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Here are some of the things I've been up
to.
Click on the links in the table to find out
more.
And have a look at news for previous years by clicking on the
hats.
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PROJECT DIRT
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Project Dirt was set up in
2008 as an independent online network to help connect green minded people. The idea
for people to learn from others doing 'real projects' in their neighbourhood. I
was a member of the judging panel for the Project Dirt's Timberland Earthkeepers
Grant awarding five projects up to £2000 each.
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CITRUS
TALK (Jul10)
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"Many thanks for the brilliant presentation you gave yesterday at
Citrus. You'll be glad to know that it was the subject of much debate for most of the
night - from shock at the waste within both the Armed Forces and the NHS to great debate on
exactly whether we get buried, cremated or resomated...."
Citrus is an informal business networking group launched earlier this year
by Grey Advertising. Previous speakers include Baroness Susan Greenfield, Damon Hill
and Peter Hain MP.
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ALUPRO
CONFERENCE - SPEAKER & CHAIR (Jul10)
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Alupro - the Aluminium Packaging Recycling
Organisation - were celebrating 21 years of aluminium packaging recycling.
During this time recycling of aluminium packaging has risen from less than 2% to more than
40%. Given that an average of 9 tonnes of CO2 are saved for every 1 tonne
recycled, the more recycling the better. My view is that aluminium in packaging has
many benefits but these are pretty well eliminated if its not recycled. There was one
particular industry stalwart in the audience who felt I was too challenging on this
subject but my brief was to be provocative and the feedback from others was very
positive. Click
here for post conference press release.
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GUARDIAN BUSINESS QUARTERLY - LEVERS FOR CHANGE
(Jun10)
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Panellists wer aksed to consider how can consumers, business and government
work together to inentivise sustainable behaviour? With an audience of over
200, the event was chaired by Jo Confino from Guardian Sustainable Business
Quarterly . I sat on the panel alongside Lucy Siegle, journalist and writer,
David North, Community Director of Tesco and Sally Uren, Deputy Director of Forum for the
Future. Tesco summarised their position neatly by saying that products had to
be 'cheap, exciting, easy or fashionable'.
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M&S INTRODUCES MARC BOLLAND (Jun10)
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| 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 direct one to the incoming CEO, asking him for
his views on Plan A and whether he planned to change anything. He was non-commital about
change but did appear to be signed up to the benefits of Plan A. |
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C
MOBILE ADVISORY BOARD (Jun10)
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I've joined the newly formed Advisory Board of C-Mobile. This company is launching a pay as you go
mobile phone package in partnership with Orange. It's early days but they plan
to invest a proportion of profits to green initiatives and campaign to improve the
environmental performance of the mobile phone industry.
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MCDONALDS - BEHIND THE
SCENES (May10)
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I was invited behind the scenes at McDonalds. We
went to a farm near Dorchester and a restaurant in Weymouth.
The cows were being reared within site of where they may end
up being eaten. But with the local sourcing
couldn't be quite as neat as that
because the animals had to make a trip to the
abbatoir - and that was located about 50 miles
away. For me, the most impressive thing in
the restaurant was that they only wasted about 1% of the cooked
food. Kitchen staff are given a detailed sheet on how many of
what items should be ready depending on how busy the store is - and
clearly they've worked this out to a tee. At Yo Sushi I
discovered that they waste about one third of the food they
produce.
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ORGANIX BABY FOOD (May10-Sep10)
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I've carried out an environmental review of
Organix Baby Food.
Based in Bournemouth, Organix was a pioneer in the organic
baby food market and is one of the market leaders with their 'No
Junk Promise'. With a good reputation on the
nutritional and health benefits of their products they've asked
me to help get up to speed on the environmental front.
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SPEECH FOR PAFA - PLASTICS & FILMS
ASSOCIATION AGM (May10)
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The AGM for the Plastics and Films Association was held
at the Dorchester Hotel. I was the key note speaker
following David Bebee the PAFA Chairman. With some challenges for
the plastics industry, I concluded with a poem about plastic
bags.
See my blog by clicking here.
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"Everyone I have spoken to has commented on the
value and inspiration they have received from the day and your part was
a significant factor in all of that. Just the right balance of
relevance and a very special personal flavour with knickers and
goldfish thrown in (metaphorically I hasten to add)."
Peter Woodall, PRP Consulting and co-organiser..
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JUDGING M&S £100,000 COMPETITION -
YOUR GREEN IDEA (May10)
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The Your Green
Idea competition was launched alongside M&S's announcement
that it aims to become the world's most sustainable retailer by
2015. Along with me on the judging panel were Sir Stuart
Rose and Jonathon Porritt, former director of Friends of the Earth and
founder of Forum for the
Future. Marc Bolland, who has just taken over the reigns at
Britain's flagship was unable to attend but sent his views on a piece of
paper. Our conclusions are still to be announced.
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P&G - EXPERT ADVISORY PANEL
ON DETERGENTS
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This was the fourth Expert Advisory Panel on detergents and
cleaning products and the second time for batteries. Held in Geneva,
there were only a couple of us who had been at the original
meeting, along with a new cast of European opinion
formers.
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FOOD INNOVATION
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The Food Ethics Council Business Forum meeting focussed on
radical innovation. I was chairing the session with a presentation from
Sander Mager, Programme Manager at the groundbreaking Dutch technology
incubator TransForum - a quango supporting projects ranging from closed-loop
farming to producer-managed supermarkets.
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GREENHOUSE PR (Mar10)
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I've started working with Anna Guyer, founder of Greenhouse
PR. We are collaborating on a number of project ideas and really enjoying the
process! Anna has nominated me as one of her Eco Heroes on
her blog.
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M&S SUPPLIERS CONFERENCE ON PLAN
A
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M&S suppliers came to be briefed on the M&S's
groundbreaking Plan A initiative. Sir Stuart Rose announced that M&S
planned to be the world's most sustainable retailer by 2015. I was
asked to talk to packaging suppliers about key issues for them. One
particular them I covered in my presentation was the switch in emphasis away from
measuring the environmental impact of packaging from weight to carbon.
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YARLINGTON HOUSING (Mar10)
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I was the key note speaker at the Yarlington Housing Annual meeting,
held in Yeovil, which is close to where I live. The organisation had a
number of sustainability initiatives but hadn't yet managed to fully integrate the
principles into their housing developments.
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DORSET SCHOOLS ECO SUMMIT
(Mar10)
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Attended by over 40 schools and held by Bryanston, the Dorset
Schools Eco-Summit helped schools share their green commitments and encourage each
other. TV presenter, Dick Strawbridge (It's Not Easy Being
Green and Scrapheap Challenge) and I co-presented the day - I worked out that
we were speaking for over 5 hours during the day. Rob Hopkins from Transition
Culture also came and spoke at the day.
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FAIRY GREEN DISHWASHING
LEAFLET(Mar10)
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| 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 plate to
get rid of food debris but it's wasteful to do this with water, especially if it's hot and
going straight down the drain. |
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HOUSE OF COMMONS
GENERATION GREEN MANIFESTO(Feb10)
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Greg Barker, Shadow Minister for Climate hosted the reception at the House of
Commons. It was attended by a number of MPs, including John Gummer, as well as
organisations like Global Action Plan, Waste Watch and education bodies, as well as the members
of the Generation Green Youth think tank, and their parents. The event was
organised for the team to present their manifesto ideas to Government - they met Ed Milliband,
Minister for Climate Change in the morning. I have been the expert advisor taking
the children round some environmental projects and helping pull together their thoughts.
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BBC 3 COUNTIES RADIO PLASTIC BAG
RANT
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Jonathan Vernon Smith from BBC 3 Counties Radio rants to Julia about why he
doesn't thing people should be charged for plastic bags. Julia gives a robust
response and explains that he sshouldn't be complaining about something so
trivial.
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JOINING THE WASTE WATCH BOARD (Feb10)
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Recruited by Stewart Crocker, the executive director of Waste Watch, my first board meeting
was early in February 2010. It's a really exciting time to be a part of this organisation as
it's revising its strategy putting less emphasis on recycling and more on reducing the amount
we consume. I think we should be making more of what we have, both in terms of resources and
the planet.
"I really appreciate the energy, imagination and shear spirit
of enterprise which you are bringing to Waste Watch. Thank you so
much."
Stewart Crocker, Director of Waste Watch (Feb10)
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CHILLING FACTS CAMPAIGN ON SUPERMARKET
REFRIGERATION (Feb10)
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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 feedback on our assessment, covering in-store
refrigeration, distribution and warehouses. Next year, we plan to include air
conditioning too as these systems also contain HFCs, a gas that is about 3,800 times worse
than CO2 in terms of its global warming impact. And there are viable
alternatives.
Media coverage on the first day included a full page spread in the Guardian
and rolling news story on Sky, as well as Channel Five News. I helped set up
this campaign and along with Fioannuala Walravens from the Environmental Investigation
Agency and Nick Cox from Earthcare News am a judge. The three of us created a scoring
system to rank the supermarkets on how well they have performed. Waitrose, the
winner this year, was close to the bottom last year. And Co-op are the only store to
have actually reduced their point count.
Click on the icons below for Sky News and guardian coverage.
 
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