A quarter of people living in towns and cities suffer from "green place poverty", with easy access to fewer than three parks or countryside areas, according to the National Trust.
The National Trust said many members of the public were missing out on access to the natural world, despite its importance to people's quality of life. Coastlines and beaches, parks and wild open spaces are all highly valued for fresh air and space, relaxation and to see wildlife.
A poll of 1,000 people by Opinion Leader for the Trust found that across England, Wales and Northern Ireland one in eight said they had access to two or fewer green spaces. In urban areas the number rose to one in four, and among black and ethnic minority groups the figure was one in three.
Online surveys of 1,200 people on the National Trust website found 98% of people thought having green spaces near them was important to their quality of life.
Everyone's favourite furniture retailer IKEA has teamed up with the Woodland Trust with the ultimate aim of creating 181 hectares of new woodland in the UK, the equivalent of 362 football pitches of trees. IKEAs offering would increase the Woodland Trusts land ownership by 0.9%.
Each time someone uses their IKEA Family loyalty card instore, they will donate a square foot of forest. The IKEA Family card is a reward and loyalty scheme that's completely free. As a member, you'll get exclusive offers, inspirational ideas and even a free cuppa.
The UK needs more trees – lots more! The UK is the least wooded country in Europe. Only 12% is covered by woodland, compared to a European average of 44%. The Woodland Trust is a UK charity established in 1972 dedicated to the protection and creation of woodland. It owns more than 1,000 woods throughout the UK which are open to the public, every day the area of woods and forests increases, and last month we heard of their efforts to grow the largest continuous native forest in England, after purchasing 850 acres of land.
Trees generate oxygen, store carbon, stabilise the soil, are home to wildlife and form a stunning part of our landscape. Woods, specifically our ancient woodland, are our richest wildlife habitat.
Since 1950, 98% of wildflower meadows and 190,000km of hedgerows have been destroyed. What's more, global deforestation accounts for 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions. It's a serious issue.
New woodland can help wildlife adapt to climate change. It can help in flood prevention, improving water quality, urban regeneration and enhancing landscapes.
You may consider that it would be an odd partnership for one of the World's largest furniture retailers, using copious amounts of wood, to support efforts of the Woodland Trust. However, both support the use of wood sourced from sustainable forests. Sustainable forests are managed to benefit the local economy, community and wildlife, where at least one tree is replanted for every one that's extracted.
IKEA, doesn't accept timber from intact natural forests or forests with a high conservation value. Their aim is to source all our wood from well-managed forests verified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
So next time your at IKEA make sure you swipe your card, and you will help ensure that the UK has woods and forests for future generations.
Greenpeace have added this video to You Tube, taking inspiration from "EU Tube" (the channel on YouTube set up by the European Union) video "Film Lovers Will Love This!", which promotes the European Media and Film industry, a clip seen by over 7m people. However "Forest Love" asks for you to upload your forest love to the new offical website and Flickr page. Have a look at some forest love!
The Woodland Trust has bought an 850-acre site to grow the largest continuous native forest in England. They are expected to plant more than 600 000 trees on the site near St Albans in Hertfordshire, within the London Greenbelt, and a Biodiversity Priority Area. This site will be the flagship in an unprecedented national tree planting campaign, including 250 acres at Elmstead Market and 183 acres near Durham. In total, these three sites cover an area four times the size of Hyde Park.
The trust says a new native forest of this size and type has never been created in England before, and could take shape within 12 years.
England has lost half its ancient woodland to development, agriculture or conifer woods since the 1930s. The site contains four small remnants (44 acres) of precious ancient woodland, the British equivalent to the rainforest, which now sadly makes up only two per cent of UK landcover.
Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 1,000 sites in its care covering around 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of woodland. You can visit any of their woods for free and there's probably one on your doorstep, you might not know it's there.
Building on the success of last years campaign, buy one, get one tree is back. Last year Innocent, the funky fruit smoothie drinks company managed to plant a whopping 164,020 trees to aid communities in India and Africa. This year they hope to exceed that, making last years total look like a small wood where teddy bears go for picnics. So get down to Tesco and stock up, at 2 for £4.
With our lives becoming so deluged with work, socialising, sleeping and eating. Sometimes convenience food is a must to squeeze the most out of your 24 hours a day. So can you eat fast food and not kill 23 people, destroy 2 trees, and waste 30000 litres of water on the other side of the world through global warming, not to mention slave and child labour?
McDonalds and other leading players have long been relentlessly criticised in the media day in, day out ranging from where they source their meat to how it is sold.
I work in the hospitality industry as a manager and it does perturb me the disregard for the environment by many fast food giants. Although they are wising up to "green-washing" and moving towards a greener future, as it not only makes them look good, it also saves them money.
Examples of such positive green ideas exist in worldwide submarine sandwich chain SUBWAY;
First SUBWAY® Eco-Store opened November 9, 2007 in Kissimmee, FL
SUBWAY® Napkin saves 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.
All liquid cleaners used in SUBWAY® restaurants are non-corrosive, readily biodegradable, and are manufactured without the use of phosphates and ammonia
Distribution Efforts were made to strategically relocate several redistribution centers next to vendor manufacturing facilities, eliminating the need to transport product from long distances. So far, the move saves an estimated 1,660,079 gallons of fuel per year and eliminates 10,491 truck loads annually.
More information on Greenwashing by SUBWAY can be found at their Green Living section.
Beyond locally grown meat and produce, eco-fast food must look to their entire operation to create a sustainable business model, from recycled packaging, biodegradable cleaning products, and renewable energy to pizza delivered with electric or hybrid powered vehicles.
The Massachusetts-based non-profit Green Restaurant Association has helped restaurants interested in greening their operations by setting guidelines and defining the exact 11—step process required for “certification” as a green restaurant.
Those steps are:
1. Energy Efficiency and Conservation 2. Water Efficiency and Conservation 3. Recycling and Composting 4. Sustainable Food 5. Pollution Prevention 6. Recycled, Tree-Free, Biodegradable and Organic Products 7. Chlorine-Free Paper Products 8. Non-Toxic Cleaning and Chemical Products 9. Green Power 10. Green Building and Construction 11. Education
But are there really any options for ethical, green, eco friendly fast food without a conscience? According to Ode magazine there is some almost heavenly low CO2 fast food restaurants out there, they look at a few in their must read article by Mary Desmond Pinkowish from the April 2008 edition.
Unfortunately this is all stateside eco fast food (with the exception of Pret A Manger), what about in the UK?
No eco fast food joints that I am aware of, please let me know if you know of any, so I can visit for a bite to eat and look at your credentials. But there are some environmentally aware restaurants out there, in London at least (provided by SugarVine).
The leading light so far has to be Acorn House, situated, of all carbon-crazy places, in King’s Cross, which surely must speak volumes about the good intentions of the planners so far. Co-founded by the Shoreditch Trust and the Terence Higgins Trust, this is a combination of restaurant, chef’s school and ecological powerhouse. To sum up the concept as succinctly as possible, the idea is to take 10 budding chefs from the community (à la Jamie) and train them alongside a full time team in the restaurant. But it doesn’t stop there: the restaurant building itself is constructed entirely from recycled and/or organic material; the water is purified on site to save packaging and air miles; all the waste is recycled; the electricity is completely green; and if supplies do come from foreign shores, they are shipped by boat, not by air.
All this would be in vain, however, if the food wasn’t up to scratch. Luckily it seems to be heading in an eclectic, but definitely tempting, direction. They open from breakfast through to dinner, ‘to reflect modern London life’, and, in another brilliant stroke of genius, the size of the portions vary, to minimise food wastage, so if you’re starving, but your mate’s barely peckish, you can mix and match to your stomach’s content. The food ranges slightly in culinary influence, from roast shoulder of mutton with rosemary and quince; buffalo mozzarella with fennel, chilli and olives; fried (wild) salmon with barley broth; and even pheasant and pomegranate salad. The prices range from £8 to £14 per plate, which seems unbelievably reasonable, but is evidently the case. And it’s not all hemp chairs and rope floors either: the interior is just a cool, neutral, modern space that retains a distinctly grown-up, and not at all worthy, air.
Of course, not everyone is quite there yet, but one of the easier options if you’re trying to save the planet is to go local. In the case of Konstam at the Prince Albert again also, curiously, in King’s Cross, Oliver Rowe, chef patron and late of Moro, couldn’t have stayed more local -- all his ingredients, including most beers and wine, are sourced from within the M25, which, whether you can believe it or not, is true. Not only does this cut down on transport costs and packaging, but ensures that he only gets seasonal produce. Even the oil used in cooking and with the bread is rapeseed rather than olive oil, which is dedication to the cause. The ingredients are used in a modern British way, so think Norbury Blue cheese with honeycomb, a luscious combination; Waltham Abbey chicken with sage and onion sauce; or even nettle pierogi (one assumes that sometimes necessity, and a slight shortage occasionally, is the mother of invention). The restaurant itself is very patriotically British Racing Green, with low lighting and delicate chandeliers used to great effect. No doubt the television series has helped bookings enormously, but the atmosphere is buzzy and welcoming, and again, there is no leftover taste of worthiness.
Taking the Notting Hillbillies by storm, Bumpkin has become a one-stop shop for all-day deli and restaurant fun. Opened by the team behind Cocoon, despite the name, it’s not so much Yorkshire farmer as Trinny-and-Susannah-styled rural peasant, but it’s none the worse for that. Set over three floors, the ground floor is styled as a country brasserie and deli, featuring simple grills such as Gloucester Old Spot pork chop and very hearty pies, including cow pie, fast becoming notorious; the first floor is a more refined version of the same food (with concomitant price rise); and a top floor for private dining. The eco edge comes from their ingredient sourcing: the meat comes from the highly-regarded Frank Godfrey in Highbury, who in turn only sources traceable, organic, well-brought-up produce; the fruit and veg hail from Secrett’s in Surrey, every chef’s favourite veg supplier, completely pesticide and nasty-free. The ales are decidedly British, the cider is organic, and the fish is line caught or sustainable, which is a lot better than others are professing to do, and everything else is Fairtrade where appropriate. All of this may sound fairly standard by now, but it’s still not across the board, so to find that more and more restaurants are proudly stating their affiliations can only be a good thing, and make it easier to eat in an eco-friendly and sustainable fashion.
Of course, vegetarians are always going to have it that bit easier when it comes to ethical sourcing, as there’s none of that pesky meat to worry about. Vitaorganic Café in the Aveda shop in Marylebone has to be one of the most detoxifying experiences there is. The food is billed as organic, live and ‘enzymatic’ (which must be good, right?). They use no refined foodstuffs, and they use modern and ancient holistic principles to ‘cook’ their food. So, no temperatures above 100°C, no microwaves, no aluminium, or deep frying, so that everything is in its pure and natural state as far as is possible. According to Vitaorganic, they focus on UN – ultimate nutrition, ie raw foods; and ON – optimum nutrition, which means food cooked at a low temperature to prevent as much vitamin loss as possible. Not only is there all of this planet-loving energy-saving, but it’s all gluten and wheat free. The dishes on offer run along the lines of orange and sweet potato dhal, or green vegetable and sprouted buckwheat soup, which are not only delicious but filling and inexpensive to boot. Unsurprisingly, the owner is a practising Buddhist.
It’s impossible to have an eco-friendly list without mentioning the first and foremost runner in the eco-friendly stakes. The Duke of Cambridge in Islington remains one of the best and most ethically run gastropubs in the country, let alone London. It was way ahead of its time when it opened in 1998, pioneering seasonal, organic British food, using local sourcing, careful monitoring of food miles, buying direct from the farmers, and even now the beers are still brewed locally and the wines and spirits are organic where viable. The coffee is Fairtrade, and water is purified on the premises, and they have even installed wind and solar generated energy, along with strict recycling procedures and adherence to sustainable fish buying policies (which are so strict, they have been working with the Marine Conservation Society to make these rules more widespread). This has been a steady, ongoing development project over the last eight years, and it just goes to show that anyone can change their habits for the good, and still wow the diners (Won 2nd best bar in the UK 2006, as voted by Observer Food Monthly). The food remains rustic and true to its pub origins, with whole baked Camembert served with crudités and croutons or braised chuck beef with sweet potato mash.
Greening business is an essential task to reduce waste. According to our friends at Lets Green this City in San Francisco each office employee wastes 770g of high grade paper, which could otherwise be recycled, every day.
The number of people in employment for the three months to November 2007 was 29.36 million in the UK. If we also wasted 770g each per day, we would as a nation be wasting 22 600 tonnes of paper a day, or about 385 000 trees a day.
Paper can easily be recycled and offers a high revenue payment per tonne recycled, if your business is yet to start recyling waste paper, this simple change could reduce costs and increase revenue.
1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333 sheets
Average cost of monochrome printed page .67 pence
Average UK office worker prints 38 pages per day, which is at 232 working days per annum is 8,816
Average of 29% of which is wasteful printing creates 2,556 pages per year of unnecessary paper waste
For every user in your organisation, based on these findings, in printing terms alone generates 61.34 KG CO2 requiring 142 kWh of energy to be consumed to supply the paper
Printer Ink is one of the most expensive liquids to purchase. To fill an Olympic sized swimming pool with ink would cost around £11.8 billion
One ton of paper requires the use of 98 tons of various resources
The Pulp and Paper industry is one of the more destructive and energy consuming industries in the modernised world
One tonne of paper uses over 19,000 gallons of water
In order for us to consume our fair share of the world's wood resources we would need to reduce our consumption by 73%.
The UK is the fifth highest consumer of paper and board in the world.
On average, each of us consumes 198 kg of paper and board per year.
London offices churn out three and a quarter million tonnes of office and printing paper a year.
The US conservation pressure group Conservatree has calculated that on average one ton of uncoated non-recycled printing and office paper uses 24 trees.
TV presenter and I'm a Celebrity, contestant Anna Ryder Richardson puts her support behind the annual Woodland Trust Christmas Card Recycling Scheme, which aims to collect and recycle 100 million cards via special bins located in various high street stores throughout January. For more information on the Recycle Now campagin please see our blog post, How Much Extra Waste this Christmas?
According to new research from Recycle Now, the national recycling campaign, households are set to produce nearly three quarters of a million tonnes (736,574) of extra waste this Christmas.
This means on average each family will throw out an additional five sacks of rubbish over the festive period. That's the equivalent of generating 1.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Each family in the UK creates at least 68kg of carbon dioxide from this extra waste which would provide enough energy to power home fairy-lights continuously for 18 years.
Recycle Now has also teamed up with the Woodland Trust Christmas Card Recycling Scheme to enable people to recycle their cards throughout January at participating Tesco (excludes Express), mainland WHSmith high street stores, TKMaxx and Marks & Spencer stores throughout January.
"All this festive consumption means extra waste, which if consigned to the bin will end up in landfill and potentially generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas. One way in which we can all make a difference this Christmas is by recycling and the good news is that nine out of ten homes now have a doorstep recycling service for a range of materials including paper, card, glass, metal cans. Recycling also has a positive impact on helping to tackle climate change, with current recycling in the UK saving greenhouse gases equivalent to taking 5 million cars off the road." Dr Liz Goodwin, Chief Executive, WRAP
Thanks to the public's support last year, 93 million cards were collected. That's enough to enable the charity to plant 22,000 trees or a forest the size of 44 football pitches. This year the scheme hopes to raise funds to plant 24,000 trees by collecting 100 million cards. Ed Byrne Christmas Recycling Video Joanna Lumley Launches Christmas Card Recycling Appeal
Balinese men dressed as the Hindu monkey god Hanuman from the epic Ramayana, take a break during a reforestation campaign near the venue of the UN Climate Conference in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia
We just received our chunky new Yellow Pages, and it certainly is thick, weighing in at 2.3kg it could easily replace the candlestick as a weapon in the popular game Cluedo. This prompted my hoarding mother to ask which of the 8 directories on the bookshelf she had received in the last few years she could alleviate herself of. On carrying this task, and I'm sure many people at home are the same about four were not even removed from their polythene cover, and the ones that were, probably didn't even get used. So we decided to recycle them in our green recycling bin provided by the council.
It made me think, what is the purpose of an annual paper directory, the numbers and addresses could easily change over the year, making them constantly outdated. Each of the companies who send out the phone books offer a free online version and a charged phone service, so why on earth in this day and age, forty years after they launched does Yell UK need to send out 28.4m directories a year. Especially when their website receives 33m queries a month and their phone service attracts 16.9m calls a year. Is their motive financial you may ask, well it could be, here's the figures;
In the year ending 31 March 2007, the yellow pages had 450 000 unique advertisers, 254 000 of which only advertise in the printed version. The other 196 000 advertise online or a mixture of both. On average each unique advertiser spent £1 335 in that financial year, leading to the Yellow Pages generating a minimum £339.1m in revenue from printed advertisements, with a potential maximum of £600.1m (or £12 to £21 per directory distributed).
So it would appear that Yell make the majority of their revenue from print advertising, forcing them to distribute directories, and by distributing to every business or household nationwide they can command a credible fee for providing this service, yet from the figures on their website it would appear that if you want to be found, it would be more advantageous to advertise only on their website, because who really wants to break their back lifting the directory to spend 4 hours searching through the thing, finding the right section to find the company that you really want, to realise that you could have done it in 2 seconds online.
But this still does not give the answer to the question in the title of the post, How Many Trees Died For Our Telephone Directories?
The Reduce CO2 blog tried to answer this question on their blog, and came up with 384 000 trees per year. However using the more detailed figure of 28.4m directories distributed, taking the average of 1.6kg (RCO2) and 2.3kg (mine) for each directory, giving 1.95kg (Yell publish over 114 different directories in the UK of varying weights, this is a very rough calculation to get a precise figure you would need the weight and number of copies issued for each). This results in 55 380t of paper.
Taking UK government figures I used in a previous blog post about how to stop junk mail, it would be reasonable to assume that the Yellow Pages phone directory in the UK requires in its production ...
941 460 trees,
1.72 billion litres of water,
221 520 mega watts of electricity (producing over 100 000 tonnes of CO2),
144 000t of air pollutants, and;
127 374 cubic metres in our landfills (assuming we don't recycle any, but we pretty much do recycle them)
As my article was a little one sided, I contacted Yell.com to give them the right of reply against my criticisms, and I thank Jon Salmon from External Relations for his response;
"The reason that the directories are produced and delivered is that there is a clear and strong demand for them, reflected in the fact that they are used almost a billion times a year with 86 per cent of users agreeing that they are very useful.
Similarly, for advertisers the Yellow Pages directory represents a very significant source of sales leads for their business and supports the growth of these businesses in their local economy.
You suggested also that the directory was an "environmental faux pas". This is most definitely not the case.
Our Yellow Pages directories are produced with full consideration of the potential environmental impact. They contain 51 per cent recycled fibre content, with the remaining virgin fibre used in their production coming from forestry waste, e.g. sawmill chips and offcuts from logs obtained from sustainably managed forests and used predominantly by the wood and timber industry.
Old Yellow Pages directories can be recycled when the new updated edition is delivered annually, into cardboard, packaging, insulation, animal bedding and paper.
In a wider context, we have also been regularly acknowledged for our work on environmental issues. For example, we have been registered to the ISO 14001 standard for six years, and have been awarded two Queen's Awards for Enterprise for our approach to sustainable development in 2002 and 2007 and have been included in several global and international Socially Responsible Investment(SRI) indices.
I hope this clarifies some of the background to our Yellow Pages directories, as well as our operation in relation to the environment."
I certainly don't disagree with the majority of the response, Yell does give alot back to the environment. And I do admit I used the Yellow Pages book for the first time in about 3 years yesterday, when a friend asked me where a town was whilst at work, although I could have connected to Google maps on my phone I opted to use the Yellow Pages as it was convenient at the time.
Energy use is also a factor in the production of the big Yellow Book which I also hope if not already considered will be in the future. If you have to make use of their services use their online phone directory which is exceptionally fast and efficient at finding the companies with up to date information and request that you do not wish to receive a printed version.
So how can we stop this environmental faux pas?
Contact Yell to request that you do not wish to have a directory delivered to your home or work, and instead use their online service
If you are an advertiser, you could refrain from advertising in print, and alternatively advertise online
Innocent the ethical smoothie maker have launched a campaign to plant at least 100 000 trees in Africa (where they grow their mangos) and India, that's enough to cover 200 football pitches. From each 1 litre pack a tree will be planted by entering a unique code on the back of the pack, registering takes less than a minute and you can gift your tree to someone else if you wish, especially coming in to the Christmas season.
You can keep an eye on the treeometer on the home page of the microsite which keeps tally of every tree planted real time, 87 763 as I look now, and details the latest planters name. If you want you can travel to the virtual forest and search for your tree.
I love this new sustainability effort by Innocent, they are a leading brand and have ethics and sustainability at the core of their business practice, they have 100% recycled packaging (not kids cartons ... yet), all their bananas are Rainforest Alliance certified, and after releasing their huge carbon footprint label are now working with our suppliers and bottlers to achieve a reduction of 15% in 2007.
"It may all sound a bit Miss World, but we want to leave things a little bit better than we find them. To do business in a more enlightened way; where we take responsibility for the impacts of our business on society and the environment, and move these impacts from negative to neutral, or better still, positive. We call this our drive for sustainability." Innocent Drinks
The tree planting project will be carried out by Carbon Clear, an offsetting company, whose projects include retrofitting mini-taxis in the Philippines and low smoke cooking in the Sudan. Whilst I fully support the project I am sure we are all aware of the Coldplay incident which has tarnished the reputation of carbon offsetting via tree planting in the last few years (their offsetting was provided by Future Forest, a British company, recently renamed CarbonNeutral). I'm sure however the project will be managed efficiently by both Carbon Clear and Innocent for the long term under the scrutiny of Innocent drinkers and Innocent themselves.
Tesco currently have innocent smoothies at 2 for £4.
Posts
A quarter of people living in towns and cities suffer from "green place poverty", with easy access to fewer than three parks or countryside areas, according to the National Trust.
