www.everythingsgonegreen.co.uk

Back in December we brought you news on the advertising campaign by energy supplier E.ON called Reduce your Carbon Footyprint. To summarise, it’s all about getting English football fans to do their bit to reduce their carbon footprint by taking the coach and car-sharing to football matches, specifically the FA Cup. Football & energy suppliers? That’s a strange mix. So what’s in it for E.ON then? Well, E.ON sponsor the FA Cup which is next weekend. Not only is the campaign increasing their brand awareness but it is also creating the sense that E.ON really care about the environment. It’s an attempt to boost their publicly-perceived green credentials.

We were sceptical, we usually are. We’ve even been sceptical about our own champions of green energy Ecotricity, but only by questioning do we understand the answers. Upon publishing that story we received word that, despite a very public campaign to prove that E.ON is going green, they are forging ahead with plans to build a new coal-fired power station in Kingsnorth, Kent.

According to the website (”Stop Kingsnorth, no to new coal”) the new Kingsnorth coal-fired power station would belch out as much CO2 in one year as would 200 years of the the FA Cup.

Hypocrisy, madness, Greenwash?! What is the world coming to? No, don’t answer that!

For more answers on E.ON’s Kingsnorth coal-fired power station go take a look at the spoof site http://www.carbonfootyprint.org/

Protesters from Greenpeace, some dressed in ape suits, have demonstrated at the premises of Unilever in both London and the North West of England.

Unilever, the global Anglo-Dutch company with interests in food, drink, cleaning products and personal care items, is a major user of palm oil in many of its products. Formed back in 1930 as a merger between the British soap makers, Lever Brothers, and Dutch firm Margarine Unie, the company amalgamated to pool its resources as both products (soap & margarine) relied heavily in the use of palm oil.

Recently rain forests have been destroyed in Malaysia & Indonesia to make way for palm plantations to fuel the world’s burgeoning desire for products that happen to use palm oil. As a result many orang-utans have been displaced and killed; some species of orang-utan are on the endangered species list, with the Sumatran orang-utan being critically endangered.

The Greenpeace protests at the Unilever HQ in London and the manufacturing plant in the Wirral, Merseyside, have involved some 50 protesters, highlighting the need for Unilever to urgently introduce sustainable methods of palm oil usage.

Unilever does chair the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil which aims to “promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil” but Greenpeace fears the slow progress of the group. Whilst the RSPO discusses ways to be sustainable rainforests are still being cleared to make way for the production of palm oil.

Unilever states that it is leading the way to find sustainable palm oil solutions but this could simply be just Greenwash.

It’s been on facebook, and now Google have turned the lights out. It’s Earth Hour, tonight 8pm-9pm GMT or whatever time that equates to in your part of the world.

All you have to do is turn off the lights and “see the difference you can make”.

It’s got to be better than E-Day which was an abysmal failure.

The BBC’s speculatively-titled story “Chancellor looks to green budget” is pretty thread-bare, starting with the opening line:

Green taxes and measures to help people struggling to pay energy bills are likely to be among changes in the chancellor’s first Budget on Wednesday.

It goes on to speculate that the chancellor, Alistair Darling, might put a levy on larger vehicles like people carriers, putting their price up by £2000.

And that’s it!

Well, if that’s all the chancellor can do for green issues in the UK Budget on Wednesday then that’s pretty poor for helping people go green. Isn’t a people carrier a more efficient way of carrying 6 or 7 people than having to drive 2 vehicles? If there’s any truth in that rumour then it would be a right poke in the eye for people who car-share.

We understand putting taxes on the least fuel efficient vehicles, but isn’t that why some people pay more road tax than others and why inefficient vehicles cost more to run purely from the fact that their MPG is so poor?

Come on Darling, where’s the incentives to go green. Saying “you can’t do this” or “can’t do that” is simply negative. Why don’t you give us:

• Increased grants for home solar projects
• Increased grants for home insulation
• More green spaces for community allotments
• Increase tax on the most polluting vehicles
• Greater taxes on polluting businesses
• A stop on the expansion of any more UK airports
• Serious public debate over nuclear energy

etc etc

That would be a good start. He’s already effectively nationalised the Northern Rock bank, why can’t he part-nationalise some of our public transport to stop the greedy private companies from milking the public?

Let’s wait until Wednesday, aye?

If you’re in the south of England then don’t forget it’s Green Architecture Day in Brighton.

Starting at 10am and running through to 5pm there are stalls and stands, which are free to see.

The talks, ranging from the design of eco centres and buildings to green rooves, need to be paid for. Obviously it’s too late to pre-book but you can pay at the door today.

Green Architecture Day is held at the Sallis Benney Theatre in Brighton.

After the little town of Modbury in Devon banned carrier bags last year, it has taken a long time for anyone else in England to catch up.

In fact nobody has caught up yet, there are just schemes to deter shoppers from using the dreaded polluting plastic bags, of which a staggering 13 billion are given away free every year across the country. Taking around 1000 years to decay, it’s no wonder something needs to be done about the “white trash”.

Step in Marks & Spencer, the forward-thinking, environmentally-friendly eco-warrior of big-name high street retailers, you know, the guys who bought us Plan A (Because there is no Plan B).

Well, OK, Marks & Sparks haven’t quite gone the whole hog yet but they are going to charge shoppers a whole 5 new pence to buy a carrier bag in future. And the future is not now, the future is 6 May 2008. And for a month before the levy comes into place, those nice people at Marks & Spencer will be giving away long-lasting placcy bags that discerning shoppers can reuse.

So what’s bought this about? Well, M&S ran a trial in 50 of its stores where they charged a mere 5 pence for their plastic carrier bags and demand for the oil-derived receptacles fell by 70%. Seemingly the scheme had a great impact and the 5 pence “tax” made shoppers think.

It’s all part of M&S Chief Exec Sir Stuart Rose’s commitment for the chain to reduce their waste to zero to landfill, as detailed in their Plan A. So come on all you other big name stores… where’s your plans to charge for carrier bags?

Nokia’s President and CEO unveiled a new concept Nokia mobile phone that is, at last, pretty environmentally friendly.

The new Nokia concept mobile, branded “Remade” is supposedly constructed from nothing new, thus reducing the carbon footprint of the device, using less raw materials, reducing landfill waste and making the whole production process more energy efficient.

The Nokia remade is a recycled, post-consumer piece of modern technology. Made from recycled aluminium (old drinks can), plastic from recycled plastic bottles, old car tyres and, rather than the old acid-etched circuit board, the green mobile phone has printed electronics.

But before you rush out and ask for a Nokia Remade to replace your funky iPhone or N95, remember that this is just a concept phone. For now.

Let’s hope Nokia do the right thing and start using recycled material in ALL their products.

The National Trust has a novel idea for environmental work this leap year with it’s own Green Leap Day.

All of the Trust’s 4800 staff are being encouraged to take February 29th off and focus their efforts into green projects. The idea is that staff will work on going green at home with numerous simple household tasks such as:

• Changing lightbulbs to energy-efficient lightbulbs
• Draught-proofing windows & doors
• Insulating loft spaces
• Building a compost-heap in the garden
• Organising the household recycling
• Fixing up environmental transport, making sure bicycles are fixed

Staff who have already gone green are being encouraged to help out in community projects such as at their local schools.

The whole idea revolves around people actually getting up and doing work for the environment rather than merely talking about it… So we’d better get on with some work then, shouldn’t we?

Ed - This might not be ideal for every business but what a great idea - if only other big organisations had the foresight and the balls to do their bit for the environment and not just on 1 day in every four years either, but at least it’s a start!

Over at the BBC there’s a great video story on a car that runs on air.

The car, well, a small van actually, has a tiny engine that runs on compressed air and uses other fuels for longer journeys. That means that during the urban cycle the vehicle makes absolutely no emissions at all. Except, for now, a bit of noise.

Inventor Guy Negre, an ex Formula 1 engineer, said that:

“The first buyers will be people who care about the environment”

Which is highly likely as the vehicle is reported to be capable of up to 140 MPG.

Monsieur Negre has been promising to deliver this concept for about 10 years now, but with the backing of Tata, the Indian manufacturing giant, the concept is close to completion.

Tata’s backing helped MDI Enterprise S.A. to put the finishing touches to their Compressed Air Technology (CAT) engines.

The BBC has reported on another body of scientists adding their collective voice to the climate change debate.

This time it’s the AGU, the American Geophysical Union, the world’s largest organisation of earth & space scientists, that has revised its public policy to add further weight to the climate debate.

In December the AGU changed its official statement on climate change after years of activity in studying the effects and possible effects of climate change. The revised statement reflects the research from many of the AGU’s members supporting the effects of how climate change the planet. The AGU has 50,000 members in 137 countries.

The AGU has said that current climate change is “not natural” and can be best attributed to human activity and the pumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Carbon emissions should be cut by half by the end of the century, the AGU has warned.