Photo: Subway Please Don't Send Your Toys By Air

Subway, the franchised sandwich retailer with the slogan, "Subway, Eat Fresh, Live Green", has come to my attention. Really is there a need to air freight "toys" from Hong Kong (HKG) to the London Heathrow (LHR), via Paris (CDG)? Surely they would be more environmentally sound if they were sent via sea, or not manufactured at all. This isn't the only items that Subway send via air either.

Information from Traxon Europe (Air France Cargo Freight Status Information Service)

Pieces: 1

Airline: AFR
Weight: 2818 K
from: HKG
to: LHR
1 piece(s) 2818 K booked on flight AF6799/01OCT from HKG to CDG
Scheduled Time of Flight-Departure : 07:50
Scheduled Time of Flight-Arrival : 16:45
1 piece(s) 2818 K booked on flight AF932D/02OCT from CDG to LHR
1 piece(s) 2818 K received from shipper in HKG on 01 OCT at 06:08
1 piece(s) 2818 K departed on flight AF6799/01OCT from HKG to CDG
Actual Time of Flight-Departure : 08:06
Actual Time of Flight-Arrival : 16:54
1 piece(s) 2818 K departed on flight AF396D/01OCT from CDG to LHR
1 piece(s) 2818 K arrived in LHR from flight AF396D
Scheduled arrival : 02 OCT
Goods checked in at : 12:02
1 piece(s) 2818 K delivered on 03 OCT at 22:27 in LHR

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How Much CO2 is in Your Breakfast Cereal This Morning?

According to New Scientist (13th September 2008), a bowl of cereal has the same carbon footprint as a 7km journey in a 4x4. According to reporter Bijal Trivedi, our shopping baskets are spewing greenhouse gases, but it's easy to cut out the culprits.

333g of CO2eq is emitted to make one hard-boiled egg. Compared with a bowl of cereal with milk at 1224 grams.

There's lots of other exciting reads in the feature article, for more information, you can check the New Scientist website.


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Subway Reduce Their Carbon Footprint by Another Little Bit

Doctors Associates International, owners of Subway, they have over 29,546 franchised units in 87 countries and are keen to promote environmental issues, and through their current slogan "Subway, Eat Fresh, Live Green".

This campaign part of Subway's corporate social responsibility program that is currently under development. You can find some of the exceptionally impressive carbon reduction measures already implemented in our Fast Food with a Conscience.

One new measure implemented by Subway is an increase in content of napkins per case by 17%, without an increase in pack size, up to 5850 napkins from 5000. The idea is 17% less space in storage, trucks, containers, saving CO2 in transport, storage and packaging. Saving about 661 cubic inches per pack. Packs will start arriving to stores later this month. Subway napkins already save approximately 60,500,000 gallons of water and an additional 147,000 trees annually because they are made from 100% recycled fiber processed chlorine free.

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Diageo Invests £65m in Renewable Energy

Plans for a pioneering bioenergy facility at Scotland’s largest distillery, Cameronbridge in Fife, were announced by Diageo this week. Following two years of rigorous research, Diageo - which makes leading global brands including Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray and Smirnoff - has signed a formal partnership agreement with energy management company, Dalkia, to create the new facility.

Costing approximately £65 million, the planned state-of-the-art facility will generate major environmental benefits and is set to place Scotland at the forefront of green technology on the world stage.

The facility will for the first time integrate sustainable technologies – including anaerobic digestion and biomass conversion – on a commercial scale. It will be the largest single investment in renewable technology by a non-utility company in the UK and is set to reduce annual CO2 emissions at the site by approximately 56,000 tonnes (equivalent to taking 44,000 family cars off the road).

The proposed facility, which is subject to planning approval, will recover 98% of thermal steam and 80% of electrical power at the distillery. It is an example of Diageo’s commitment to the environment and the use of energy efficiency programmes to reduce energy and water consumption. Dalkia will construct the facility over the next two years and it will then transfer to Diageo under a finance lease, while continuing to be managed by Dalkia.

“This will be a showcase bioenergy facility which harnesses a variety of green technologies in a project of an unprecedented scale. It is without question the right way forward in terms of environmental benefits and secures the long-term sustainability of our operation, moving the site away from reliance on fossil fuels"
Bryan Donaghey, Managing Director, Diageo Scotland.

The bioenergy facility will generate renewable energy from ‘spent wash’ – a mixture of wheat, malted barley, yeast and water - produced during distillation. The spent wash is separated into liquid and dried solids. The liquid is then converted, via anaerobic digestion, into biogas and the dried solids form a biomass fuel source.

Around 90,000 tonnes of co-products, which would have required transport off-site by road, will be turned into bioenergy in the form of electricity and steam for use at the distillery. The facility will also recover almost a third of the site’s water requirements.

"SEPA welcomes the use by industry of efficient, sustainable energy sources. We are very supportive of new and developing technologies that can help protect Scotland's environment and make a meaningful contribution to tackling climate change. Diageo is to be commended for its investment in bioenergy.”
Campbell Gemmell, CEO of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)

"This pioneering scheme demonstrates the effective use of bioenergy and highlights our shared commitment to efficient sustainable energy for industry. It will deliver real environmental benefits.”
Frédéric Pelège, CEO of Dalkia plc

The bioenergy project is in addition to a £100 million programme of investment currently being undertaken by Diageo in Scotland. This includes a new distillery at Roseisle in Morayshire which will also feature cutting edge sustainable technology, together with a £40 million expansion at Cameronbridge Distillery due for completion in spring 2010.

Diageo, and partner Dalkia, have been working closely with local and national stakeholders, as well as consulting widely with representatives of the local community, to ensure the full potential of the project is realised.

Cameronbridge currently employs around 100 people and the new bioenergy facility is expected to create up to 20 additional jobs.

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Tesco Save 72m Bags in Northern Ireland

Tesco customers in Northern Ireland have saved 72m plastic carrier bags in the last two years since implementing "Green Clubcard" points scheme in July 2006.

The scheme allows you to reuse your old plastic bags from any retailer, a bag for life, or any other receptical to carry your goods away, in exchange for avoiding the use of a single use bag you can collect recieve a clubcard point. Often at the discretion of the customer service staff.

This figure would represent a saving of 491 tonnes of bags, across the two years of the scheme, or 20 bags per person per year, approximately a 12% reduction in the annual bags used in Northern Ireland, and from just one retailer. Nationwide, the campaign has lead to a reduction of approximately 1.5 billion bags since inception.

Green Washing: Tesco and Local Produce

Tesco billboard advertisement for locally sourced Aberdeen Angus beef. But really how does the meat from the farm next door to you get to Tesco's on the other side of you? It's not as simple as A to B.

"With meat in the UK, there is also a supermarket issue. Each of the supermarkets runs its own abattoir, so if you sell your lamb to Tesco, you have to send your lamb to Tesco's abattoir, even if you pass several local abattoirs on the way. As a result, the meat picks up a huge amount of 'in-Britain' food miles from farm to abattoir then to packaging before it gets to its final destination."
Prof Gareth Edwards-Jones, Department of Agriculture, Bangor University
Quoted in Telegraph, 03 June 2007

New Products Added to Carbon Label Scheme

Video (Only Availabe to UK Residents)
The Carbon Trust announced today that a further nine brands will add carbon labels to at least one product. Walkers, Boots and Innocent added labels to one of their products in March 2007, which I commented on in July and suggested that it would be encouraging to see more companies doing the same. The nine new brands to sign up to the scheme are;

• Coca-Cola
  One still and one sparkling drink
• Cadbury's Schwepps
  Dairy Milk chocolate bar
• Kimberly-Clark
  Andrex toilet tissure and Huggies nappies
  
• Aggregate Industries
  Hard Landscaping Products (paving stones etc)
• The Co-operative Group
  200g and 400g punnet of strawberries
• Halifax
  Halifax Web Saver account
• Marshalls
  Hard landscaping products (paving stones etc)
• Muller Dairy (UK) Limited
  One type of yoghurt
  
• Scottish & Newcastle
  Fosters lager and Bulmers cider

I am encouraged to see the varying brands and products that will be added to the scheme and this will further assist consumers in buying decisions. It is also interesting to see that for the first time two competing brands in the same industry are working to label their products, and how each vary will be a talking point for the future.

"It is encouraging that so many top companies were "stepping up to the plate" on the issue of climate change. The take-up from business of the Carbon Trust's scheme shows that there's real appetite and willingness to firstly understand, and secondly to reduce the impact that their products have on our planet."
Joan Ruddock, Climate Change Minister

Each company that signs up to the scheme must commit for a minimum of two years to reduce their carbon footprint. Following the Carbon Trust guidelines each company is given a "reduce or lose" clause whereby, if they don't reduce their emissions within this time the label usage will be revoked.

"The unprecedented level of interest we have had in this initiative makes me confident that by working with manufacturers and producers to reduce indirect carbon emissions, we can move the UK another step closer to a low carbon economy"
Tom Delay, Chief Executive, Carbon Trust

The expansion of the carbon label is another step towards reducing the UK annual carbon emissions of 648m tonnes, as each new company signs up to the scheme and labels their products it offers consumers a new choice, and the commitment of the brand they support that they are actively working to reduce the impact of their product on the environment. It makes financial sense that each brand will be commited to the reduction, least not the red faces should they not.

What's in Season from Your Local Farmer?

Buying locally is often difficult at the best of the times, but knowing what is in season and buying accordingly is one way to find what you are looking for, you don't have to comprimise too much as a wide variety of foods are available all year around.

| All | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |

To find details of your nearest farmers markets (England, Scotland & Wales), or in Northern Ireland at the Ulster Farmers Union website.

Lush Protest Packaging in the Nude

Leading international high street retailer Lush have gone onto the streets in the UK stripping off to protest against unnecessary packaging of products, the UK nude protest is part of the stores worldwide campaign in 55 cities. Staff from Lush stores around the UK wore only a white apron with the words "Ask Me Why I'm Naked" emblazoned across their fronts covering their most intimate parts.

Lush is one of the few companies that have extensive environmental merits far beyond its competitors. The majority of their products come unpackaged, those that do are minimal and only used if absolutely necessary. All their ingredients are 100% natural and sourced in the country they are produced. Their products are never tested on animals.

Lush co founder Mark Constantine recently presented a Channel 4 documentary leading the public on a revolutionary insight into the consumer power over packaging, the effects, and cost packaging has on our pockets and the environment. You can watch the documentary on You Tube. (Part 1, 2, 3)

On 16th January 2006 Lush was taken to court in the UK by the Environment Agency. The offence was a technical one of not registering under The Packaging Waste Regulations 1997. This action to bring one of the most environmentally friendly companies in the UK on a technicality was not well received by the public.

There have been 3400 new pieces of legislation on average each year for the last 5 years. Lush started in 1995 and the new law came in during 1997 however Lush did not need to register under the Packaging Waste Regulations until the rules were changes in 2000 and to make it even more difficult the Environment Agency only put the rules on their website in 2005. Even allowing for this Lush has always recycled as well as offering packaging free alternatives to your every day products.

As soon as Lush were informed about the regulations they complied and attempted to make good any fees or charges that we had not paid. They say attempted because the Environment Agency tried to stop them so they could prosecute even though Kevin Parsons, Senior Environmental Officer, South West Region said ‘I agree Lush has been open and honest and that the environment has not suffered as a result of their action’.

He also said ‘It is very difficult for local officers as the scope for discretion is extremely limited. It causes us great difficulty in cases such as Lush as it is fully accepted that Lush is a company recycling on a very comprehensive basis.’

The magistrates took some time to discuss matters amongst themselves. They asked when the Regulations first came in as opposed to when the company first registered. The Lush barrister pointed out that there was no liability until the year 2000, which was when the limit came down from £5m to £2m. He also noted that there were two further small points that he had been asked to put forward to the magistrates. The first was to make clear explicitly the methods of recycling had been carried out since well before the year 2000. Secondly, that the Regulations had been placed on the Environment Agency’s website during the course of the last year and not before.

The magistrates retired for all of 15 minutes. They then said that the offences were ‘at the lower end of the scale’ and ‘having taken the mitigation into account’ that the compensation was the penalty.

It's a shame that genuine companies with positive attitudes towards making a beneficial difference to the environment are prosecuted over a technicality where those that flout the law are not brought before the courts.

H2O ... Tap into it

In the UK we spend £1.5 billion a year on 2.17 billion litres of bottled water. This equates to 15% of the soft drinks market and is projected to grow to 21% by 2008. I was once one of the 26m people in the UK who consume bottled water on a regular basis, however I have as part of my carbon reduction plan replaced this with tap water.

But Why?

The main reason is that bottled water requires a large use of energy, from the process of bottling, through the requirement of a glass or plastic bottle, then the huge food transport cost through carbon emissions. Petcore figures from 2004 said that Europe wide we recycled just over 30% of PET bottles. However, this is on the increase with a 47% increase over the last two years.

I have decided to take Evian (my favourite brand of bottled water) and the brand leader in the UK with a 14.3% market share or 310m litres in sales per year. Evian is an imported mineral water from several sources near Évian-les-Bains, a few kilometers to the east of Thonon-les-Bains along the southern shore of Lake Geneva.

So if I was to fill a lorry (or truck) with Evian and bring them to my home town of Belfast, how much Co2 emissions would be produced directly from food transport. Using Google maps to gauge the driving distance, note this is the most direct route available from source to Belfast, United Kingdom. It equates to 1115 miles. Taking the load as 5.29 tonnes (the average load on a UK lorry, Transport Statistics Great Britain 2002) or the equivalent to 5290 litres of Evian. The journey would emit 1936kg of Co2 (or 366g of Co2 per litre of Evian) for the one-way journey, one-third of food transport lorries are empty, so to assume that the vehicle may be empty on its return this could increase the Co2 emissions even further.

This is however only an assumption, if other forms of transport were used (preferably train / boat) this would result in lower emissions per litre. Over 1.5 billion bottles of Evian are sold every year in 125 countries worldwide, as far away as Hong Kong (just over 5000 miles).

Whilst Evian carry out over 300 quality checks per day, the quality of bottled water is similar to that of tap water. So next time your tempted by bottled water, imported coca-cola or beers consider its food transport cost.

H2O ... Tap into it





NB: The figures in this article were changed on Tuesday 23rd April 2007 due to a mistake in the source. The emissions were based per tonne but were taken as the load. This then increased the carbon emissions by 5.29.

Support Local Produce

Over 50% of vegetables and 90% of fruits consumed in the UK are imported from overseas, the majority by air. Food transport in the United Kingdom produces about 19m tonnes of Co2 per year, (equivalent to the output of all UK power stations) and this figure is increasing. However trying to increase your consumption of local produce is not only difficult, its time consuming. 100 years ago most food did not travel further than 20 miles, now you will be hard pushed to find more than a handful of items in your supermarket which have been locally produced.

Not only is food transport bad for the environment, it is also damaging to our roads, increasing congestion. One in four trucks on UK roads are transporting food, and of those one in three are empty.

So what can you do to reduce food transport;

• Buy Local Produce
  Purchasing local produce not only reduces food transport it also improves the local economy. Details of farmers markets and farm shops can be found on the following websites;
  
  Farmers Markets
  Big Barn
  Farm Shops
  The Foody
  
  
• Do Not Buy Imported Products
  Food produce imported to the UK often is sent by air, by reducing consumption of imports this will help reduce food transport. Certain foods can only be produced outside the UK, if you can not remove these completely reduction is advised where possible.
  
  
• Grow Your Own Fruit & Vegetables
  Growing fruit and vegetables can be a simple task, and in a relatively small area you can provide copious amounts of fresh produce. Any excess can be given to friends, neighbours and family. Common fruits grown are tomatoes which would otherwise be imported from Spain.
  
  
• Shop Weekly or Online
  Each family in the UK travels 18 miles a week to food shop, by carrying out one weekly shop or by shopping online, this can easily be reduced. Not only will this reduce food transport it will also save you approximately £140 per year on average.

Whilst in Belfast yesterday I visited the infamous St Georges Market. The Variety Market opens at 6.00am every Friday and runs until approximately 1.00pm. A range of products are sold at the market including food, antiques and clothes, and each Friday there is 248 stalls, 23 of which offer fresh fish and holds the reputation for being the leading retail fish market on the island of Ireland.

The original building was built between 1890 and 1896, and in 1997 received a £4.5m renovation. The market has won various national accolades;

• one of the top five UK markets in 2006 by the National Association of British Market Authorities
• Most Atmospheric Market in the UK in 2006 by the Observer newspaper.
• third Best Food Market in the UK in the Observer’s Waitrose Food Awards 2004

The City Food and Garden Market takes place every Saturday from 9.00am until 3.00pm. And some of the local produce includes; fish landed at Portavogie, pork from Cookstown, and beef from Armagh.

Whilst a large amount of produce is local, produce from further afield is also sold, you must at any market, question the origin of unless specifically stated.