The Green Consumer Guide & Week Green Consumer Week TV Clips with Julia Hailes 1988
Published in 1989 ‘Green Consumer’s Supermarket Shopping Guide’ was written by John Elkington and myself – Julia Hailes. It was launched on our ‘Green Shopping Day’. When I was researching The Green Consumer Guide, none of the supermarkets had a clue about ‘green products’. When I asked them what environmental things they were doing they […]
Julia Hailes talking about organic produce (1989 Approx)
Organic produce was quite a niche market in the 1980s. I remember talking to a group of enthusiasts about getting it into the supermarkets and they were decidedly unenthusiastic about the idea. There was quite a purist approach and they didn’t want it to become too commercialised. I couldn’t disagree more. There may be some […]
Supermarket refrigeration – Chilling Facts IV now out (Feb12)
It’s the fourth year of the Chilling Facts campaign, which I helped conceive. Run by the Environmental Investigation Agency’s (EIA), the initiative aims to reduce the climate change impacts of supermarket refrigeration. We’re encouraging them to move away from HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) to more climate-friendly alternatives. This year’s, results from UK retailers have shown a 44% […]
M&S Introduces Marc Bolland (Jun10)
Marc Bolland’s move from CEO of Morrisons to M&S has been widely publicised. Less well know is what stance he plans to take on M&S‘s Plan A initiative. The breakfast event hosted by M&S at the end of June was well attended. Most of the questions were directed at Stuart Rose but I managed to […]
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)
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 about supermarket refrigeration (Feb09)
I’ve been working with the Environmental Investigation Agency on a campaign to highlight the climate change impacts of supermarket refrigeration. The HFC cooling gases used have a global warming impact that is about 4,000 times worse than CO2, so this is a huge issue. Here’s an article that I’ve written on the results of […]
Supermarkets vs french markets…. (Sept08)
Even with the wind and rain lashing around our beach hut on the Dorset coast, we had a great couple of days. There were sunny spells and we had lots of visitors. Somehow the weather didn’t matter that much. We stocked up for supplies from the large supermarket in Bridport – but this was more […]
Whole foods (Oct07)
A few years ago I went to a Whole Foods store in New York. This week I visited the London Whole Foods Market, situated on the old Barkers site in Kensington High Street. Rather like a trip to French street markets, the first thing that comes to mind is ‘Why don’t more shops make food […]
Marks & Spencer (Mar07)
I first started working with Marks & Spencer in 2002 when I was commissioned to do a report on sustainability issues relating to the food sector. The brief was to look at the broad drivers for change, to prioritise the key issues affecting food, identify the key organisations shaping the debate and make recommendations on […]
