Rekindled

Recently The Guardian held a You ask, they answer session with Sony.  I asked the following question:

Here is Sony’s response:

The first link they give is to a press release on their own website, stating the results of Stuff Magazine’s consumer survey, which showed that consumers perceive Sony products to be the most reliable and trustworthy electronics brand (note that it doesn’t actually prove that they are the most reliable, just that people think they are).

The second link is to an interview with William McDonough (one of the pioneers of cradle to cradle, along with Michael Braungart).  He explains the concepts of sustainable design really well, but, as he says “just being interested in the concept doesn’t mean much if you don’t take action”.  It seems that Sony are beginning to take steps in the right direction, with trials in Japan and recycling crushed CDs and DVDs into new products, and I hope that this will continue and expand into the future.

This weekend I finally switched to a green electricity supplier.  That means I will be buying electricity from renewable sources like windmills.  The the three biggest and best known of these companies are Ecotricity, Good Energy and Green Energy.  There are also two newer companies called LoCO2 and OVO.  The Green Energy Marketplace has a really handy guide to green energy tariffs, and has even ranked them from 1 -5 stars (although there aren’t currently any 5 star rated suppliers).

I didn’t even consider signing up to a so-called green tariff with one of the mainstream energy suppliers.  They are required by law to buy a certain amount of energy from renewable sources, so in effect their green tariffs are charging you extra for something they would have to do anyway.  It may mean that you are getting more renewable energy, but it also means that everyone else (on a standard tariff) is getting less.  It certainly isn’t going to make any difference in the long term.

So which of the other green electricity tariffs is best?  It’s not a clear cut decision.  There are two main types: one that buys 100% green energy from the grid and sells it to you, and one that buys a mix of green and brown but invests in new sources of renewable energy.  I think both types make a valid contribution.  Companies that buy green energy from the grid encourage people to set up their own renewable energy projects.  This is a slower, more organic kind of growth in renewable energy.  However, I think that direct investment in new wind farms, for example, is going to make more of an impact more quickly.

In the end I decided to go with Ecotricity, on their slightly more expensive 100% renewable tariff.  They fall into the second category, and use all the money you spend on your energy bills to build new sources of renewable electricity, so each year they are using a bit more green and a bit less brown electricity.  Over the past 5 years that is an average of £450 per customer per year.  Their closest rival is Scottish Power, who invested a measly £27.65 per customer!  I’m not quite sure what happens to the money that Green Energy and Good Energy make because they didn’t invest anything at all.  Admittedly these stats do come from Ecotricity, but I cannot find any information on the Green Energy or Good Energy websites to contradict this.

PS. If you are thinking of switching to a green energy supplier and you decide to go with Ecotricity too, you can get 2 years’ free digital subscription to the Ecologist.

Following my last post, Alistair Burt MP has emailed me to say that he intends to adopt the Sustainable Communities Act Amendment Bill as his Private Members Bill. Hurrah!

A press release has been published in which he says:

At present I am thinking of taking through an amendment to the last Sustainable Communities Bill, a measure which was promoted by one of my Conservative colleagues, and was designed to make more transparent the use of public money in each local authority area, and give some extra opportunity for the public to have more say on expenditure in their area. A number of Parish Councils, including local ones, have contacted me about promoting this measure which I believe is in line with the public’s demand to be more involved in policy-making and engaging with the democratic process.

Alistair Burt, MP for North East Bedfordshire

Incidentally I much preferred his short email response to the three page letters I usually get from my own MP, which just seem to ramble on about what ‘the party’ is doing without actually answering my questions directly.  Thank you Mr Burt!

The Sustainable Communities Act (2007) is a fantastic piece of legislation that allows local councils to apply to central government for more control over local decisions with regards to the environment (e.g. promoting local renewable energy, increasing recycling and protecting green spaces), local economies (e.g. promoting local shops, local businesses and local jobs), social inclusion (e.g. protecting local public services and alleviating fuel poverty and food poverty) and democratic involvement (e.g. increasing the ways local people can participate in local decision making and promoting new ways in which people can influence what happens locally).

However, according to Steve Shaw, National Co-ordinator of Local Works (the organisation that helped to bring about the original Act), more needs to be done:

The initial take up of the Sustainable Communities Act has been fantastic. So far 100 council areas have submitted a total of 300 proposals for government action to promote and protect local sustainability.  However the process is in danger of being a one off! It must be ongoing.

We need to see the Sustainable Communities Act Amendment Bill made law. This will ensure that the Act’s process is ongoing [so that councils who haven't yet opted-in can still do so in the future].

Parliament held a ballot recently to select which MPs will be given a chance to introduce a piece of legislation (i.e. a Bill) which has a chance of becoming law. Because of the upcoming election, only the top seven have a realistic chance of changing the law. It is crucial that we persuade one of these lucky MPs to adopt the Sustainable Communities Act Amendment Bill.

URGENT ACTION:

Your help will be crucial in successfully seeing one of these MPs to take up our Bill, so please do the following:

1. Please write to, or email, at least one of these MPs, but preferably all seven, and ask them to ‘Please adopt the Sustainable Communities Act Amendment Bill’. This will only take a few minutes and I have included a sample letter for you to personalise below.

2. Please ask others to do the same and forward this email on to anyone who may help – the more letters and emails these MPs receive the better!

Thank you for you fantastic support and efforts: it really has made a big difference. Let’s make sure the Sustainable Communities Act keeps on going!

The seven MPs who came top of the ballot, and their addresses and emails are:

1. Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East): iddonb@parliament.uk
address: Brian Iddon MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

2. David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North): chaytord@parliament.uk
address: David Chaytor MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

3. Andrew Gwynne (Labour, Denton and Reddish): gwynnea@parliament.uk
address: Andrew Gwynne MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

4. Albert Owen (Labour, Ynys Môn): owena@parliament.uk
address: Albert Owen MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

5. Julie Morgan (Labour, Cardiff North): morganj@parliament.uk
address: Julia Morgan MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

6. Anthony Steen (Conservative, Totnes): steena@parliament.uk
address: Anthony Steen MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

7. Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire): burta@parliament.uk
address: Alistair Burt MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

DRAFT LETTER TO THE SEVEN MPS

Dear [MP’s NAME]

Congratulations on your success in the Private Members’ Ballot. I am writing to ask you to please adopt the Sustainable Communities Act Amendment Bill.

The Bill is crucial as it will ensure the involvement process in the Sustainable Communities Act is ongoing and not just a one off event. Thousands of people and hundreds of councils across the country want to use the Act but currently can not. This Bill will ensure they can.

I am not one of your constituents but understand what a rare opportunity you have been granted via the Ballot. This Bill already has backing from MPs of all parties, and from the huge Local Works coalition of national organisations, that successfully campaigned for the original Act to become law.

I do hope very much you will take up this Bill.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

[YOUR ADDRESS]

MyFolia.com is my absolute favourite gardening website.  It is basically an online gardening journal, with Web 2.0 bells and whistles like plant wikis and social networking groups.  I use it to keep a record of what I am doing in my garden, and I find it is much easier to keep track of everything than using a traditional pen and paper journal.  You can use it to keep track of any type of garden, whether indoor or outdoor, vegetable or ornamental, massive or tiny.

What I like best about it is that you can use it to keep track of individual plantings of each type of plant.  I can create a new planting of the same type of plant e.g. the sugar snap peas I planted 3 weeks ago as well as the ones I planted yesterday.  This will help me to get  a steady crop through the summer rather than having 10 boxes of tomatoes that I can’t possibly use up all in one go!

You can also keep a  journal of what you have been doing in the garden and cross-reference this with all your different plantings.  By keeping a record of information like when I plant a seed, when it germinates, when it flowers etc, I am learning a lot about what works and what doesn’t work.  I can then look back at this information next year so I that I don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.  You can see all of my journals and plantings in my profile (if you’re interested).

Another nifty thing about it is that it links to your existing online photo album (like flickr, blogger or picasa) so that you can simply link to your pictures, rather than having to upload them all over again.  I like to take lots of photos of my garden and my plants as they are growing so I find this really handy.  You can also add your seed stash and create new plantings from the same seed, so you don’t have to type in the same information more than once.  Another time saver!

I haven’t really made much use of the social networking aspects yet, but you have access to tons of information.  For each variety of plant there is a wiki (which means the information on it has been contributed by other users of the site, and you can contribute too) which tells you information such as how to grow it, where and when to sow it, how big it will be when fully grown, and so on.  There are also groups where you can discuss many different aspects of gardening and get answers to your gardening questions.

If you are a gardener and you find that you forget useful pieces of information like when you planted your potatoes or what on earth you planted over there, then you will quite probably find myfolia to be a total blessing.  I know I certainly do.

Remember the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?  I think we’re starting to get the hang of recycling, but what about reducing?  Reduce the amount of stuff you buy and you will reduce the amount of waste and pollution that is created.  If you want to know more then take a look at The Story of Stuff.  Think about all the things you have bought over your entire lifetime.  That’s a lot of stuff.  And did you really need all of it?  Has it made your life better?  Can you even remember most of it?  Where is it all now?  I’d be willing to bet that you don’t even have most of it any more.

So if you want to make a difference with your shopping habits, buy nothing and make do with what you already have.  This requires a lot of creative thinking and resourcefulness.  Think about alternative uses for things before throwing them away.  For example, I once had a TV stand that, during its long life, also served as a coffee table and bedside table simply by putting a throw (which I also already had) over the top.  

Borrowing (or renting) is also a great tactic to help you buy less stuff.  Instead of buying books and DVDs, borrow them from the library.  I usually read most books once and then they sit on the shelf gathering dust and cluttering up my house.  Now I search my local library catalogue online to find books I want, and I can even reserve them online.  Last week, I suggested a book that they didn’t have in stock, and they only went and ordered it for me!   Friends are also another great source of stuff you can borrow.  Last year, we cut down a tree/bush thing in our garden (to make room to grow veggies) and our friends lent us their shredder.  We could have bought our own, but we would never have used it again.  We lent the same friends a food processor when they were having a dinner party.

Freecycle is another great resource to help you buy less.  It’s a little bit like ebay as people advertise second hand goods, but everything is FREE!  You just have to go and collect it!  Freecycle is also fab for decluttering and getting rid of old junk – your trash becomes someone else’s treasure.  I have scored a compost bin and some jewellery making kit from Freecycle, and given away a whole host of clutter.  It’s a great way of saving things that are on their way to landfill, whilst saving yourself money in the process.

If you really want to go the whole hog, you can even join The Compact, a group of people who pledge to buy nothing new for a whole year.  I joined the pledge and managed about 6 months without buying anything at all.  I don’t stick to it any more, but I definitely buy a lot less than I used to, and I never go shopping just for fun any more – I only go if I actually need something.  So if nothing else, it will change the way you think about shopping.

It really doesn’t take much effort to buy less, and it certainly won’t cost you anything.  But I believe that changing our pattern of massive overconsumption is the single biggest thing that we can do in order to reduce our impact on the planet and make our way of life more sustainable for the future.  And if I haven’t convinced you then can I remind you again about The Story of Stuff?  Seriously, it’s well worth a look.

One of my favourite blogs is The Non Consumer Advocate which is about living sustainably and making do with less stuff.  Recently, the author, Katy Wolk-Stanley, has started an online book discussion group.  The first book she has chosen in Simple Prosperity by David Wann (coauthor of Affluenza).  Currently, the preface, introduction and first chapter are being discussed.

I decided to join in as I thought the book sounded interesting.  I tried to reserve it at my local library but there are no copies available anywhere in the county as yet, so I ended up ordering a copy from Amazon.  I have read the whole book and I thought it was amazing.  It is down to earth but inspiring and hopeful, and it is so good to know that there are people out there who think like me.

Being a self-confessed hippy and treehugger, I have already taken several steps towards reducing my levels of consumption.  I no longer go shopping for fun, my central heating is on a timer, and I wear a jumper indoors when it is cold.  I recycle, I buy used when I can, and turn lights off when I leave the room.  However this book has really driven home one more thing that I could do to reduce my impact, and that is to eat less meat.  This is something that I have considered and tried a few times but so far I haven’t really been successful.

My personal stumbling block is knowing what to eat instead of meat.  As a child, every main meal I ate contained some form of meat, so I just have no idea what else there is!  So far I have discovered one particular variety of veggie burger that I like, but I don’t really see the point of eating fungus or seaweed or beans that are mashed up and reformed to look and taste like meat.  In my mind that kind of defeats the whole point.  Plus, when I went to the supermarket earlier today, it was no longer available, so I’m back to square one again.

I know there are vegetarian recipes out there that will taste delicious and won’t leave me feeling like something is missing.  But I don’t know where to look or how to start.  Can anyone help???

I have just read a wonderful article by Rex Weyler on the Greenpeace International Website which sums up my views on the economy far more eloquently than I could ever manage.

The current economic model is focused on the amount of being spent, which is known as GDP (Gross Domestic Product).  For the economy to grow, we have to spend more money than we did the year before.  This means an ever-increasing consumption of resources.  However, we only have one planet’s worth of resources and not an infinite supply, so this way of working cannot be sustained forever.  I believe that we need a new economic model which measures success differently, using indicators of wellbeing and happiness, for example.

In addition, Weyler points out:

Ignoring nature has been the fundamental mistake of classical economics. Nature appears on no corporation’s balance sheet, so when forests disappear or when rivers die from pollutants, no one accounts for the missing assets. Economists presumed that nature would provide free resources and an infinite sink for waste and pollution. This was a big mistake.

If you are interested in this sort of thing I highly recommend you read this article: Deep Green | Greenpeace International.