ABOUT ME - MY LIFE

 

MY LIFE

HAM HILL EARLY CAREER WORLD TRAVEL
THE GREEN CONSUMER GUIDE CAMPAIGNING CONSULTANT WRITING AND SPEECHES
MANY HATS NOW

HAM HILL

Ham Hill War Memorial

The memorial column of Ham Hill, in Somerset, is etched firmly in my memory. I could see it from my bedroom window in the house where I grew up. From boarding school where I went from the age of eight - and from London when I left home at 18 - I would frequently return and spend both sunny and rainy afternoons running up and down the quarry hills of this iron age fort, that dominates the surrounding countryside.

When I returned to live in Somerset in 1995 I moved to the National Trust house at Tintinhull, which is still in the shadow of Ham Hill but on the other side to my childhood home. Two of my three sons were born in one of the upstairs bedrooms, during our 10 years renting the house.

I moved from Tintinhull in 2004 but am still very close to Ham Hill, although it's no longer visible from my house. I do however have extensive views of the South Somerset countryside edging over the border into Dorset.

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EARLY CAREER

Soon after school I spent a year in Paris – not ‘down and out’ but earning money from busking, selling flowers and even one job which involved dressing up in silver foil to sell frying pans and another making ‘pooper scooper’ gloves for Parisian poodles!  When I returned to London my career was no less eclectic.  I sold teddy bears at Selfridges, shirts and jumpers door to door and spent a few months working as an industrial pudding cook at Metal Box factory.

My first proper job was working at Leo Burnett Advertising in the information department. My experience there has been extremely helpful in training me how to research – I remember being so interested in all the strange facts I had to find out that I produced a 'Useless Fact Sheet', which was circulated around the agency for creative inspiration. The next stop was working in TV production making commercials and pop videos - but soon discovered this wasn't really my thing.

Julia Hailes in Paris 1981

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WORLD TRAVEL

World Travel

It was my time travelling in South and Central America that got me hooked on environmental issues. I was horrified to see rainforests being chopped down, vast slum areas spreading as rural populations moved to cities and on a more personal level my fellow crew members on a luxury racing yacht chucking all the boat garbage into the sea!

Of course, many of these trips involved flying. At that time there wasn’t anything controversial about this. Now, the impact of air travel on climate change is making us think whether zooming around the planet in this way is acceptable. Here’s the quandary – on the one hand the experience of travelling may be switching more people onto the perils of global warming. On the other hand our travelling habits are making the problem worse.

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THE GREEN CONSUMER GUIDE

I came back from Central America via the East and West coast of the States. Having learnt to roller skate down Broadway in the rush hour, I continued in London, this time from North Kensington to Barnes, where I was working with John Elkington. He and I joined forces in 1986, setting up a company called SustainAbility and subsequently writing the original Green Consumer Guide, which was published in 1988.

This book went on to sell over a million copies worldwide and became a number one best-seller in the UK. I was in and out of TV and radio studies explaining how we are all making environmental choices in everything we do. And I even presented a mini series called Green Matters on Richard and Judy's This Morning Programme.

The Green Consumer Guide

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CAMPAIGNING CONSULTANT

Marks and Spencer

P&G

McDonalds

Fairy

On one trip to Newcastle, while filming Green Matters, sometime in 1989, I got an early taste of campaigning. I was in M&S buying some knickers, which I'd forgotten to pack. When I got to the till I accepted a receipt but said that I didn't want a bag. The lady serving me was insistent but I stood my ground even when she fetched the manager to remonstrate with me – and the queue behind me lengthened. My concern was that the bag was wasteful and unnecessary. I won the battle and left the store clutching my purchase.

A few weeks later I told this story to the Today newspaper, in a feature about 'greening supermarkets'. They ran a centre page spread headlined 'Green Princess risks arrest in M&S'. Less than six months on I noticed someone on the tube with an M&S bag on which was written 'Please reuse this bag for the sake of the environment'.

I never found out if I was responsible for the change in policy but in 2002 I started advising M&S – carrying out a review of their food division. More recently I've written consumer briefing papers for them on carrier bags and packaging.

Another client who I've worked with for even longer is Procter & Gamble (P&G), who approached SustainAbility, shortly after the publication of The Green Consumer Guide in 1988. I've seen a great number of their innovations on laundry detergents, cleaning products and nappies – their brands include Ariel, Fairy and Pampers – and currently sit on expert advisory panels for the company.

It's generally understood that I'm a campaigning consultant. Judging from the feedback I get from clients and the briefs for speaking engagements, I believe I have a reputation for being out-spoken and challenging. But I've found that companies generally appreciate this because it helps them get a real understanding of the issues. This quote from McDonalds, in 2007, gives an idea of what I mean:

“We encouraged her to be provocative because we want to be challenged to create game-changing social and environmental policies and programs. And she sure delivered. She has strong opinions about McDonalds, and she's not afraid to vocalize them."

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WRITING AND SPEECHES

John Elkington and I have written eight books together, a couple of which since I left SustainAbility in 1995. But in 2007, my first book was published that I'd written on my own – The New Green Consumer Guide. It was nearly 20 years on from the original book and was radically different, not least because so much has changed in the intervening period.

In the past few years I've also written columns for BBC Online and the Western Daily Press, as well as set up a blog, written numerous newspaper articles, particularly for the Telegraph, where I've become a regular contributor.

I've also been all over the world making speeches – in New Zealand, Brazil, America, as well in Europe, including Turkey and Croatia. I managed to stay a little longer in Istanbul, with some friends, experiencing the delights of having a Turkish bath and listening to the calls to prayer from the Blue Mosque. And in Dubrovnik I was delighted to see the swallows dive-bombing the feral cats over the walls of a city that not long ago had been experiencing real bombs.

The sorts of speeches I’ve done can be quite eclectic. My sister was particularly impressed when I told her that I'd made the key note speech at the Green Funeral Exhibition. She said that they should write this on my gravestone when I die – but I told her I didn't want a stone, so it'll have to go on my internet memorial site instead, when the time comes. Another event I did in 2007 was a Question Time style debate, sharing a platform with David Miliband, when he was Environment Minister, as well as the Director of the National Trust.

The New Green Consumer Guide

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MANY HATS

Many Hats

 

 

Fruit Fly Maggots

 

Bamburi Cement Factory

 

 

Millipede

 

The strap line on my website says 'I wear many hats but they're all green'. Sometimes when I'm at a meeting or conference and have to summarise what I do, I have to think quite carefully about which hat I'm wearing. Apart from writing books and advising companies here are a few things I've been involved in over the past few years.

In 2005, working with Bulmers, I spent a lot of time researching the potential of using fruit fly maggots as chicken feed – to replace fish meal.
In 2006, I joined forces with my local council and organised a conference on biogas, essentially highlighting the potential of anaerobic digestion (AD) for dealing with food waste and producing electricity and fuel. There's now a lot of interest in this and new initiatives being set up all over the country.

In 2008 I was approached by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) who wanted to highlight the climate change impacts of supermarket refrigeration. I suggested that we carry out a survey of the supermarkets and rank them on how well they are doing on the issue. This was done and early in 2009 the EIA launched the Chilling Facts website with the results – and many of the supermarkets are now moving towards more climate-friendly refrigeration.

I've also sat on eco-labelling boards since they were conceived, been a director of an ethical supermarket chain and a green investment trust – Jupiter Global Green, sat on the board of the Ecos Trust, which promotes green building and am still a member of the Food Ethics Council.

One of the things that I’m most proud of is helping to set up a charity called Haller. It was inspired by Dr. Rene Haller, a Swiss agronomist, who has lived in Kenya for over 50 years. I met him in the early 1990s, in Nairobi – we'd both received a UN Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He asked me to come and see the rehabilitation of a cement quarry on the Kenyan coast, just North of Mombasa. I realised that his creative and innovative eco-system approach could be applied in many other situations.

In 1996 I spent six weeks carrying out an environmental review of the cement factory, where Rene was working, which meant I got to know him well. A few years later, he recommended me to Louise Piper, who was similarly inspired by his work and wanted to set up a charity to support it. Called Haller, this organisation is based in the UK but supporting sustainable community projects, primarily in Kenya. This includes farmer training programmes, dam building, biogas, health projects and reforestation.

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NOW

I live in Somerset with my three sons – Connor (14), Rollo (12) and Monty (10), although I'm in London for one or two nights most weeks.

The main clients I'm working with are British Gas, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons and Procter & Gamble.

And I'm about to carry out a big project promoting eco-renovation.

Julia with her Children

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