Fuel poverty news

With fuel poverty becoming an increasingly serious problem in the UK, news today that we could be subsidising French energy consumers from now on. Energy company EDF, which supplies customers in both countries, has been ordered to cap price rises in France - increases will be limited to 2% for electricity and 5% for gas. Commentators are suggesting that if bulk energy prices continue to rise, EDF may be forced to recover from British consumers any revenue shortfall in France. However EDF argues that the two operations are entirely separate and the 11% price advantage French customers already enjoy is due to the fact that 80% of electricity produced there is nuclear. France also has up to four times the amount of gas storage as Britain, allowing it to buy gas in bulk at low prices during the summer for use during high winter demand.

Whilst we should all be encouraged to reduce our energy consumption, it's a basic neccessity of life. Many MPs feel that energy prices should not be left to market forces and highlighted the lack of controls in Britain’s liberalised energy market in a parliamentary report last month. Some are calling for the UK to adopt the French government's approach and restrict energy price rises to the inflation rate. Certainly this would help vulnerable households which this winter could find themselves unable to afford heat and light.

For expert advice on how to find the cheapest energy providers, sign up to Martin Lewis' excellent moneysavingexpert.com - regular alerts will advise you on when and how to act to cut your energy bills. Tips on how to cut energy consumption are available from the Energy Saving Trust. And if you're committed to cutting your carbon, greenhelpline.com compares tariffs from renewable energy suppliers which can save an average of 2 tonnes of CO2 per household per year.

Why not walk it?

Sometimes the greenest ideas don't come from a desire to improve sustainability. Take walkit.com, the UK's first walking route planner. According to a profile in BT's customer magazine, founder Jamie Wallace was driven more by the desire to save time. He wanted to prove to his colleagues that walking to meetings in central London could be quicker than using any other form of transport. Of course, he caught the zeitgeist (and the London congestion charge!) and walkit.com is now popular with those who want to cut the carbon - it even calculates how much carbon you've saved.

He's busy adding new cities to the site but while you're waiting from walkit to get round to including your own city, you might find that adding the Co-Pilot application to your PDA is a worthwhile alternative. It has a walking mode as well as the normal route planning and driver's satnav features and can even be used to avoid buying printed maps for countryside walks.
Finally, if you do decide to walk it, tell Green Thing. Walking was its first ever green thing, in October 2007.

Rebranding global warming

Overheard on the radio this morning, another member of the public expressing the view that "this global warming stuff must be nonsense, all we're getting is rain". As the need for climate action becomes ever more urgent, there's a strong chance that a misconception about the manifestations of global warming might convince many that the threat isn't real. Of course as anybody who has watched Al Gore's magnificent movie knows, the result of global warming is disruption weather patterns rather than warmer weather as such. The poles may become warmer - and thus sea levels rise - but in fact the UK could face a mini ice age if our warming Gulf Stream changes its route. Extreme weather like floods and droughts, typhoons and hurricanes will become more common, too.

As a marketer I understand the power of labels to shape people's perceptions and I think adopting the term global warming undermined early efforts to promote awareness. It's just not threatening enough. Ask any bunch of Brits over 40 what it means to them and a good proportion will smile as they recall the long, hot summer of 1976 and murmur "bring it on". The term climate change is less friendly, with fewer positive connotations, but still rather too neutral to describe a process which could ultimately mean the end of civilisation as we know it. I'd like to propose that we all adopt the term "climate crisis" as a more accurate representation of the situation - then perhaps more people would understand the enormity of the challenge that we face together.

In-car versus mains charging

I've been pondering today - is it better to charge my mobile phone in my car, or to plug it into the mains at home? I know I have to unplug it when it's fully charged, as it will otherwise continue to draw power, but is there a difference between the carbon impact of electricity drawn from the national grid and from my car? I feel that somehow the electricity drawn from my car is "free" - but does it affect fuel consumption? And is the effect significant enough to make a difference?

A mischevious colleague has just suggested that I should charge it in my car and, if necessary, take the car for a drive just to provide a charging opportunity. Thanks, Steve, but of course I mean when I'm using the car anyway. In fact, if the impact of charging my phone in the car is lower, maybe it can even help mitigate the carbon impact of driving in the first place. And because I'm bound to be there in the car to hear it beep when the battery is full, I'm likely to unplug it sooner than if it beeped at home when I'm in another room. So which is greener?

Anybody know? I'd love to find out!

Love for Water

More on the subject of water; in my inbox this afternoon is an invitation to join a survey sponsored by Waterwise and the Oxford-based Centre for Water Research. The aim is to determine whether incentivising householders to reduce their water use would have a positive impact. If you would like to take part in the survey, which closes on 8th August, you can do so at www.loveforwater.org.

Should we boycott bottled water?

In my own small way, I've been making a stand recently by ordering tap water in restaurants instead of bottled water. So I was delighted to see that Thames Water and the Mayor of London have teamed up to launch London On Tap, an initiative to encourage the drinking of tap water in the capital. According to their website, London’s tap water is rated top in the UK, making it one of the best in the world, and consistently beats more expensive, bottled alternatives in taste tests. Thames Water Chief Executive David Owens claims London's water is 500 times cheaper than bottled water and emits 300 times less CO2 to process than bottled alternatives. Yet many people feel that to order tap water in a restaurant looks "cheap". To address this stigma, London On Tap has commissioned a competition to design an iconic carafe which can be used to dispense tap water in restaurants.

CIWEM calculate that 22 million tonnes of bottled water are transferred between countries every year - ludicrous when you think about it. And, according to the Bottled Water Information Office, the average briton drinks 37.6 litres of bottled water per annum. It may seem like a small gesture to ask for tap water, but if enough of us do it - just like anything else - it really can make a difference.

Top 10 environmental bugbears

Harris Interactive has recently carried out a survey on over 1,500 respondents that revealed the Top 10 environmental bugbears in the office.

They were as follows:
1. Mindless printing resulting in increased paper waste (40%)
2. Leaving lights on (37%)
3. Lack of recycling bins (33%)
4. Excessive air conditioning in summer and heat in winter (29%)
5. Excessive use of paper products, like cups, plates, etc. (27%)
6. Co-workers not recycling (27%)
7. Co-workers not printing double-sided when they can (24%)
8. Too many cover sheets when faxing or printing (24%)
9. Having to store paper copies of existing, electronic files (24%)
10. Leaving computer on and not powering down when going home (23%)

Go on, be honest, how many of these are you guilty of?