Much of the wild land in Scotland is under threat from large scale developments to meet our future energy needs. In contrast to this approach to the future, we have a vision of a more sustainable future where communities in remote areas meet their energy needs without ‘costing the earth’.

I work for the John Muir Trust within the Climate Change and Sustainable Communities project. The Trust protects some of the most beautiful, remote and wild land in Scotland, both directly and in partnership with local communities.

Many of the rural communities we have a relationship with have already started investing in a more sustainable future. You can see what these communities are doing by checking out my blog.

One example we are keen to see replicated comes from the Isle of Eigg – with whom we have been sharing experiences. This remote island community leads the way in Scotland as a model of what is possible. Two women, Lucy Conway and Maggie Fyffe, along with Project Officer Tasha Lancaster have spearheaded the exciting work here. They have developed a two pronged approach which aims to make the community self-sufficient in energy terms within three years.

The first strand of their plan focuses on the ‘software’ through an education and outreach program called Islands Going Green which recognises the permanent changes needed to bring about a more sustainable future will only come about when there is major buy-in from the whole community.

Islands Going Green encourage people to take action in small communities of around 100 people as that is a human scale. This could be a street, a social club, a workplace where you commit to having your own ‘green island’. They have had lots of fun social events on their journey and have gained huge community support.

The second strand is focused on the ‘hardware’ elements – looking to energy efficiency and conservation measures along with a cocktail of micro renewables to decrease their use of fossil fuels. They wisely are not relying on one source alone for renewable energy but have invested in a mix of wind, solar, biomass and hydro schemes. Already they seem further advanced in their thinking than the government.

Article by Fran Loots
Energy without costing the Earth – http://jmtcommunities.blogspot.com

Time to Change www.t2c.org.uk is on a mission to replace the UK’s oldest fridges. We want to encourage the replacement of 15.4 million old appliances in the UK that are needlessly wasting energy. Amazingly, if we replaced all large domestic appliances with energy efficient ones we would provide savings of up to 3.6 TWh – the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power over 1 million UK homes for an entire year!

The UK’s Oldest Working Fridge competition on our website highlights these aims. We are trying to pension off the oldest fridge presenting the owner of this guzzler with a brand new A+ or A++ model. Of course the winner’s old machine will be recycled. In fact on average 80% of the components and materials used in major appliances are now recycled. As well as the £6.6 billion that manufacturers have spent on developing energy efficient technology in the last decade they also have helped to finance processing facilities nationwide to ensure safe, eco-friendly disposal, under the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment) Directive. There is more about this on www.t2c.org.uk/myths.html

You can enter this competition online but it closes on 28th February so hurry up if you want the chance to discover the wonders of energy efficient technology.

And if you’re not harbouring Britain’s oldest relic but own one that is pretty old -10 or more years – it is well worth checking out the Time to Change savings calculator. This handy calculator allows you to key in the age of your old fridge or washing machine to instantly pull up the monetary, CO2, water and electricity savings you could make if you install an equivalent, high efficiency model. Saving over £45 a year and more than £200 over 5 years and reducing your home’s carbon emissions by 200 kg are just some of the impressive benefits.

Please do take a look at www.t2c.org.uk – where we also bust the jargon on the newest eco-features of appliances, explain energy labelling, talk about other green appliances and dispel some of the most common myths – and let us know what you think.

Top 5 green things you can do at home to help yourself and save the Planet

Here are 5 things you can do around the house to improve the quality of the planet and put some extra cha-ching in your pocket.

Reduce electricity usage
You’d be surprised how much energy is consumed when you leave your computer on overnight, your AC running at a chilling 70 degrees, and your porch or night lights on at all hours. Try shutting down the computer, setting your AC a couple degrees up or down and turning off unnecessary lights.

Invest in a small portable heater or fan/cooler
It is easier and cheaper to warm or cool the air around you than to try and change the temperature of your entire home. There are economical and efficient appliances that can provide you the temperature you need for you to be comfortable.

Recycle everything you can
With everything becoming electronic these days, mail is becoming the biggest source of clutter around the house. Make an effort to put a recycling bin near your mail inbox and recycle the unnecessary. Put another recycling bin near the trash can and you’ll be surprised how much recyclable material you can accumulate.

Go Organic
One of the best things you can do is incorporate Organic Food into your diet. This way you reduce the amount of pesticides, chemicals and additives to the planet and to your body. Make a choice today to visit your local grocer and purchase Organic Products.

Upgrade your home insulation
Often the biggest Energy drain in most households is the AC having to cool or heat the home. By fixing or upgrading your home insulation, you’ll make sure your home can maintain temperatures better despite what’s going on outside.

This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of Perfume deals. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com

Penney Poyzer gives a tour of her Nottingham eco-home

The law of conservation of energy states that energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another. So how can we conserve enough energy for our growing demands without damaging the environment?

There are so many arguments amongst environmentalists, Government, scientists and energy companies about what energy source will be the answer to all of our problems that it’s really hard for Jo Public to know what the best solution is.

The categories will include:

1. Fossil fuels
2. Nuclear
3. Wind
4. Solar
5. Hydro and Tidal Wave
6. Geothermal
7. Biofuels and Biomass
8. Kinetic energy

I will aim to write at least one post a week, though my apologies now if I get a bit behind.

It would be good to use the posts to have discussions with you all with respect to what you think about the energy solutions and how realistic it is for our energy needs to be met via that source.

Currently carbon offsetting is justified by three main factors that have obvious uncertainties around them;

1) Guilt –Individuals or businesses may feel guilty about continuing to pollute. It is an emotion though, and difficult to predict.

2) Taking action on Climate Change – The evidence that offsetting can help combat climate change is reliant on the carbon footprint estimates and project compensation estimates being accurate. Estimates can never be accurate as they are built on a set of assumptions. There are assumptions for the amount of carbon produced as well as for the amount that it has been reduced.

3) A business requirement – part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives – this is likely to be short lived. Businesses are fickle; and as quickly as it arose it could be dismissed.

In addition there has been a large amount of off-putting press regarding offsetting projects that have either been having negative impacts to the local community or environments or failing to make their claimed carbon reductions. The ‘Which’ report (1) on carbon offsetting noted the great deal of variation in the market and the confusion present for consumers. This confusion and wariness that currently exists makes the future of carbon offsetting unpredictable.

The Future
Carbon offsetting organisations need to show all that they are credible, and are running worthwhile projects that would otherwise not be able to go ahead (i.e. are additional) and are reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The future of carbon offsetting is not in the development of standards to ensure that a project reduces an exact amount of carbon dioxide. It is impossible to get to that level of accuracy for any project regardless of the verification standard used; there are too many unknowns; too many assumptions have to be made. What is needed is a standard for projects that reduce carbon emissions, by doing more than this, for example by helping communities in other ways that would not receive finance any other way.

Take fuel efficient or renewable energy stove programmes in developing countries as an example of such a community benefiting project. Each stove with help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1 – 3 tonnes per year that they are in use, it will also reduce the household’s income spent on fuel wood, improve the household’s health by reducing smoke and burns incidents, reduce local deforestation, enhance biodiversity, and increase time available to women and children for other activities. This programme helps communities to develop and reduce their dependence / future dependence on fossil fuels. The potential is huge, but the funding is not available to enable such programmes to assist the poorest. Carbon finance could be such a way.

Knowing the exact amount of carbon dioxide reduce by a stove programme is a challenge and dependent on making extrapolations from a sample of the population. It could be suggested that it would be better to measure project effectiveness by simply counting the number of stoves distributed, since this is a directly verifiable measure. It would also be more cost effective, and time efficient. This is not only applicable to stove projects, but many other energy efficient and renewable energy community projects too,

Carbon Offsetting should no longer be seen as a way to enable businesses and individuals to pollute; but should be a way of empowering them to help other communities reduce carbon, and be kept connected to that project that they are funding. There is a future to offsetting, but it may need to take a slight change in direction to retain integrity and to reduce the confusion for everyone.

(1) Source: Which.com, (2008)

Ellie La Trobe-Bateman is the Managing Director of Blue Ventures Carbon Offset (BVCO), a not for profit carbon offset organisation. BVCO is a small organisation that has been in operation since 2007. They have recently launched a ‘sponsor a stove’ campaign; promoting compensating your carbon footprint. Ellie’s background is in Environmental Change and Management – taking the MSC from Oxford University, and has an ongoing involvement in environmental consultancy.

Enjoying an eco-lifestyle means living greener in all areas of your life. You may be taking environmentally friendly steps at home, but are you also doing it at work?

People spend almost 90% of their lives indoors, and for those people who work inside that equates to about 40 or more hours at your desk, office or cubicle. Whether you’re a student interning at a major corporation, a marketing associate making phone calls all day or an office assistant handling paperwork, you’re going to spend a majority of your time in one place all day.

So don’t you want your work space to be eco-friendly and energy efficient? It can be if you make some simple changes in your life.

1. Computer Conservation
For many people with desk jobs the computer is absolutely necessary to get things done. It is estimated that people waste over $1 billion in electricity every year just in computer use! To help conserve energy for your computer you can:

• Invest in an energy-saving computer, monitor and printer
• Switch to energy-saving settings
• Turn off your computer whenever you’re not using it
• Set it to sleep mode when you are away for short periods of time

2. Paperless is More
Do you really have to print out every email and handout? You can reduce paper waste by going paperless wherever possible. You can try to:

• Keep copies of important emails, files, manuals and more on your computer
• Don’t get any extra catalogues or magazines mailed to your office
• Get your check directly deposited instead of a waiting for a hard copy
• Send company updates through email instead of on paper
• Review any documents online instead of printing them out

3. Prioritize Your Paper Use
If you do use paper on a daily basis then you can make eco-friendly paper choices. Here are some things you can do:

• Buy recycled and chlorine-free paper
• Try paper made from organic products like bamboo, cotton or hemp
• Print on both sides of the paper
• Shred old paper to use as packing material
• Save and reuse old boxes
• Use old sheets of paper for scrap paper or note-taking

4. Recycle
There are many things in your office that you can recycle. If you don’t have a recycling station at work, start one on your own! You can get a few bins and post recycling guidelines above them. Some of them may include recycling:

• Paper products like copy paper, envelopes, magazines, etc.
• Cardboard boxes from shipped supplies
• Soda cans and plastic bottles
• Aluminum foil
• Plastic bags
• Ink cartridges

5. The Power of the Printer
The printer is one of the most used office items. Every day it cranks out tons of important faxes, emails and other documents. Here are some ways you make your printer use greener:

• Try not to print in color
• Use a printer that does double-sided copying
• Print in draft mode
• Use old paper with extra space to print small documents
• Recycle ink and toner cartridges

6. Air You Can Bare
It’s already bad enough that you have to worry about air pollution every time you walk outside, but it’s also a big priority when you work inside. Here are some ways that you can maintain a healthy air flow in your office:

• Use non-toxic cleaning products
• Open your windows to increase air flow
• Don’t smoke in or near the office
• Never bring any type of aerosol can to work
• Use an air purifier to get rid of contaminants

7. Travel with Care
The first part of your work day starts with you getting to work, and for many people that means driving. Cars emit tons of carbon dioxide gases into the air, contributing to global warming. Here are some things you can do for a green ride:

• Join a ride share group
• Take the train, bus or subway
• Ride a bike or walk if you live close enough
• Invest in a green car like a hybrid
• Reduce your travel by working from home whenever possible

8. Green Your Desk…Literally
Get a plant and place it on or near your desk. Or, even better, buy plants for all of your neighbors. They will not only see this as a friendly gesture, but they’ll also have cleaner air to breathe! Plants absorb indoor air pollution and increase the flow of oxygen, so get a green accessory to compliment your desk!

9. Food For Thought
Everyone looks forward to their lunch break. If you manage to save money by not going out to eat every day then you probably pack your lunch. You can follow these lunch tips to have healthier eating habits:

• Pack your lunch in a reusable lunch bag or box
• If you bring your lunch in a paper or plastic bag, reuse or recycle them
• Use plastic containers and silverware that can be washed and used again
• Switch to organic food and drinks
• Drink from the fountain or a water filtration system instead of brining water bottles
• Recycle your soda cans, bottles and aluminum foil
• Use a washable napkin instead of paper towels
• Walk to a lunch eatery if you forgot to pack it

10. Spread the Word
The best way to stay involved in the green scene at work is to get others involved. Share your practices and wisdom with your boss and coworkers. You can do this by:

• Encouraging the office to join or start a recycling program
• Purchasing company carbon credits
• Buying eco-friendly office products
• Setting up a carpool calendar
• Getting everyone to pack their lunch and eat together

Your work environment has a great impact on your personal and professional happiness and your emotional stability. If you enjoy how greening your life makes you feel, then there’s no better place to keep the tradition alive than at work!

About the Author:
Trish Smith is a copywriter for Green Student U, a blog-style site that introduces today’s students to a wide variety of global environmental issues by recognizing college campus green initiatives and personal success stories, as well as how the world is being shaped by environmental reform.

There is is fascinating new book titled Earth: The Sequel by Fred Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund and Miriam Horn.  I have to admit I have not read the book- yet- but I have been receiving so many emails and hearing a lot buzz surrounding it, that I finally went to its website to see what all the hype is about.

It’s about hope, inspiration, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and optimism, plus the biggest explosion of wealth for whoever wins this race (their words not mine)!

I even found the few minutes of the video educational, as there are many things happening as we race to end global warming and reinvent energy; that I have never heard of; and from what I gather the book is about all these innovative technologies and the inventors behind them.

The book tells us we can’t wait for governments to change the world, it’s the thinkers, risk takers, and innovators who will save the planet, in other words it’s us – the people!

I found this story online at the New York Times so fascinating that I had to share it.

Two scientists are proposing a concept for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline.  They call their idea Green Freedom.  The air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, the CO2 would be extracted and subjected to a chemical reaction that would turn it into fuel.  Sounds simple enough.  And is it actually doable?  Yes!  So why hasn’t anyone done it yet?  Because apparently it takes a ton of energy to produce, preferably a huge nuclear power plant!

The article goes on to evaluate and compare all alternative fuels we are looking into nowadays – hydrogen, biofuels, and electric cars.  They all have their pros and cons; but here’s a paragraph I found really interesting:

Gasoline, it turns out, is an almost ideal fuel (except that it produces 19.4 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon). It is easily transported, and it generates more energy per volume than most alternatives. If it can be made out of carbon dioxide in the air, the Los Alamos concept may mean there is little reason to switch, after all. The concept can also be adapted for jet fuel; for jetliners, neither hydrogen nor batteries seem plausible alternatives.

Gas is the most perfect fuel!?!  If this idea can actually come true, we could have the perfect close-loop cycle: gas to CO2 back to gas.

Here’s the link to the full article written by Kenneth Chang on 2.19.08 at the New York Times.

Whenever I tell people that my partner and I run Make Hay, a green and ethical web design business, I nearly always get asked “how can a web design company be green and ethical?“.

We asked ourselves the same question back in 2004 when we decided to break away and do things our own way. Inspired by Neil Crofts and his book ‘Authentic – How to Make a Living by Being Yourself‘ (which was followed by ‘Authentic Business – How to Create and Run your Perfect Business‘) we decided that we just needed to follow the things that are important to us in everyday life.

A few years down the line and we’re still always considering new ways to conduct business ethically and responsibly, whether that’s socially, environmentally or technically.

Because people often wonder how a web design company can be green and ethical I thought I’d share how we work with you over a series of posts:

Part 1 – Powered by the Wind
Part 2 – Waste? What waste?
Part 3 – Be a Smart Consumer
Part 4 – Live your Policy
Part 5 – Make Ethical Friends

PART 1 – Powered by the Wind

In the industry of web design we have a great advantage when it comes to waste and energy – That advantage is that we don’t need to buy physical materials and stock to provide our service. However, the one thing we couldn’t live without is our computers and therefore our primary consumable by far is electricity.

The simplest and most effective way to reduce electricity use is just by remembering to switch things off, its as simple as that. Be liberated from the ‘stand by’ button and turn things off completely when you don’t need them. You’ve heard all this before but it really does make a difference, not only to the planet but to your energy bill too.

The electrical equipment in your office that is switched on should be energy efficient to minimise electricity waste. We all know about the low energy light bulbs and most of us now use them everywhere but there are computer components which use less energy too. To cut down waste we tend to replace computer parts rather than whole computers in one go, and when we do, we look for those types of components.

However, if you want to green-up the power you use in one swoop then how about using a renewable energy provider? Switching to renewables means that your lights, computers, printers all the electrical equipment in your workplace will burn less or no oil. We use ecotricity (a company which provides electricity generated by their wind turbines) but there are now many others available. In fact Energy Watch provide a comprehensive list of Green Electricity Tariffs where you should be able to find one that suits you.

Green your website too!

Did you know that your website can be powered by renewable energy too? Well it can. All of our Make Hay websites are wind powered and we provide green hosting for our clients as well.

Like electricity tariffs there are various types of eco-friendly web hosting, some of which offset carbon, some plant a tree for each new customer. Our hosting servers, data centres and offices are powered by the wind so they really are green. Visit www.green-hosting.co.uk to find out how it all works.

Next installment: Part 2 – ‘Waste? What Waste?…’

Vicky – Make Hay