Collaborators
Net Zero Visions projects and collaborators
Meet the passionate individuals driving our mission for a net-zero future.
Tiverton Pannier Market net zero visions Mural
The Tiverton Mural was designed and painted by Dr Kate Crawfurd in the summer of 2022, in collaboration with Jessica Mallory, Phoebe Tonkin, Sophie Mullins, Kate Burman and a group of local people to bring together ideas, including local food, locally generated energy, transport, homes and community projects. The mural was officially opened by Tiverton Mayor Sue Griggs on November 5th 2022. Thanks are also due to Mid Devon District Council, who kindly agreed to the use of their wall. The work was commissioned and funded by the AHRC Net Zero Visions project and the ERDF Low Carbon Devon project at University of Plymouth (2022) in collaboration with Devon Climate Emergency.
AHRC Net Zero Visions – Sustainability Hub Mural
The Net Zero Visions mural on the wall of the Sustainability Hub was designed by Eleanor Croker BA(Hons) Illustration graduate from the University of Plymouth and painted together with Dr Kate Crawfurd, the Net Zero Visions commissioned mural artist, and Jessica Mallory, a University of Plymouth BA (Hons) Illustration graduate.
BA (Hons) Game Arts and Design students Rosie Carter and Aaron Alchin, created the mural’s augmented reality experience that includes animated local species, such as the Brown Banded Carder bee, the Dunlin, a type of sandpiper found wading along the coast, primroses and oak leaves. The augmented reality experience is available by scanning the QR code at the mural. The mural depicts a range of net-zero and sustainability visions for the university and for the city of Plymouth and celebrates initiatives already taking place.
Net Zero Visions – Plymouth Methodist Central Hall Mural
The Net Zero Visions mural for Plymouth Methodist Central Hall sits in a prominent position by Drake’s Circus, and was painted over the late summer of 2022. It was designed by Jessica Mallory University of Plymouth BA (Hons) Illustration graduate, lead artist Dr Kate Crawfurd, and painted by Jessica Mallory and Eleanor Croker BA (Hons) Illustration graduates. Kate and Jessica worked closely with Plymouth Methodist Central Hall in developing the mural design. The mural’s augmented reality experience was created by University of Plymouth, MA 3D Design graduate Ian Kok Saw and is available by scanning the QR code at the mural.
Net zERO vISONS PoeTRY
Fiona Benson lives in Devon and is one of the country’s foremost poets, three times shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and winner of the Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and Forward Prize for best collection.
As part of the process of writing these poems Fiona joined the Devon Wildlife Trust to visit beavers on the River Otter, explored a solar farm, and swam in Exeter’s prize-winning St Sidwells Point, the UK’s first Passivhaus swimming pool and leisure centre complex.
Of her involvement in Net Zero Visions Fiona said: ‘I found writing these poems a really constructive way of engaging with climate change, causing me to refocus on the positive changes that can be made rather than the ruin that lies behind us. I was heartened by the positive growth of clean energy, as well as by the wonderful passivhaus leisure centre that makes fitness and swimming available to all, and of course by the beavers who are helping us learn how to manage water, watermeadows and flooding. The project made me feel that it is possible for humans to pull back from the brink.”
Plymouth Sound – Blue Meadows
River Otter Beaver Trail
Solar/ Star Taler
Passivehaus Love-Letter
Net Zero Visions Public Commission Winner
The project put out a Net Zero Visions Artists Call with the winning entry judged to be the illustrations produced by Rosie Johnson in collaboration with Transition Exmouth.
The Vision is titled Call of Nature: A Community Eco-hub for Exmouth. The Call of Nature hub will be a small but perfectly formed mini “expo” with loads of practical, working examples of changes people can make to live more sustainably, e.g. solar power, heat pump, insulation, ecology at home, composting, re-use and repair.
The project will lead by example – powered by green energy with a zero-waste policy and Fairtrade, locally sourced products in its revenue-creating cafe. It will be a quirky, arty, fun and interesting space in which groups from all parts of the community could meet, with a high-quality infographic led design. The Vision imagines the Hub as staffed by local people with knowledge of the community, supported by the Town Council, located on the edge of the internationally recognised Exe Estuary nature reserve, and developed from a decommissioned toilet block! itiatives already taking place.
Net Zero Visions Illustrations
The Net Zero Visions illustrations are the work of Philip Harris, a freelance illustrator and printmaker who grew up in Devon and has lived there his whole life. While studying Illustration at the University of Plymouth University he inherited a collection of dip pens and nibs from a grandfather he never had the chance to meet; that legacy lives on in the way Phil now approaches artwork and uses traditional mediums.
The landscape is hugely important to Phil’s work and the areas around him are something he repeatedly returns to for inspiration when creating drawings. However, it’s not only the landscape that he find himself trying to capture in his drawings, but also a sense of the historic stories and folk tales that weave themselves throughout the fields and moors of the region.
For the Net Zero Vision drawings Phil visited each of the locations repeatedly and also spoke to community organisations in each, taking on board their ideas and aspirations for a net-zero future as it merges into activities that are already underway.
See the illustrations here
nET zERO VISIONS – Online Mobile Game
The Net Zero Vision online mobile game was developed by Mutant Labs. Founded in 2009 in Plymouth, the Mutants specialise in games, animation, music videos and interactives. Seeking unconventional, offbeat, and imaginative encounters, they have worked with clients all over the world on all sorts of projects – from big-brand games to experimental R&D.
For the Net Zero Vision project Alex Ryley and his team conducted developmental play testing with students from Plymouth High School for Girls and Salisbury Road Primary School, as well as gathering feedback at a workshop with artists and communities from all the projects.
The game is centred around three key topics. ‘Transport Turnaround’ is a rapid-fire reaction game to swap out gas-guzzling road vehicles for their greener counterparts. ‘Grow Your Own’ sees you test out your green-fingers in sowing, watering and harvesting fruit and veg in an allotment. ‘Borrow Don’t Buy’ puts you at the centre of a local community who have items to share with each other. A high-score table encourages players to keep coming back and to share the game – we look forward to seeing a wide range of players battling it out for top spot!
See the game here
Net Zero Visions Animation
The Net Zero Visions animation was created by the BAFTA and Emmy-winning Ashley Potter and his team. Ashley has also won awards for his illustration work in publishing, design and editorial fields. See the animation here.
From the start the animation was envisaged as spanning multiple places across Devon, in contrast to some of the other Visions which involved intensive work with communities centred on one place. Ashley took part in the opening workshops and distributed questionnaires to community groups in a range of locations, as a way of identifying Net Zero activities and other features distinctive to each place, and drew and took photographs on site. Feedback from diverse participants at a later workshop also helped develop the project’s shape.
Ashley and his team originally pictured the piece as fully animated by hand, until they came across a beta version (unreleased commercially) of a digital rendering software from a company called EB Synth which automated the laborious rotoscoping (drawing on top of live action) process. Test versions showed exciting potential for experimentation, with an outcome that was drawn but also 3D. The project was further developed with more drawings translated into Blender 3D software, whose models were then animated using the University of Plymouth’s motion capture facility. Two of the animation team doubled up as actors and the whole sequence was shot in the green screen room over 5 days of filming through the heatwave of summer 2022. Heads and improvised props were drawn on the day, and storyboards were used to ensure that all elements were covered. A 3D armatured model was used for the ‘carbon monster’, which was then scanned and given an internal skeleton for animation using motion capture software.
From the start Ashley was concerned to keep the animation poised between the real and the not-realistic; to ensure it wasn’t a live-action telling but something more unique and individual. Humans in the piece have an everyperson abstract quality, and are also mute – their actions speak for them. The classic Kaiiju monsters of Japanese cinema and TV – such as Godzilla, also concerned with environmental issues – were another influence. Animation Crew
Ashley Potter director / art director
Sam Holland animator / compositor /editor / actor
Amelie Ryder-Potter sculptor / actor / animator
Molly Nowell animator
Jamie Brazier 3D software
Andy Banks motion capture/unity software
Educational Resources
Net Zero Visions worked with Planet & People, a Devon-based Community Interest Company with a specialism in education and the environment, to develop free downloadable resource booklets for use in schools, for Key Stages 1-4, focused on the environment, energy, the future, and the imagination. The resources provide plug and play lessons plans and supporting materials that teachers and schools can use to explore the role they can play in positive change. This project was supported by Devon County Council.
Schools are arguably the most important place for conversations, knowledge building and visions for net zero. Mindsets are formed, ideas are introduced and young people are learning and deciding what mark they will make on the world they inhabit. If our classrooms and playgrounds are seasoned with the vision of net zero … if our school governance, parent body and teachers are all fully committed to net zero … then young people will grow up with these ideas as ‘normal knowledge’ like ‘multiplications tables’ or the ‘water cycle’.
The reach of schools is huge too – 42% of UK households have school aged children in them. Equally, Schools account for 2% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions (Carbon Trust) – their carbon emissions are equal to the energy and transport emissions of Manchester, Newcastle and Bristol combined. Their potential for carbon sinking is great too – school sites across the UK make up the same land space as two Birminghams!
The story of who we are and where we live just got interesting… See more about Planet & People here
See educational resources.
“Murals are the muscular and skeletal frame for the places we live in, or they can be. And we hope that Net Zero Visions Murals and projects will inspire and support others to creatively change the places they live in as a way of exploring how the wider communities can be substantially and fundamentally changed in a way that we all know they need to be.”
Professor david sergeant
University of Plymouth
Let’s Work Together for a net zero future
For more information, please contact Professor David Sergeant
at the University of Plymouth and email david.sergeant@plymouth.ac.uk
© University of Plymouth 2025