Top Tips for a low Carbon Christmas 4

Christmas is here!

Will your festivities be low carbon this year? There’s still time… so here are a few top tips to make your Christmas a planet friendly one…

1) After all the festivities are over see how much of the Christmas wrapping paper and Christmas cards can be recycled. If you can reuse wrapping paper for next year – even better! If not put it all in the recycling bin. It takes much less energy and water to produce new paper from recycled pulp than from virgin pulp. You can also shred your waste paper and use it for packing or for bedding for your pets.

2) If your eyes were bigger than your belly and you can’t eat all your Christmas lunch – don’t throw it away. If you have a bird table put out your scraps and left-overs. Birds need all the food they can get at this time of year and they quite enjoy the odd roast potato and Yorkshire pudding.

3) We generate huge quantities of waste over the Christmas period – including cardboard packaging, wrapping paper, plastic bags, glass bottles and jars, and empty food tins and drinks cans. All of these are recyclable – so if you local council won’t collect them, load them up and take them to the civic amenity and recycling centre. Despite the carbon from the car journey it’s still better to recycle these materials than throw them in the dustbin. You could be extra eco-friendly and offer to take your neighbours as well – that way you’ll be reducing the amount of car journeys you both make.


4) If you are lucky enough to get a new mobile phone for Christmas remember to recycle your old one. Many charities collect old mobile phones. Any unwanted gifts or items you no longer want can be donated to your local charity shop to help raise money.

5) As the year draws to a close take a moment to think about how you will live your life in 2010. Consider your impact on the planet and if you can choose a couple of things that you could easily do differently in 2010 that would make a difference. It doesn’t need to be anything major – start small and grow your contribution. Every step we take to reduce our carbon emissions is a step in the right direction, so don’t be put off by the size of the problem – remember the old saying; “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Now is a great time to take that first bite.

Cutting your carbon at Christmas doesn’t have to mean cutting your fun, but it can mean cutting your costs!

Have a very merry green Christmas this year!

How my job changed my life and my health

I’ve been with Passion for the Planet for over a year now. Did I see myself working here a year? The short answer, to begin with, was no.

Let me explain. I didn’t apply for the job. I didn’t want a job in media and I wasn’t environmentally friendly. I wasn’t a complete eco hazard – I recycled bottles and clothing, and would walk instead of drive when possible. Although, if I’m honest this was because pre-Passion for the Planet I was a student and a lot of my ‘greener’ actions were fuelled by the knowledge it would save me money – it turns out that a good sale & buy on eBay can pay for next week’s food, that energy saving light bulbs cut electricity bills and that parking on campus costs a small fortune.

However, during my university years I also committed various environmental crimes. I drove up and down the M1 between London and Leicester, threw scrunched up scrap paper from essays in to bins rather than recycling and our diets were definitely not doing anybody any favours, including ourselves.

If a student gives you the excuse that they eat rubbish because they don’t have money for food – they’re lying. We used to buy take-aways a couple of times a week and eat burgers on the way home after nights out. These burgers were grim to say the least, being known universally among my friends as ‘rat burgers’ (the owner of the van used called us the ‘ratty girls’ as he never worked out we were referring to his business). We evened these expenses out by buying noodles that cost 5p per pack (I’m not joking, see here and sort the results in ascending order - they’ve gone up to 9p now). Apart from the fact they probably have about the same nutritional value as the newspaper you read this morning and forget the carbon footprint for a second - I still can’t get my head around how they could afford the entire manufacturing process from buying the ingredients, to cooking them, packaging and driving them to the supermarket all for just 5p.

Anyway, I know I wasn’t the only one eating like this. In fact, with regards to health, I was still slim as I would run around the park to work off the night before, and I was even relatively fit because I played a lot of sport for the badminton and hockey team. The fact that I was at the top end of the health scale compared to my peers says a lot about the benefits of exercising (or their lifestyles)!

So how did I get a job at the UK’s only environmental and health focused radio station without lying or even applying??

Well, the radio station was becoming more popular and expanding, so quickly in fact that it was keen to find some support staff. I happened to be at a friend’s house after graduating, discussing how I needed a job quickly to save up for travelling so I could go and come back before getting myself on to a graduate scheme. Her mother overheard and suggested Passion for the Planet, even though they hadn’t started advertising any positions yet. She said she wasn’t sure if it was what I was looking for (or even if I was what they were looking for) but maybe it would suit both parties for a while. So after a short interview that established I was capable of helping with admin and would fit in at the office, I got the job. As I only intended to stay for about 6 months before leaving to go travelling it was also agreed that they would continue to look for someone who would grow with the business.

As I began working at Passion for the Planet, I would also be listening to the radio at the same time as working. The interviews meant I quickly picked up hundreds of tips and lots of advice – not just on how to live a healthier lifestyle but a more environmentally friendly one too. Although I had never made any conscious effort to change my life, as I tuned in it just seemed to happen naturally.

By listening to the station I gained insights into a whole range of topics from cutting down office waste, to training falcons, where I can shop ethically and how to get into business. And my education was absolutely effortless too. Not to mention free!

Now, although I still own a car I certainly use it less. Even the smallest changes have made such a difference, from the way I eat (although I’m not a full blown vegetarian I am definitely feeling the benefits of eating less meat) to using websites like Freecycle to keep my flat tidy. The health tips have left me feeling more energetic and the inspiring good business interviews have made me reconsider my career path. Now I know there are so many more options available to me than just joining a graduate scheme! Reusing or reducing what I use has not only cut down waste but has saved me money which went towards my travels. (Passion for the Planet kindly kept the job open for me to allow me to fulfil my dream of travelling for 5 months, in the knowledge that I had a full time job to come back to.)

Passion for the Planet’s aim is to inspire and motivate people to live a healthier, greener life by giving them useful information in an entertaining way.

I’m proof that what we’re doing is making a difference!

Fancy a drink?

Millions of people in the UK spend millions of pounds on bottled water every year. And we’re being sold a scam… so let’s just clear something up;

By opting for tap water over bottles you can help the ENVIRONMENT, YOUR POCKET and YOUR HEALTH!


Now, if all this is true then why is bottled water such a successful industry? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that it isn’t a very sustainable way of doing business.

Some imported brands of bottled water are responsible for more than 300 times the CO2 emissions per litre than tap water (Thames Water 2009). According to WRAP three out of four plastics bottles are not recycled meaning millions of bottles needlessly end up in landfill. And even if they are recycled (which is far better than creating them from raw materials) it still leads to higher carbon emissions as the recycling process consumes energy.

Ignoring the environmental impact for a minute, why do people just keep reaching in to their pockets to buy another bottle of water when it’s so expensive?

According to the Consumer Council for Water bottled water costs 500 times more than tap water, so when we ask for bottled water at a restaurant it can be comparable to paying £1500 for a beer or glass of wine when we’d usually pay just £3. Interestingly, one in five people claim that they’re ‘slightly nervous’ or ‘too scared to ask’ for tap water (National Consumer Council). But the main reason is because of successful advertising campaigns which have managed to convince us that bottled water is somehow better for us.

However on the whole, tap water is just as safe, clean and healthy. And if you live in London (where the water certainly isn’t coming from any fresh water springs) then your tap water is actually rated top in the UK according the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s (DWI) annual water quality report in 2008. The DWI rigorously tests the quality of drinking water to make sure that it is safe in terms of bacteria, the chemical and metal content and perhaps surprisingly, how the water looks and tastes.

Further to this, The London On Tap campaign, a collaboration between Thames Water and the Mayor of London, recently launched a competition to design an iconic carafe to be used to serve tap water in restaurants, bars and hotels throughout the capital. So now restaurant owners can order a carafe with their logo on to serve tap water, which not only looks smart, but shows that their establishment has invested in our environment.

Now if you already know all of the above and in addition are trying to cut down on how much tap water you use (we salute you) then the Consumer Council for Water and the Energy Saving Trust have come up with these top tips to help you save money and the environment:

• Replace worn washers on leaky taps. A dripping hot water tap wastes energy and over a year could unnecessarily add over £18 to your annual water bill.

• Shorten your shower. For every minute you cut off your daily shower you could save between £5 and £10 off your energy bills over the year, or go one step further and install a water saving shower head, which can cut the amount of water used by about 30 per cent.

• When putting the kettle on to boil, only fill it with as much water as necessary. Two-thirds of us waste energy by boiling more water than we need.

• Make sure that the dishwasher or washing machine is completely full before turning it on, and avoid using the half load setting. Half-load cycles use much more than half the energy and water of a full load.

• Washing machines use huge amounts of energy, 90 per cent of which is through heating water. By reducing the temperature from 40 to 30 degrees, energy consumption will be reduced by 40 per cent.

• The hot water cylinder thermostat should be set at 60°C or 140°F. Any higher is a waste of energy and could lead to scalding.

• Insulate the hot water cistern to avoid wasting energy to keep it hot. Fitting a jacket that is at least 75mm thick could save around £35 each year.

Like so many environmental initiatives, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense, it saves you money and it’s actually very easy to do.

Getting relationships wrong hurts.

And when it’s our relationship with the world we live in it hurts more than just us.

Everything we do affects our world. Smile, don’t smile. Praise, criticise. Vote, stay at home. Buy fair trade, buy the cheapest. Think profit, think it through.

Personal or planet-wide, decisions and actions have consequences.

For example… too many sheep means higher insurance premiums, buying a fur coat costs you more than the price on the ticket, and driving your car increases the cost of bread.

Deforestation and over grazing by sheep in rural areas robs the land of its ability to absorb and retain rainwater. The water’s got to go somewhere … that’ll be rivers. Add too much rainwater going into rivers and you’ve got towns and villages becoming more prone to flooding. After Hue Edwards has slipped off his wellies and returned to the dry safety of Television Centre the less photogenic headline is higher insurance premiums.

In the 1930’s a South American mammal called the Coypu was introduced into the UK in fur farms. A few escaped from a farm in Norfolk and within a year they were destroying crops, digging into river banks and damaging drainage systems and flood defences. It took 50 years of hard work and many millions of pounds to eradicate the Coypu.

When you jump in your car to go to the shops you know that you’re adding the price of the petrol to your shopping bill. But did you also know that you’re increasing the cost of the food you’re buying? Cars release CO2 into the atmosphere and this changes our climate. A changed climate has lead to wheat crops failing in many countries. In particular Australia, one of the world's largest producers of wheat, is suffering from the worst droughts in a century. The failed crops have lead to a global shortage, affecting wheat prices and ultimately putting up the price of a loaf in supermarkets in the UK.

Every action we take can have a negative or positive affect on our relationship with the planet we live on. And just like relationships between humans, when we make a mistake and hurt a friend we rely on, we try to make amends, and so it is with the planet. We rely on the Earth and could not survive without it. So let’s consider our relationship with it and make amends for the hurt we’ve caused.

Happiness starts at work.

So we’ve all heard the expression ‘happiness starts at home’. However, for a lot of people most of their waking lives are actually spent outside the home and in the office. So why then, don’t we make as much effort to improve our lives, and environmental efforts at work?

I know many people who spend hours cooking delicious organic dishes for dinner, are oh so sustainable on the weekends - recycling almost everything, composting food waste and tea bags, re-using yoghurt pots for labeling pot plants, walking their kids to the park saving an unnecessary car journey, and many other fantastic ways to be green.

But then during the week they end up having a supermarket BLT for lunch (or at best a packaged salad which probably contains more salt than it’s equivalent in sea water), produce tonnes of administrative waste that ends up in landfills rather than being recycled, have the company spend money on expensive paper and packaging while the offices pay electricity bills for vending machines that are filled with chocolate and crisps. Remember, even if you are a carnivore with a sweet tooth with no interest in reducing your carbon footprint – the money alone that’s being wasted here could be coming straight out of your pay cheque!

So what can you do about the harm being done environmentally, to your health and to your pocket?


Here’s a list of things you as an individual can change:

• Next to the printer have a pile of clean paper and scrap paper – print on the back of the scrap paper if it’s for internal use
• Have a stationary box for stationary you get given free at events. Okay – so I accept this might not be enough to supply your whole office but it will certainly cut down annual spending and reduce waste
• Re-use jiffy bags when you get sent a package. We keep ours in a filing cabinet drawer and have the right size bag for virtually anything we want to send out
• Re-use the piece of paper in between business cards that the printers use to stop them smudging and don’t throw away out-of-date business cards – both can be used instead of post-it notes
• Bring a homemade vegetarian lunch in – that extra vegetarian meal per day will make all the difference to your carbon footprint, be cheaper and hopefully improve your health [for some recipes see Munch Less Meat]
• If you drive to work, take public transport once a week. Friday is often a good day to do this as it also means you can have a sneaky drink on the way home!
• Don’t throw yesterdays water down the drain (kettle or bottled) – water the plants in the office instead when you go to refill
• Walk rather than taking the lift which will also have positive health implications
• Don’t overfill the kettle you only need to put in it what will be used when making everyone some tea
• Bring in chocolates / biscuits you receive for everyone to share – so technically this isn’t any more environmentally friendly but it’s a nice gesture which will cheer everyone up around you, save your waistline and in turn cut down the nations health bills (I could go on about the importance healthy eating habits at work here but I won’t…)

And here are some things that you can suggest that your office changes:

• Ask them to buy stationery only from sustainable office suppliers [such as The Green Stationery Company] and always choose recycled paper.
• Have recycling for paper, cardboard, bottles, cans, etc (label one pile as ‘to be shredded’ if you’re worried about confidential information being passed on)
• Suggest that staff bring in their own bottle to use for water rather than using polystyrene or plastic cups next to a water machine. For clients offer them a glass of water that you can wash up (this also looks smarter)
• If you have a canteen suggest they offer at least two nutritionally balanced vegetarian options
• Ask the offices to take out vending machines and replace them with better cooking facilities. If people want chocolate they can always bring it in rather than your offices paying for the electricity that a vending machine uses and adding to their carbon footprint

Camley Street, King’s Cross – A Sustainable Vision

Alex Smith is the founder and MD of Alara Wholefoods – one of the UK’s biggest organic muesli manufacturers who are based in the heart of the capital at King’s Cross.

I love gardening, but more than that I love to grow food, and in this day and age when we spend so much money on food in the UK and yet there are people starving across the world I believe that we must move towards a society where we all grow our own.

It is all linked to the matter of fuel and moving from a non sustainable fossil fuel reliant society to a sustainable one who ‘welcomes the sun’ and harnesses alternative energy sources.

My food manufacturing company Alara Wholefoods is based right in the centre of London, the King’s Cross hub where historically there have been a huge amount of important social and economic developments throughout history. For example St Pancreas Old Church, which is based just down the road from me, is one of the earliest above ground Christian Churches in Europe, and near here at Battlebridge Queen Boadicea was finally defeated by the Romans, or so it is said…

Most importantly, I feel, for the development of London into one of the world’s greatest capital cities, was the completion of the Grand Union Canal in 1780 which allowed grain to be brought into the heart of the city via the River Fleet. Just down from Alara is Granary Street where the grain that was brought in along this water way would have been used to make bread and feed the growing population.

I feel this was one of the most important historical events for London as the growth in population to over 1 million people in 1785 (the second city to get to this size after Ancient Rome) led to an overall change in the structure of society. Governmental infrastructure was put in place and subsequently the Industrial Revolution, and from that the British Empire grew – all based on the ability to provide food for the fast expanding population.

Looking around this historical area nowadays I find myself becoming disheartened as to what has become left from the ‘green and pleasant land’ of the past that Blake wrote about in his famous poem. He lamented that the post industrial revolutions ‘dark Satanic mills’ were now covering the landscape, but amongst all the development and business I can see areas that could be green and pleasant once more….

My point is that here at the Kings’ Cross hub, which in my opinion was where London entered into the unsustainable industrial age, it is a perfect place to start to move to ‘Welcome the Sun’ and towards a more sustainable society. And it all comes full circle back again to food. Where once grain barges came to Granary Street to feed the population who worked to make industry great, now it is food that once more needs to be at the forefront of the change the way our society works.

All my business life has been about food, but more importantly organic food. I make muesli and at Alara we produce over 70 tonnes a week. I find it so crazy these days that so many people have no real concept of growing food, good nutrition, healthy eating – we live such a consumer way of life where the supermarkets supposedly have all we need and we don’t think twice about growing our own.

At Alara I decided to make my own Permaculture Forest Garden – Permaculture being the theory of using the space you have to produce the highest yield of crops. It took the removal of 50 tonnes of rubbish (the finest King’s Cross had to offer!) and the dreaded Japanese knotweed! I love my garden and found this year that I didn’t have to buy any fruit for me and my family – I always sit out there and eat my muesli in the morning looking at what we have achieved, whist hearing the roar of the express trains rushing by – my very own piece of green and pleasant land..

But it hasn’t stopped there; looking around the edges of the factory I kept noticing bits of land and thinking what we could do with them. Now we have London’s biggest inner city organic vineyard, and also a Community food garden with Camden Black and Minority Ethnic groups that is really thriving.

There are so many places that are wasted, so much potential for food growing for local communities, and all it takes is a bit of hard work and passion. There really is nothing better than eating something you have grown yourself….

A few weeks ago (Sunday October 18th) we held the Camley Street Apple Day which attracted over 250 people. The day was a fantastic celebration of that most English of fruits – the apple and much fun was had by all. It was also a way to bring people from the local area, community groups and organisations together to show them of the projects we have been undertaking already, to start a new project with our neighbours Booker Cash and Carry, and to look to the future of the Camley Street area.
Firstly the BME garden was opened by the Mayor of Camden who praised the hard work of the community groups who now are able to use the raised beds to grow produce for their community canteens. Many of the people in these groups used to grow their own produce before they came to London but are now without the space to do so, and so it is fantastic to see their growing knowledge and expertise coming to life once more.

Next we planted an Orchard in conjunction with our neighbours Booker Cash and Carry on land that up to now has been a grassy strip. Now it has a new, much more fruitful purpose.

Lastly I was able to introduce my Sustainable Vision for Camley Street and the surrounding area. As I mentioned there is so much land up and down Camley Street that is going to waste; it’s nasty, overgrown, dirty, dumping ground. So much could be done that would not only improve the look and feel of the place, but would also give rise to huge areas of food producing land for local businesses, communities and social enterprise. I think the people really got it, they saw what can be achieved with a bit of planning and some hard work but as always the more the merrier and when you have a group of you involved in planting an digging it is always easier to achieve your goal.

I have big plans for this area. We are currently moving forward with planning permission and funding for a small community scale Anaerobic Digester (the first of its kind in Europe) which would produce tonnes of digestate for these areas that I see in the area, and really help these small projects to get off the ground.

In summery there’s a huge amount of potential here, and I know this is the same all across the capital. Food is the most important commodity and we often really take it for granted, but I hope that we can all start to grow our own and reap the benefits of doing so.

For more information about the Camley Street vision and Alara please visit Alara's website.

Orang-utans and map reading

Our close cousin is an incredibly intelligent animal. Did you know that he keeps a map in his head, which tells him where the fruit trees are fruiting and when – even more difficult when you consider that in the resource-poor environment that is the rainforest, some trees only fruit once in four years!

The young Orang-utan spends the first five to seven years with mum, during which time he learns where the trees are and when they fruit building up his mind map. This is why it is not possible to rehabilitate an Orang-utan to the wild. Captive orang-utans were always babies when caught (by murdering mum) and brought up by people, thus not developing a mind map. In the rehabilitation centre at Bohorok, the orang-utan does go back into the forest, but for the rest of his life he will always come back for food hand-outs as his lack of knowledge fails him in finding food. And he lives a good forty to fifty years.

This is also why ‘sustainable logging’ is rubbish – it murders 60% of the Orang-utan in the forest, because it takes out some of the fruit trees – and there is no alternative in their map. They starve to death looking for another fruiting tree and waiting for their next one to ripen.

The orang-utan is a very tough, strong animal. Living in the trees as he does, he actually has four arms and no legs. The hunters go after babies to sell them as pets. They will need to shoot mum about ten times before she actually falls out of the tree, and she can still hang on with two broken arms.

The only good news is that in the Leuser ecosystem that is home to most of the remaining Sumatran Orang-utan, the local population knows this and reports to our rangers anybody who has an illegal baby orang-utan. There has only been one case so far this year, which is a BIG drop, so we are winning this war.

It’s too late for a lovely Orang-utan sub-species that lived near Sibolga in Sumatra. Dark red hair, long fingers, highly intelligent, none have been seen for many a year. But in Leuser we have 7,500 of the main Sumatran species, and there are another 600 to the north that we aim to bring into the reserve next year. They are safe. It is a different story in Borneo, where there may be 11,000 Orang-utan, but they are scattered and in small bits of forest, reduced to eating oil palm nuts.

These fractured populations are not really viable. A female Orang-utan has a baby about once every 5 to 7 years, and will have at most 7 in her lifetime, so populations grow very slowly.

How do you recognise an Orang-utan researcher? By the missing fingers…. Occasionally we have had to relocate Orang-utan. We would tranquillise the ape high in the tree with a dart gun. As he gets woozy and sleepy, being very smart he comes down to the ground, where we can throw a net over him. These nets have centimetre thick, heavy nylon cords, but he will still bite through them like cotton. And when the researcher thinks he is asleep, and can start taking his measurements and samples, he is often just awake enough to nip the nearest finger…

Find out more about the work Force for the Forest are doing in Sumatra, where we have saved 7,500 Orang-utan in 25,000 square kilometres of forest, the last remnant of the great expanse that coated SE Asia.

A sustainable London? We all need to be leaders.

As Londoners, London’s future is something we all have responsibility for and for our future to be sustainable, we all have to take a leadership role.

The London Sustainable Development Commission’s London Leaders programme tackles this head-on. Sustainability requires partnership, it requires innovation, and above all it requires the kind of solutions that cannot be delivered by one organisation alone.

The London Leaders programme brings together sustainability leaders from all walks of life, from chief executives of large organisations, to community workers and faith leaders, to business entrepreneurs and our very own Passion for the Planet founder, Chantal Cooke. Bringing together such diversity of experience is exciting and rewarding and demonstrates that action at every level is crucial if we are to deliver the changes deep enough, and quick enough, to secure a sustainable future.

London Leaders work to inspire and stimulate change, by leading by example and encouraging others to take positive action. Sustainability can be a difficult concept without a face or a project to its name, so over the last two years we have been working to deliver projects that demonstrate, not just talk about sustainability. These aren’t just environmental projects; these are projects that take a holistic, joined-up approach to sustainable development, looking to provide environmental, social and economic benefits.

So what have we achieved so far?

Dusty Gedge, founder of Living Roofs, retrofitted two green roofs in central London, providing a whole string of benefits for the building occupants and beyond – stimulating biodiversity, providing amenity space, and having a positive impact for climate change adaptation and reducing the urban heat island effect. Projects like this have helped to make green roofs an important part of London policy, and part of the city’s leadership role in tackling climate change.

Lutfun Hussain and the Coriander Club at Spitalfields City Farm published the Coriander Club Cookbook, full of tasty Bangladeshi recipes and healthy eating tips, the cookbook forms a vital part of the farm’s community outreach work. (I especially recommend Lutfun’s dahl!)

Earlier this summer, Wayne Hemingway and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, opened KiosKiosK, a creative kiosk outside City Hall designed to provide young entrepreneurs with the opportunity to get their foot on the business ladder. The idea has been a great success so expect to see KiosKiosK near you in the not too distant future.

And later in 2009 the London College of Fashion will be announcing the winners of Fashioning the Future, a student competition delivered in association with the London Leaders. The fashion industry has a massive impact on sustainable development across the supply chain and the life cycle of individual products, and the Centre for Sustainable Fashion is at the forefront of innovation, developing and showcasing new solutions for ethical fashion.

This gives you just a taster, but it does show how sustainability touches every industry and requires all London organisations and Londoners to get involved.

And now you can. The London Leaders programme is currently looking for its London Leaders for 2010.

Each year the London Sustainable Development Commission appoints a new group of Leaders. Whether it's a pan-London business initiative or a small-scale community project, inspirational and practical sustainability action that delivers tangible benefits is the key.

Are you doing something special to make London a better place to live and work now and for the future?

Do you think you could inspire others with your work?

Will stand up and be counted and make your commitment public?

If you are already making extraordinary things happen in London, in our eyes you are already a London Leader.

Join us by applying to be a London Leader and we can help make your sustainability aspirations a reality.

You can find out more on our website or email us.

Bryony MathieLondon Leaders Programme Manager

You can’t live by organic bread alone

You can't live by organic bread alone.

This is something we believe in strongly at Passion for the Planet.

Passionate as we are about the planet, its people and its flora and fauna, we love other stuff too.Passion for the Planet has been criticised for broadcasting interviews and features that aren’t strictly environmental. This blog has been criticised for including postings that aren’t about green issues.

But there’s a reason we choose to include other issues in both our programming and this blog – it’s because we believe “you can’t live by organic bread alone”.

For example, my life includes a number of very green behaviours and a number of not so green ones! And I’d guess that everyone in the UK is the same, some have more green behaviours than I do, some have less. The point is, it’s a mixture. I am passionate about environmental issues, wildlife and nature and I also enjoy the cinema, reading science fiction and travelling. Again, a mixture.

Even the most dedicated environmentalist doesn’t want to be immersed in green to the exclusion of all else – and let’s face it, most of us are part time eco warriors, not full time. And Passion for the Planet is a reflection of this. We all have other interests, other concerns, other passions.

Passion for the Planet’s aim is to help change the world for the better. I say “help” because we believe we all have a role to play in making the world a better place, none of us are going to do it single-handedly. So how do we feel Passion for the Planet can help?

By providing information and inspiration to help us all make informed choices. Choices that will help us live a greener, healthier, more ethical life.

If all we did was bang on about being environmentally responsible we might fulfil the information part of our chosen remit, but we’d fail miserably on the inspiration (and entertainment) front!

So, just like the radio station, a number of different people, with different views contribute to this blog, and just like the radio station this blog will not be exclusively green. It can’t be. Our environment doesn’t exist in isolation and the minute we forget that, we are doomed.

The Amazing Ashden Awards

I recently went to the annual Ashden Awards which reward local sustainable energy projects in the UK and across the developing world. The winners really illustrate the positive impacts that good, clean energy can have to both the environment and to people’s lives.

A UK project that stood out for me is run by the Sustainable Energy Academy in Milton Keynes. Winner of the charity award, the project aims to show policy makers and individuals that high energy savings can be made, even in hard-to-treat houses. ‘Superhomes’ have been set up to showcase the measures that can be taken and these are open to visitors to come and have a look. Each ‘Superhome’ has made carbon savings of around 70% and is inspiring others to take similar actions.

This project encompasses several elements of achieving successful behaviour change. Because people can view energy efficient improvements for themselves, they are able to visualise making these improvements in their own homes with little hassle (as well as how much money they will save on their energy bills). Through the Energy Agency, the ‘Superhome’ owners are able to pass on their sustainable energy knowledge to others and this has a positive effect in encouraging people to make similar changes. Hopefully the award will help the project to expand so that many more people are within easy reach of a ‘Superhome’.

The international project that most caught my attention is a partnership between the Aprovecho Research Center in the USA and Shengzhou Stove Manufacturer in China. Around 2 billion people in the world cook on traditional stoves and open fires. The smoke from these causes huge health problems and contributes to climate change. This project has developed a cheap, robust and efficient stove for mass production. These stoves save up to 50% of fuelwood and up to 70% of emissions. The award will help to increase production of these stoves, leading to both environmental improvements and improvements in the health of millions of people.

All the winning Ashden Awards projects are inspirational. They emphasise the power of local projects and education in influencing a shift towards more sustainable energy usage across the world. They also serve as a reminder of the impact and importance of simple measures in combating global climate change.