Julia Hailes MBE

Sustainability Pioneer

Battle of the Quooker – hot water tap (May18)

Most people complain that their husband / male partner, doesn’t help enough with the washing up.  Mine does too much!  He’s obsessive about it. This means he gets up early in the morning to get into the sink before the day starts – and also before the cleaner comes.  Another part of the ‘problem’ is […]

Behind the Scenes in Paradise (Feb17)

I’m hoping that my eco-footprint, on our luxury holiday staying at the Six Senses Hotel, Zil Payson, in the Seychelles – is considerably less than other guests! How so?  It comes mainly from my aversion to air conditioning.  Our residence was one of 30 beautiful villas nestled in the hills and rocks of Felicite Island.  We […]

FT Article written on Eco-renovating London flat (Apr12)

My article on eco-renovation was published in the House & Home section of the FT on 21st April, 2012.  It’s explains how I set about greening my London flat – and the challenges I faced, despite being an eco-expert – see below for the original copy as written, followed by a pdf of what was […]

Radio 5 Live – Appeared on multiple programmes (Feb12)

I’ve been on a number of Radio 5 Live Programmes including: Anita Anand Show – as a panellist throughout the evening Richard Bacon Show talking about bottled water and plastic bags Kay Adams – talking about how to stop wasting food Steve Wright Show

3D movies creating 3D waste (Apr10)

I loved the film Avatar – particularly the strong environmental message running through it. I saw the 3D version in Yeovil, with my sons, Rollo and Monty. They were equally enamoured. In fact, Rollo thought it was the best film he’d ever seen. But, we went home clutching three pairs of 3D glasses. There weren’t […]

Fairy Dishwashing Leaflet (Mar10)

Procter & Gamble are printing 20,000 copies of their leaflet advising consumers on dishwashing – both by hand and by machine.   I’ve written four pages in the leaflet on green dishwashing.   One of my bug-bears is people who effectively wash their dishes before putting them in the dish-washer.  Of course you need to scrape the […]

Bottled water – Eau de Vie or ‘Eau de tap’ (Jul09)

I was invited to eat a ‘Water-Rich Menu’ at Quo Vadis in Soho. The host was Nicholas Stanley, Managing Director of Eau de Vie. Although his new enterprise is all about water, he seemed quite surprised when I – and a number of the other guests – declined the champagne in favour of water. But […]

Greening hotels (Apr09)

I stay in hotels all the time. And I quite often give feedback. Most hotels are incredibly wasteful. Common practices include: -Leaving lights on in bedrooms when they’re unoccupied -Double beds with lots of pillows for only one person (resulting in lots of unnecessary laundry) -Individually wrapped soaps, shampoos and other products -Over-heating or cooling […]

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 […]

Getting into the swim (Sep07)

Last year I didn’t have a proper holiday – a couple of days camping in the rain in Cornwall. In fact I can’t remember when I last had a holiday in the sun. So this year’s family trip to stay with friends in the South of France was really exciting – the first week in […]

Gay Times – I interviewed Kristin Digby (Sep07)

One of three interviews I did for the Gay Times – Kristin Digby . See also Peter Tatchell and Paul O-Grady “I don’t even know how to read a f***ing fuel bill”, Kristian admitted when I asked him to tell me how much electricity and gas he was using.   I arrived at his house somewhere […]

Gay Times – I interviewed Paul O’Grady – aka Lily Savage (Sep07)

“I’ve never known anyone make so much fuss about three light bulbs” Paul said as we laughed uproariously in his kitchen.  I’d pointed out that there were more lights in just half his kitchen than Peter Tatchell had in his whole flat.  Then I saw more lighting above the aga.  “Only one” Paul says.  So I peered underneath the mantel and discovered there were three!