Julia Hailes MBE

Sustainability Pioneer

Green death – Will water replace fire in crematoria? (Feb10)

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about green death – and what I’d like done with my remains when I die. The idea of being eaten by vultures or other wild animals has always held some appeal. But I’ve recently come across a more practical alternative – that’s pretty environmentally friendly too. My main […]

Food Inc film is worth seeing (Feb10)

I was really impressed with Food Inc – it was powerful and compelling – and even after a busy day in London I didn’t fall asleep, which is quite unusual. The main point of the film was to illustrate how the American food system has been centralised under the control of just a handful of […]

Waste Watch (Feb10)

“I really appreciate the energy, imagination and shear spirit of enterprise which you are bringing to Waste Watch. Thank you so much.” Stewart Crocker, Director of Waste Watch (Feb10)

Joining Waste Watch Board (Feb10)

Recruited by Stewart Crocker, the executive director of Waste Watch, my first board meeting was early in February 2010. It’s a really exciting time to be a part of this organisation as it’s revising its strategy putting less emphasis on recycling and more on reducing the amount we consume. I think we should be making […]

M&S Food (Feb10)

 “Thank you for all of your challenges and great ideas that have helped us develop our strategy to 2020.”   Helene Roberts, Head of Packaging, Food Division (Feb10)

Green Dishwashing (Feb10)

When people buy a dishwasher, they still hand wash many of their dishwashers – in fact they only reduce their use of washing up liquid by 25%.   So when you’re thinking about green dishwashing, it’s not so much a question of whether you do it by hand or by machine, it’s how you do it. […]

Chilling Facts Campaign on Supermarket Refrigeration (Feb 10)

Launched on 1st February, 2010, the second Chilling Facts survey has been very successful in drawing attention to the huge impact of supermarket refrigeration on climate change. I’ve been working with the Environmental Investigation Agency  on their campaign to get the supermarkets to switch to climate-friendly refrigeration gases.   We ranked the retailers on their performance and gave them detailed […]

Chilling Facts II The supermarket refrigeration scandal continues (Feb10)

Did you know that as much as one third of the carbon footprint of most supermarkets comes from cooling gases used in their refrigeration systems? And the energy used is on top.  See Chilling Facts Campaign from the Environmental Investigation Agency   The Co-operative Group’s green and ethical credentials are called into question in this […]

House of Commons Generation Green Manifesto (Feb10)

Greg Barker, Shadow Minister for Climate hosted the reception at the House of Commons.  It was attended by a number of MPs, including John Gummer, as well as organisations like Global Action Plan, Waste Watch and education bodies, as well as the members of the Generation Green Youth think tank, and their parents.   The event […]

Julia Hailes on recycling plastic bags (Jan10)

Jonathon Vernon-Smith, from BBC 3 Counties, rants to Julia Hailes about why he doesn’t like being made to feel guilty about using lots of plastic bags. Julia robustly responds and the debate is followed by a phone-in! This was aired on his lunch-time programme in January 2010.