We all know the mantra ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’…. What this is meant to mean is firstly reduce your materials and impacts by changing your product/service, then try reusing your finished products (straight reuse or value added upcycling) then when all else fails, recycle into something else. Somedays it seems folks only think about the last one, but sadly we’re…
Easyjet is in the news again this week – this time, for painting it’s aircraft (8, as a trial) with a nanopolymer coating that reduces friction and therefore fuel use. If it works on the whole fleet, it would reduce fuel bills by up to 2% – and given 40% of easyJet’s costs are fuel, this is no small…
So, the swingeing cuts have included the government funding for the ‘arms length’ Sustainable Development Commission – for which I have been an expert panel member since its inception in 2006. I’ve just received a letter telling me it will close at the end of 2010 unless the devolved administrations want to keep some form of it going for…
The last month I’ve seen so many articles and news items on green/sustainable claims – even the One Show (hardly the cutting edge of journalism) got in on the act last week and did a spot on greenclaims in household cleaners and how misleading and unregulated they are. The comparison was drawn with Fairtrade, which everyone understands and which…
Watching the ‘Women’ triad of documentaries on BBC gave me food for thought – not just over how lucky my generation is to have choices we take for granted, but also the similarities between how those ‘feminists’ felt in the 1960s vs how many sustainability advocates feel now. Of course, ‘feminism’ is a dirty word nowadays, seems to have…
Just wanted to round up 3 things that have caught my eye in the last month – which between them I think illustrate the spectrum of effort that brands can make on the sustainability front: – On the being marginally less bad, ‘every little helps’ end, step forward Cadbury’s: On-pack claim informing about reduction in packaging taking lorries off…
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…
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…
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…
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 –…
In a world of decaying trust, where…
A fascinating panel discussion of experienced Chairmen…
