

RIAS urges ScotGov to rethink its infrastructure strategy. CEO Tamsie Thomson said: “Grenfell made clear that weak oversight, fragmented responsibility and cost-driven decision-making create systemic danger. It’s gravely worrying when building safety isn’t given strategic weight in public policy.“

“Like a woodwind solo drifting through a mountain valley these houses play a continuous melody marked by theme and variation in cedar, stone and timber beam,” says Trevor Roddy of homes by Blue Sky Architecture, the Vancouver-based practice led by Bo Helliwell and Kim Smith. LAST CHANCE TO BOOK!

Former WD & HO Wills cigarette factory to be “sensitively repurposed” as 129 homes under proposals from Turnberry Property Devts and EMA Architects. At its height, the Art Deco landmark, built 1946-53, employed 3500 and produced 260m cigarettes a week. www.scottishhousingnews.com/articles/pla...

At last night’s Better Outdoors SEDA Land event, held in Augustine United Church, Edinburgh, one audience member said outdoor learning is a “a no-brainer”. She’s right. At the event, practitioners, academics and policymakers explored how to ensure it is rolled out more widely across Scotland.

In a UK first, Stirling is pioneering a combined heat and power (CHP) system that utilizes cleaned wastewater to deliver heat to public buildings and businesses. A partnership between Scottish Water Horizons, Stirling Council, and Trane, the project is expected to save 380 tonnes of carbon a year.

Join us for a celebration of the life and legacy of SEDA co-founder, architect, activist and educator Jim Johnson on Saturday, 16 May from 1pm. The event is being held in Briggait, an a-listed complex of studios in the Merchant City which owes its survival and flowering to Jim and his colleagues.

Why the Isle of Eigg hatched a plan to grow its own trees. The island’s nursery — currently running a “putting down roots” crowdfunder — is growing tens of thousands of native trees to create a sustainable supply of wood for fuel and to support natural habitats www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/eiggtreenu...

The primary energy fallacy is the false assumption that energy sources must be compared on the strength of their raw, primary energy input rather than their energy output. @janrosenow.bsky.social

“The Glenbranter extension highlights how Scotland’s timber industry — from growing forests, to milling, to designing building materials — can safeguard rural jobs for local people and enhance sustainability,” says Forestry and Land Scotland's operations manager Mark Ormsby.

On International Women’s Day, SEDA Land thanks all the inspirational women who have helped us in the past year. Here are a few of them. Clockwise from top left: Bea Nichol, Megan MacInnes, Flora Fraser, Magdalena Blazusiak, Lucy Filby, Savannah Fishel, Sophie Cooke, Lorna Dawson, and Gloria Lo

North Queensferry Community Trust wins appeal against the Scottish Government over the latter’s claim that plans for a community-buyout of historic coaching inn the Albert Hotel are unworkable and unaffordable. Dunfermline Sheriff Court ruled that ScotGov’s stance was “not based on reason or logic”.

Through community shares and collective ownership, Scots are now in a much better position to raise money and run locally-important shops and services themselves. @paulinedtas.bsky.social, chief executive of Development Trusts Association Scotland (@dtascotland.bsky.social), in @scotsman.com