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 Ham
Hill
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.
Although, I have no wish to be cremated I have sometimes thought
about having my ashes sprinkled on Ham Hill.
Now, I realise that it may be possible by the time I die to
have my freeze-dried remains spread about under a pile of leaves
somewhere in the vicinity – so I will have come full circle.
 World
travel
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.
But it was my time travelling in South and
Central America
that really 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.
 The
Green Consumer
I came back from Central America via the East and West coast
to the States. Having learnt to roller skate down Broadway
in the rush hour, I continue 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.
This
book went on to sell over a million copies worldwide.
I believe that if we hadn’t written it someone else would
have – it was the right book at the right time.
John’s idea was that businesses would be more ‘green’
if they knew that this would bring them more customers.
I saw it from the other direction – if most people knew
the environmental impacts of their shopping habits, they’d make
‘greener’ choices.
What
neither John or I had anticipated was the response from the
business world. As
consultants we were besieged by companies saying they recognised
the importance of environmental issues, but what could they do?
This was particularly apparent amongst the supermarkets –
it may surprise you to hear that even at this time they were busy
appointing environmental advisors to get them up to speed.
The
current climate
It’s nearly 20 years
since the publication of The Green Consumer Guide. In
the intervening period, I have written a number of books on a
similar theme, worked as a consultant for lots of companies,
including British Airways, ICI, Marks & Spencer and Procter
& Gamble and given speeches all over the world. Having
left SustainAbility I am now freelance – or in modern parlance a
‘portfolio’ worker. As I often find myself explaining, I
have lots of hats but they’re all green.
A
couple of years ago my family moved to a Victorian farmhouse,
which I'm still eco-renovating. Some of my experiences
are included in The New Green Consumer Guide - for
example re-using a friend's kitchen units and my struggles
to find suitable energy-efficient light bulbs. However, I've
got lots more to do and will be posting progress reports on my
website.
 There'll
also be news of my consultancy work and speeches - this year has
already been extraordinary both
in terms of the world waking up to environmental issues and, as a
result people wanting me to do things. I'm run off my feet
But
I haven't lost sight of Ham Hill - I've just moved to the other
side!
Written:
February 2007 |
