Pig heaven (Jun09)
A friend of mine called Sarah has bought three not so little piglets. They’re only 9 weeks old but already quite porky. They’re also rather endearing and very friendly – snuffling and snorting around their wooded enclosure. One of the piglets has been nick-named ‘rotavator’ because he seems to be particularly good at turning over […]
My Garden (May09)
It’s such a wonderful time of year for getting into the garden. I’ve actually managed to mow the lawn – I’m afraid that I didn’t use a scythe. I’ve also been pruning the apples trees – and getting rid of the ivy that’s wrapping itself around them and planting vegetables. Home-grown food is a real […]
Rant about disposable napkins (Apr09)
“Do you ever find it annoying when you’re given wads of napkins and bags you don’t need?”. I was amazed to find this statement on Pret a Manger’s website. The answer is ‘yes – very annoying’. The reason for my surprise was because I think that Pret is once of the worst culprits of napkin […]
M&S Plan A (Mar09)
M&S launched their Plan A scheme in 2006. CEO, Stuart Rose heads the team and they have a very impressive list of actions and initiatives covering issues across the board from transport, packaging and re-usable hangers to food waste, refrigeration and laundry labels in their clothes. I’ve been to the progress reports for Plan since […]
Shopping Trauma (Feb09)
I don’t really like shopping – particularly when it entails actually going out of the house. I do most of my shopping on the internet. Earlier this week, I went into Yeovil for a few things. It made me even more committed to purchasing with my ‘mouse’. First on my list was an energy-efficient, decorative […]
Snow crash (Feb09)
I would have abandoned the idea of school if I hadn’t run out of oil. I’ve been lasting a year on one tank – and I lasted a bit too long. Of course it ran out over the weekend before the snow hit. Actually the house wasn’t that much colder than normal. During the day […]
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 […]
M&S Packaging fact sheets for consumers (Dec08)
Public concern about over-packaging so often misses the point that we should be looking at how to reduce the environmental impact of producing, distributing, storing, selling and consuming food, rather than the amount of packaging waste we have to throw away. Consider the fact that overall the carbon emissions from wasted packaging is one tenth […]
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 […]
Food ethics, tomatoes and feeding the world (May08)
I’ve been to a lot of food ethics events recently – being a member of the Food Ethics Council (FEC) is keeping me busy! I’ve chaired three of their Business Forum meetings – on food miles, meat consumption and ethical labelling; attended a working group meeting on the conflict between limiting air-freight food and fair […]
Carrier bags – Fact sheet and video – (Apr08)
M&S took a lead in charging for carrier bags and have subsequently reduced the amount handed out by a staggering 80%. My view is that this is a good initiative but that the issue of carrier bags has been given far too much attention, given the relatively small impact they have. Early in 2008 I […]
Bottled Water – Eau No! (Feb08)
“I’ve been drinking bottled water for 30 years and I’ll go on doing it until the day I die” said one caller to the Radio 5 phone-in I was participating in. The debate was supposed to be about whether it is immoral to drink bottled water. Actually, most of the callers were more concerned with […]