A Scottish Production

Jane was living at the borders, but has recently moved to Edinburgh. She cycles to work which is considered quite safe. Streets and traffic have been redesigned with cyclists and pedestrians as equal users of the flow, so traffic fatalities and accidents continue to decline. People feel safer walking and cycling across the city, so they do. Jane is able to lock her bike at her work because the city has coordinated with shop fronts and urban designs to allow for more bikes, scooters, and other clean running machines to park in more places; Though she is one of the few who cycle. A large number of the city cyclists are COVIDbabies, who are now 16 years old and in the last years of secondary school and starting their first jobs. 

There are more buses fuelled by recycled oil. A large supplier of second-round fuel (coined ‘secondsies’) are not only Scottish businesses, but Scottish crude oil to start with. Exports of oil have decreased and replaced a lot of imported oil. This is not to cut Scotland off from the global economy, but to redistribute where the country takes their supplies from. As an island, Scotland has been limited on natural resources, necessitating imports for most daily needs. However, advances in transportation and innovative developments have allowed Scotland to diversify their own raw materials, and keep more of what they produce. 

Jane is working in the finance sector. In the lobby of her office, she can get a locally sourced coffee (hybriding coffee beans in the same way rice, roses, and grapes have been, and learning from South American methods of shade growing in the mountains). Jane’s office has been retro fitted with green heating technology. Heating is cycled through the floors and walls, instead of cornered radiators, therefore distributing heat more consistently. Heat retention from these insulated methods reduces the amount of energy used to generate more heat. Ceilings and walls take on angled architecture inside to keep heat circulating and low, instead of rising to the top, and escaping out windows. Her high-rise building has turbines on the roof to generate energy. But ‘roobines’ are a now a regular part of commercial and residential buildings. Jane’s role is to liaise with the team in Orkney, where there is a satellite office to serve the needs to the region. Due to remote working, cheaper supplied energy, reduced overhead due to less office space needed, and real estate price drops outside urban centres, banks are moving to some of the rural areas. 

Outside of work Jane attends festivals. Festivals have become the staple venues for featuring Scottish products. Items, services, and more from all parts of Scotland are showcased for both local and international buyers. The products on offer are food, textiles, whiskey (of course), as traditional staples, but heritage products (things reborn from Scottish and Celtic history) and innovative products (reflecting the unique Scottish flair for leading innovation) are the highlights of Scottish festivals. Festivals are open to everyone, ages, abilities, locals and tourists. People who live locally get a chance to know about what is produced in Scotland, find their favourite vendors, their seasonal supplies, and more. Suppliers get to hear about products from the Islands. International representations are attending in a more professional capacity. At Jane’s festival, there is organic produced food, carbon neutral products, but there are still some producers who haven’t yet been able to transition to a fully green operation. ‘Organic’ is not the same label as it was in 2021. Organic is the default now and assumed to be the case for local raw materials. Any deviations are what labels reflect now. ‘Organic’ represents a rebirth of past farming and agricultural knowledge mixed with modern technology to bring about truly biodiverse, chemfree, carbon neutral prepping, planting, production, harvesting, and delivery. ‘Made in Scotland’ is a globally known branding scheme.