Julia Hailes MBE

Sustainability Pioneer

Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan (Nov10)

There was a lot of talk about de-coupling. But they weren’t referring to what people get up to in laybys. It was a Unilever inspired session on sustainable consumption, which I watched as a webcast. De-coupling in this case was all about ‘green growth’ – whether it’s possible for a company to both increase profits […]

Recycling in Somerset – new scheme includes plastic bottles and cardboard

I got stuck behind the recycling truck. What frustrated most was that it had just passed my house and I’d forgotten to leave anything out for them. But I’m a supporter of recycling. When household collection was first introduced – about 7 years ago – my non-recyclable waste dwindled to almost nothing. Our home recycling […]

Is the Green Deal a Good Deal? No! (Nov10)

This week I went to a Green Monday event, held in the offices of Merrill Lynch, the theme of this well attended evening was ‘The Energy Bill – The Green Deal’. This Bill is due to go before parliament by the end of this year, but is still in its formative stages. We heard from Patrick […]

Second Nature Partnership – Advisory Board (Nov10)

South Africans, Charles Perry and Mark Griffiths, co-founded this partnership in 2009.  The philosophy is to make sustainability ‘second nature’.   I’ve worked with them on a few projects and in 2010 they set up an advisory board, which I agreed to sit on.

Fact sheet on disposable nappies (Nov10)

One of the most difficult eco-decisions I’ve had to make is whether to use cloth or disposable nappies.  I chose disposables.  Given that I’m a big campaigner on reducing waste, this might seem surprising.  But my view was that the environmental differences between the two products were not so great – and disposables performed better.  […]

Innocent Drinks – Taking my son to Fruit Towers (Oct10)

He was particularly impressed with the fact that they’ve got a kitchen to test out their recipes, a gym for employees to keep fit and best of all a fridge with an unlimited supply of Innocent juices and veg pots. Fruit Towers was a little surprising. For a start there were no ‘towers’ at all […]

I need a new boiler (Oct10)

Our boots, shoes and tennis rackets were all wet. They were stored underneath the hot water tank. When the boiler man came he said that it wasn’t actually the tank that was leaking but the pipes leading to it. The pinhole leak had been created by corrosion. Even worse was the water tank in the […]

The Big Packaging Debate (Oct10)

“The success of our ‘Big Packaging Debate’ was very much down to your insightful and on occasion challenging views….. I cannot imagine anyone more proficient or experienced…. It was refreshing and I believe highly encouraging for a cross-section of the industry to hear its environmental responsibilities discussed in such a positive manner….You definitely opened more […]

Bristol Council are wheelchair crazy (Sept10)

  I told the taxi driver at Bristol station that I didn’t want to go with him because his taxi was too big. But I had no option because he was first in line. The driver was actually quite sympathetic to my concerns – based on the fact that bigger cars are less fuel efficient. […]

Aluminium should be recycled again and again…. (Apr10)

I’ve recently started getting my hair highlighted. The first time was in France a couple of years ago. They daubed a strong smelling substance on strands of my hair and left it to do the job. But with follow up appointments closer to home, I’ve discovered that British hairdressers use aluminium foil – loads of […]