Eco News from our listed companies, plus green/ethical news & views from around the globe - August 10
Energy efficiency ratings to be compulsory for home sales
EU legislation will make it compulsory for energy efficiency ratings to be published in all UK homes for sale advertisements from 2012.
At the moment homeowners are required to commission an energy performance certificate (EPC) before putting a property on the market, but the results may not be available when potential purchasers first view it. From 2012 the EU Directive will make it compulsory for the ratings to be published upfront giving buyers vital “green” information.
The legislation will effectively put a green, amber or red energy efficiency grading on every For Sale board in the UK. It will also help the government to deliver its ambitious plans of reducing household carbon emissions by 29% by 2020.
Non-profit energy supplier Ebico is urging potential house sellers to start making their homes more energy efficient sooner rather than later. Founder, Phil Levermore, said: “There has never been a better time. Not only could it make a property more saleable in the future, but people will also reap rewards from lower energy bills and a warmer, more comfortable home in the meantime.”
The government’s proposed “green deal” scheme, to be detailed this autumn, is expected to offer loans of up to £6,500 for home energy efficiency improvements repayable, over 20 years or more, out of savings on fuel bills.
The Energy Saving Trust recently said that the majority of the UK’s least energy-efficient homes could be brought up to near-average green standards for less than £3,000; older homes needing major modernisation, including a new central heating system, would need at least £5,000 to bring them into line.
Ebico, along with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Energy Saving Trust, recommend the following energy efficiency, some of which can be carried out by homeowners at a relatively low cost (prices are based on a three-bed semi-detached house):
• Protect hot water pipes with insulating material to reduce the amount of heat that escapes. This will cost about £10 and save approximately £10 a year.
• Insulate the loft with blankets known as quilts. This is a simple DIY job that costs about £250 and can rake in savings of up to £150 a year.
• Seal badly fitting doors and windows with draught-proofing strips or draught excluders. This can cost up to £200 and save up to £25 a year.
• Install thermostatic valves on radiators. This will cost about £150 and save about £30 a year.
EcoChic Collection launches the Ethical Fashion Network
A love of style and a passion for fashion, compelled Creative Director of EcoChic Collection, Deborah Miarkowska, to create the Ethical Fashion Network for the South East. Being held at La Forchette in Hove, the evening launch event on September 20th, heralds a night of vibrant talks and a chance for ethical business and friends to share creativity and inspiration. In celebration of Estethica, London Fashion Week, and The Ethical Fashion Show, Paris, 25th September
Deborah Miarkowska created EcoChic Collection in 2007. “My passion for ethical fashion and jewellery led me to help guide the consumer from buying products that are harmful for the planet or are socially unjust. It was a natural step to set up the Ethical Fashion Network here in Brighton. We want to celebrate ethical business and galvanise a regular and supportive social hub for like minds to share ideas and hear one another’s experiences.”
The Ethical Fashion Network launch promises a relaxed social, with an opportunity to network, share creativity, and make contacts for business in the ethical sector. To the backdrop of live music, and a selection of drinks and fresh french patisseries, several ethical fashion labels will showcase their work along with host organiser, EcoChic Collection.
Greg Valerio, the pioneer of Fairtrade Jewellery label CRED and social campaigner, will be leading the evening, providing his insight and experiences with his talk The trials, tribulations and rewards of running an ethical business, followed by a Q&A.
Deborah says” I want to celebrate how much Fair Trade and ethically produced products changes lives by creating this social hub here in Brighton. This event will be the first of many and we hope that by creating a relaxed and social setting that our guests will be able to form collaborations and creativity in a first step towards creating a network stretching across the South East.”
With a fusion of gorgeous green fashion, inspirational talks and networking to a backdrop of live music and finest French patisserie, join the first Ethical Fashion Network for the South East on 20th.
Fashion Network – Open to all Ethical Businesses and friends to network, collaborate and share creativity.
Where – La Fourchette Patisserie, 42 Church Road, Hove, BN3 2FN. 01273 733228.
When – Monday 20th September, 7.30pm -10.00pm.
Cost – £10.00 charge. La Fourchette will offer a wide selection of drinks and fresh nibbles to purchase throughout the event.
It’s just less that two months to go until 10:10:10 and the TckTckTck campaign is working hard to bring you information on the most important day for the climate movement this year.
10:10:10 is a global work party and an international day of doing organized by 350 & 10:10. Around the world, people and communities will gather together for local projects to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and show leaders that our planet can’t wait for them to get serious about the climate crisis.
What exactly are people doing? Well…
They’re installing 100 solar panels in Marlow, UK
Building a solar-powered fish and vegetable farm in Ajijic, Mexico
Installing a 30kW wind turbine in Malanda, Australia
And planting hundreds of trees in Kampala, Uganda
There are already over 1,100 events planned and there might already be one in your community.
If there isn’t, plan one! The event can be as big or as small as you want it to be.
You can register your 10:10:10 event and join the millions of people who are going to show our politicians what it is like to be a leader on the issue of climate change.
An imaginative Start at Clarence House this September
Start is a national initiative launched in February by the Prince of Wales to promote and celebrate sustainable living. Start aims to help people across the UK lead more sustainable lives and to show what a cleaner and healthier life would look like.
This September, as an imaginative part of Start, The Prince of Wales will open up his own gardens at Clarence House, together with his neighbours’ gardens at Lancaster House and Marlborough House to form ‘A Garden Party To Make A Difference’ running for 12 days from 8 – 19 September, from 10am – 6pm daily. The aim of the Garden Party is to entertain and inform visitors about introducing small steps towards sustainable living.
Visitors to the Garden Party will enjoy a rare experience in three of London’s most historic gardens – seeing them as never before: hosting spectacular installations, concerts, fashion demonstrations, food, debates, music and comedy by many household names, but all sharing the single theme of sustainability.
Confirmed, so far, for the debates in Clarence House Gardens are Alan Titchmarsh, Clive Anderson, David Frost, Antony Worrall Thompson and the UK’s Chief scientist, Sir John Beddington. Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will be joined in the ‘Poetry Corner’ by Gillian Clarke and John Sampson.
In the Gardens and along The Mall, will be over 2000 square meters of exhibition space, showing an intriguing array of products and displays designed to help create ‘greener’ lives.
Organic Food Festival offers families & food lovers more than ever before
With over 150 organic food and drink producers, Celebrity Chef Demos, Live bands, Livestock, Kids Taste Experience, Gorgeous health and Beauty Products, Organic Gardening, Fabulous fashion and textiles, this year’s Organic Food Festival offers families and food lovers more than ever before.
The Festival is organised by Real Food Festivals Ltd, and has now become one of the biggest producer markets in the UK. With attendances approaching 25,000 visitors, it serves to support and encourage small producers to sell directly to the public and uniquely engages with the trade sector with a dedicated trade day attracting buyers from hospitality and food service, independent retailers and deli owners, major food retailers and supermarket groups.
The festival will be opened by Soil Association president Monty Don on September 11, and a host of celebrity chefs will be sharing culinary wisdom in the Cookery Demo Tent – including Barney Haughton, Geetie Singh and Oliver Rowe.
At the heart of the 2010 festival will be the Food Market, where visitors will be able to taste and buy from stalls offering organic produce of the highest quality, from pork pies to ice cream.
The Youth Food Movement will be creating the Kids Taste Experience this year and will be bringing childrens TV presenter Isabella Blake-Thomas. Isabella is a regular presenter on Cbeebies in green issues and is currently shooting mini series Just WIlliam. The Kids Taste Adventure will host a number of interactive activities to encourage and involve kids of all ages in the preperation, creation growing and tasting of food
Organic Food Festival – 11-12 September, Bristol Harbourside. For full details visit
Weleda are celebrating four coveted new awards this week! In the Ethical Living Health & Beauty Awards, a shortlist of 10 categories was drawn up by the editorial team and readers’ panel. Weleda won each of the 4 categories where they were shortlisted thanks to readers votes.
Weleda Skin Food (rrp £8.50 75ml) scooped Best Skincare Product, making this the 10th award in the UK for this true beauty classic in the past two years alone! This impressive multi-tasker has proven to be unbeatable in all areas: from high fashion glossies through to trade journals and complementary health practitioner magazines.
Weleda’s new Pomegranate Creamy Body Wash (rrp £8.95 200ml) won Best Bath/Shower Product, building on its success in the 2010 Natural Health Beauty Awards earlier this year. This body wash has great eco credentials; it is formulated with organic, fair trade pomegranate oil together with genuinely natural cleansing agents made from sugar and coconut, which are quickly and entirely biodegradable and ecologically-sound even for aquatic life.
Weleda’s Calendula Nappy Change Cream (rrp £6.50 75ml) was awarded Best Baby Product, squeezing out of the limelight other well known products from Green People and Burts Bees. This award comes hot on the heals of the 2010 TIPS midwife-tested awards where Weleda’s nappy cream also won Best of the Best. Not surprisingly this unbeatable cream is Weleda’s no.1 selling product in the UK and has a huge following of mums and midwives, as well as a celebrity fan base of yummy mummies including Dannii Minogue.
Finally Weleda celebrated the Award for Best Overall Brand, beating other natural brands Lavera, Green People and Jason for this coveted prize!
As the end of the long summer holidays fast approaches, parents’ thoughts are turning to ‘back-to-school’ preparation. New uniform, school shoes and pencil sets may well be at the ready. But what about one of the biggest bug bares of going back to school: the dreaded head lice?
Young children are the most at risk of infection – particularly six to nine-year-olds. This is probably because their games often involve close contact. And it seems girls are more susceptible – possibly because of their longer hair.
Previous generations of school children were regularly checked for head lice by the school nurse; often affectionately known as ‘Nitty Norah’. The liberal applications of insecticide they administered are now banned. But at least these ‘nit nurses’ were experienced at recognising cases of head lice infection.
Botanicals is a small, independent company specialising in natural and organic skin care products. They have published a report which compares chemical and natural solutions to the problem. And they’ve put their findings online at www.headlice.org.uk.
They found that the most effective treatment is regular wet-combing – also known as ‘bug-busting’. A recent study revealed a success rate of 52% for wet combing, compared to 14% for two insecticide-based, liquid products. Showing that natural bug busting is nearly four times more effective than its chemical counterparts.
Botanicals point out that you don’t need natural and organic shampoos to carry out regular bug-busting checks on your children. But there are clear benefits to using shampoos which are free from artificial chemicals and additives.
Botanicals was founded in 2003 by Wendy Stirling. Most of their sales come through their website at www.botanicals.co.uk. One of the reasons Wendy founded the company was because she couldn’t find truly natural products:
“I had purchased a shampoo that was labelled as natural and organic,” said Wendy. “But when I read the ingredients on the label, I found that these formed only a very small part of the total ingredients. Most of them were completely artificially created.”
A large procession of Christiana cargo bikes and trikes will join over 50,000 other cyclists on Sunday 5th September on traffic-free central London streets as part of the Freewheel event.
The bikes are being bought in increasing numbers not only by businesses looking for an environmentally-friendly way of bypassing the congestion charge, but by parents looking for a practical and fun alternative to the car for the school run.
When it comes to transporting kids, especially on the school run, there are various different options one sees London city streets. By far the simplest and most popular is the child seat securely fitted onto the front or rear rack of a bike.
While this is a great and relatively inexpensive option for a single child, it becomes very tricky, cumbersome, not to mention highly uncomfortable, when two or more kids are involved. It also has the added downside of taking up valuable storage space, being fitted typically where a rack or basket for shopping might otherwise go.
In Denmark , particularly in Copenhagen, a significant majority of families with two or more kids cycle their little ones around in a very interesting looking tricycle called a Christiania. There is a choice between a standard-sized model, which can fit two to three kids and a longer version, which could fit four very comfortably, and even up to six.
The box where the kids sit is in front, so both the parents and the kids get the advantage of a good view, while the parent can also keep an eye on the kids while safely manoeuvring them about. The alternative option of a trailer that attaches to a normal bike isn’t as comfortable or fun for the kids as they mainly see the cyclist’s bottom in front of them. The Christiania tricycle also has the great advantage over a child seat that there is loads of space for all kinds of shopping, even when fully loaded with kids. In fact, the space is comparable to the boot space in a small family car.
Julia Keller, Family Cycling manager at Velorution, says of the trike: “The Christiania is such a practical, useful, and safe child transport vehicle that most parents who own one can’t imagine life without it. But don’t just ask the parents, the kids rave about the fun cycling experience too, and suddenly there are tons of friends who seem to always want a lift!”
Book Free tickets for the Big Green Home Show 29–30 Oct
Whether you want to green-up your existing home, or design and build your own brand-new eco-friendly house, taking the eco option can save you pounds, as well as saving the planet. Whatever your motivation, you need as much independent advice as possible.
The best place to get it? The Big Green Home Show, the UK’s only show dedicated to helping people create an eco-friendly home, hosted by BuildStore, at its National Self Build & Renovation Centre in Swindon.
With expert advice, seminars, and hundreds of exhibitors, the third annual Big Green Home Show, will give you all the information and advice you need about the products and services available to help you separate the facts from the ‘green-wash’.
Building on the success of the past two Shows, and the ever–increasing interest in all things eco, sustainable and energy efficient, the three-day event will feature even more exhibitors, products, and expert advice, as well as the unique ‘walking seminars’ by green experts.
The Show includes; hands-on demonstrations, one-to-one consultations with leading industry experts and professionals, topical and informative presentations and seminars, and an opportunity to see and learn about the latest ‘green’ products and systems, including living roofs, solar panels, biomass boilers, heat pumps, and insulation. Exhibitors include Burdens Environmental, Worcester Bosch, Velux, Ecomerchants, Villavent, SolarSense, and British Eco.
To keep up with the latest news on the show and prebook free tickets at www.buildstore.co.uk – why not follow them on twitter! www.twitter.com/BGHShow
incognito’s new formulation spray is now tested to be 100% effective
Celebrity Cheryl Cole is currently recuperating from Malaria, caught from a mosquito bite on a foreign trip. 300 million people worldwide contract this deadly disease every year, proving fatal to one million people. Experts predict that Malaria will also soon return to UK shores, as climate change creates warmer, wetter conditions and malaria parasite increases its resistance to anti-malarial drugs.
Insect bite protection experts incognito have recently reformulated their best-selling spray to combat this worrying growing trend. The incognito spray is now officially endorsed as being one of the strongest anti-insect remedies on the planet, as effective as the most deadly toxic insecticide yet completely natural and thereby safe for use even on babies.
The natural insect repellent used in the research was Eucalyptus maculata citriodora and this is exactly what is in every bottle of incognito, under the trade name Citrepel 75, along with other essential oils; all blended together in a secret unique process.
The anti-malaria claim has been approved by Trading Standards after the publication of a report in the British Medical Journal* This study was funded by a Gates Malaria Partnership grant under the auspices of the WHO in partnership with the LSHTM.
incognito does not cause any neurological damage, as can be the case with other topical toxin insect repellents such as Deet. Unlike these toxic chemical repellents, incognito has a lovely fresh fragrance.
incognito 100 ml spray is effective against all insects – not just mosquitoes and ticks.
Organic Herb Farm Open Days in Soil Association Organic Fortnight
Jekka’s Herb Farm is a specialist nursery just 10 miles north of Bristol, growing over 600 herb varieties organically for mail order.
The farm is usually closed to the public, so Open Days are a great opportunity to browse and buy amongst the scents and senses of some rare and beautiful herb species, meet award winning writer and broadcaster, Jekka McVicar, and attend her (pre-bookable) herb workshops, plus a FREE farm tour.
Certified organic by the Soil Association, the farm is a haven for bees, birds and butterflies. In fact, the UK Government’s own advisors found that plant, insect and bird life is up to 50% greater on organic farms.
When: September 3rd, 4th & 5th; 10am – 4pm
Where: Jekka’s Herb Farm, Shellards Lane, Alveston, Bristol BS35 3SY
Price: Free entry on Friday, £2 per person on Saturday & Sunday
The September Open Days begin on the first day of the Soil Association Organic Fortnight 2010, promoting organic as an everyday choice, and the Open Days feature an end-of-season herb plant sale – an excellent opportunity to stock up on perennial bargains for autumn planting (the best time in all to plant hardy, perennial herbs).
Seasonal, locally sourced refreshments available. Further details at
A floating city of half a million people on a vast plastic island. Does that sound like Waterworld? The vision could soon be a reality if Dutch conservationists have their way. Recycled Island is a plan to clean up 44 million kilos of plastic waste from the North Pacific Gyre, which stretches from California to Japan, and provide 10,000 square kilometres (3,861 square miles) of sustainable living space in the process. Solar and wave energy would provide power for islanders while sustainable fishing and agriculture could provide their food.
According to the website for Whim Architecture, which designed the concept: “The proposal has three main aims: cleaning our oceans from a gigantic amount of plastic waste, creating new land and constructing a sustainable habitat.”
There is an estimated 100m tonnes of plastic flotsam in the Pacific Gyre, where ocean currents cause it to accumulate. The floating dump covers an area one and a half times the size of the US.
Because petroleum-based plastics are non-biodegradable, any plastic that enters the ocean stays there, continually breaking into smaller pieces until it is ingested by marine life or deposited on the shore. In a 1998 survey, 89% of the litter observed floating on the ocean surface in the North Pacific was plastic. In the Central Pacific Gyre, the AMRF in 2002 found six kilos of plastic for every kilo of plankton near the surface. By 2008, that figure had risen to 45 to one.
Birds like albatrosses eat the larger pieces which block their stomachs, while smaller pellets can cause fatal intestinal damage in fish.
Recycled Island could be a unique opportunity to save marine life. “The project should be carried out with great care so no negative influence to the environment is made,” states the project’s website. “Our ideal is to return more balance to the environment and set an example of how an environment-friendly habitat could be created.”
