Me and the Prof have got to that wonderful stage in parenthood where we can simply dump a pan of chilli on the kitchen table, say “help yourselves, we won’t be late” and grab our coats on the way out the door. Last Thursday evening we headed out to see my friend and colleague Marek Bidwell present his new book Skye Line alongside two other nature writers, Sophie Yeo and Dr Matthew Kelly, at a Natural History Society of Northumbria event.

Most of the audience was middle-aged or of an older vintage. During the discussion, we got onto a somewhat stereotypical conversation about ‘reconnecting’ young people with nature. I mused that those very young people use the putdown “Go touch grass”* when they think someone is spending too long arguing pointlessly on the internet and need to catch themselves on (I first saw the phrase aimed at Elon Musk by his daughter). I mentioned that I often see parents fussing over their kids getting their clothes dirty in the park, and that while we have given our kids more freedom than average amongst our peer group, they have still explored their neighbourhood much less than I did at the same age. Are we holding our kids back – while blaming their screen time for our own cowardice?

My first steps into Sustainability were taking part in, and later leading, local practical projects run by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers. When I applied for my first paid Sustainability job at Newcastle University’s Engineering Design Centre, my pitch was the role brought my engineering and (now demonstrable) environmental interests together. I got the job and the rest is Sustainability. Touching the grass (wood, water, stone etc) worked for me.

Likewise, I have seen many organisations use practical tasks such as pond-digging or biodiversity gardening as the main element of their employee engagement for Sustainability. Everybody loves nature, so this is a wonderfully disarming way of opening a dialogue about our place in the real world and how we interact with it. Beats Powerpoint any day of the week.

So while we can talk about reconnecting, how about actually going and doing it?

* embarrassingly, I garbled it into ‘go touch soil’ and had to be corrected by one of the younger people present. I rest my case.