Brighton World Fair Trade Day event - Sat 10 May

May 7th, 2008

Posted by: Katie

We are really excited about our World Fair Trade Day event this Saturday 10 May!

Cred Jewellery fair trade diamonds Greg Valerio of Cred Jewellery is going to be telling us all about the process of seeking Fair Trade certification for gold and diamonds. So if you’re on the lookout for an ethical engagement or wedding ring, are confused about conflict diamonds and focused on Fair Trade, it really is a must.

The event takes place this Saturday 10 May at The Friends Meeting House, Ship Street, Brighton.

If you happen to be in Brighton on Saturday and can tear yourself away from the beach for an hour or two, we’d love to see you there…!

Midday – 2pm – fair trade stalls and information stands

2-3pm – speaker event – ‘Fair Trade that glitters’ - raising awareness of the social and environmental issues surrounding gold and diamonds (going beyond conflict or blood diamonds) and the route towards fair trade certification that Greg Valerio of Cred Jewellery has been spearheading.

Greg will be talking about his experiences to date and what future he sees for fair trade gold and diamonds. A Q&A session will follow the presentation.

3-4.30pm – chance to chat to local ethical businesses

4.30pm – late! – chat some more in The Cricketers pub over the road (The Cricketers, Black Lion Street, BN1 1ND)

The event is free but donations to cover costs will be gratefully accepted.

You are very welcome to come along to all or any part of this day-long event.

Hope to see you there!

Katie & Jamie
www.ethicalweddings.com

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Which Carbon Offset?

December 18th, 2007

Posted by: Vicky

Carbon Offsetting can be a controversial issue, viewed by some as a means to lighten their carbon load on the planet and by others as an excuse to throw money at a problem rather than make any effective or sometimes challenging changes.

My personal view of carbon offsetting is that it should be used to ‘mop up’ after you’ve already adjusted the way you do things. As we all know, there are many ways to lower our C02, in some cases this can be as straightforward as swapping a lightbulb or as in-depth as re-thinking the way we live. I feel that carbon offsetting can be used once you have decreased your individual carbon footprint as much as you can but there are still a few things that you’re not able to change immediately or practically.

When we were writing our environmental policy and action plan here at Make Hay I decided that I would offset the carbon emmissions caused by our business travel. Fortunately this is minimal because our line of work allows us to communicate via e-mail and telephone most of the time but, on occassion, we need to meet clients face to face. Our clients are based all over the country, some in the city and some in the country so whether by bus, train or car for meetings we we need to use transport.

Once I began to investigate the carbon offestting schemes available I realised how varied they were in terms of what you actually pay for, how they work and how much they cost.

Some organisations ask for contributions of £1000, others sell set packages for as little at £30. My main dilemma was should I pay to support a tree planting scheme here in the UK or should my money go towards communities in developing countries? If we’re speaking purely about the pollution which comes straight from the exhaust of a vehicle I’m using then that will initially affect the environment right here. However, developing countries are and will suffer the devastation of human induced climate changed caused by people here in the UK (and other countries) but do not necessarily have the same support and infrastucture to protect themselves or recover.

I have to say that I was impressed by the wide variety of carbon offsetting projects. Of course it has to be about so much more than planting a certain number of trees and many carbon offset companies have addressed that, investing in energy saving schemes and renewable energy sources.

For our first year of carbon offsetting I chose a company which covers all three areas - reforestation (on various continents), energy efficiency and renewables. However, next year I may use a different one, allowing me to support more of the innovative ways being employed to reduce C02.

I wanted to share my experince here on GGG because I’m genuinely interested to hear what you think of carbon offsetting.

Do you think its an effective way to tackle climate change?

Would you use it?

If, so what kind?

Put ‘Carbon Offsetting’ into Google and see how many options there are.

I’d love to hear your views in the comments below or contact me here at GGG.

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Go get ‘em Girls!

November 6th, 2006

Posted by: Al

I am proud to launch GreenGirlsGlobal. This blog comes with a pedigree. You should know its history, sorry, herstory

It all started back in February 2005 with me thinking I should start a blog. I set up CityHippy and just loved my new soapbox. Then a friend wanted to write some stuff for me so I said why not write for CityHippy. A few months after that I decided to open it up entirely and include other writers. What a wild ride it was. Had so much fun, met some amazing people and discovered some amazing things about myself and our world.

Today sadly CityHippy offers up its last post for various reasons (which you can read about here). CityHippy might make a comeback, you never know. Life is in a constant state of change and much good is coming from this ending. From the ashes of CityHippy comes GreenGirlsGlobal.

GreenGirlsGlobal came about because some of the CityHippy editors wanted to carry on the CityHippy site but for various reasons that was not to be.

I said to Vicky, the founding force behind this new blog, ‘Why not start a new blog?’. Most of the CityHippy editors are girls…and the words green and global just tripped off our tounges. So there it was. Perfectly formed. GreenGirlsGlobal. The girls of CityHippy have made a new home. And it rocks!

GreenGirlsGlobal is starting off with nine editors - some from CityHippy and some are brand new. All of them are exciting and vibrant folks. The blog will doubtless grow to include even more editors. Wanna write for them? Get in touch.

Please encourage, comment (locked right now to prevent spam but unlocking imminently), rss (again only minutes away) write about and even for this blog. They deserve your attention and I am 100% positive you will not be disappointed.

Go get ‘em girls!

Namaste