How to drive demand for recycled products?

I was in the foyer of the BBC yesterday and noticed that their stationery had arrived – cases of Evolve 100% recycled paper, exactly the same as I use. I was delighted. And then I thought, if even the BBC can do it (huge organisation, slow to change), then its really not hard. Why do we even use up…

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Ecology BS is a breath of fresh air in the financial world

Congratulations to the Ecology Building Society! They’ve been winning awards left right and centre for the hard work they do in creating genuinely ethical savings products – Ethical Consumer Magaxine’s ‘best buy’ 2009, and What Mortgage’s ‘best environmental lender’ awards and even ‘Mortgage Finance Gazette’s’ ‘best green lender’ award. Its because they are very strict on who they lend…

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Kyoto2 – is the Copenhagen conundrum solvable?

As December’s climate talks in Copenhagen draw near, the political shenanigans are rife – today the Guardian report that China and many developing nations think the developed nations are trying to sabotage reaching an agreement on the successor to Kyoto – the agreement to address climate change by cutting carbon emissions through various market and policy mechanisms. So are…

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Stella and Curry’s talking recycling

So finally Stella Artois and Currys meet in more than just a late night takeaway melange…. they are both brands that are communicating recycling as part of their advertising: – Stella’s outdoor campaign focussing on the recycled material content of the cans and box packaging, in a stylish ‘Stella’ manner that touches on nostalgia of where the aluminium or…

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How can consumers measure ‘green-ness’

An interesting conversation today with a consumer insight specialist (thanks Mercedes) raised an issue I’ve wondered about before, but only from the brand side – how does one measure ‘green-ness’.What I learnedwas that in fact this is a highly topical consumer issue, with brands currently dividing into 3 camps in their consumer communication: 1. Go the 100% route –…

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Czech beer brands at risk from climate change

You’d think that you couldn’t get further from heavy issues like climate change than in the high volume, image driven beer category. Yet it may be one of the first categories to experience real ‘brand risk’ from climate change. New Scientist reports this week that the Saaz hops that is the basis for pilsner lagers such as Pilsner Urquell,…

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