my thoughts

I read another interesting post at Jeff Atwood's CodingHorror.com where he uses a power meter to work out how much power his laptop, desktop, server and various household appliances use. The answer is, quite a lot! His 'the cost of leaving your PC on' page has some practical advice on how to be more energy conscious with your PC.

Michael Bluejay's Saving Electricity site has a useful How much electricity do computers use? page, together with a wider series on energy consumption.

I presently work at an organisation where it is the policy that workstations are left on permanently (apparently owing to shortcomings in their software update distribution service). I disagree with this policy as it is a tremendous waste of energy. There are thousands of computers throughout the organisation, magnifying the problem. I expect to collect more evidence here, as part of building a business case to have the policy changed.

The short answer is yes, they use a lot of power, yes you should switch off the pc (or at least put it in standby) and turn off the monitor rather than use a screensaver. The actions of one person make a difference!

It is good to hear that the Fairtrade movement is gathering momentum. An article published in today's Guardian asks how Fair is Fairtrade?. The answer — very fair! Even the economists love it. Read on...
» www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1725816,00.html (pda version)

It is well known that driving, flying and indeed just running your house produce a lot of carbon dioxide (CO²). This is a greenhouse gas which we are all supposed to be reducing by being more energy conscious. Obviously the most direct effect comes from using/consuming less in the first place - walk to work, fit energy saving bulbs around the home etc. however, it is not always possible or reasonably practical to, say, give up your car.

There is a second option which can offset your impact. It is called Carbon Neutral and basically amounts to you paying for trees to be planted and managed to offset the Carbon from your lifestyle. I think it reasonably priced, so will be using this for my commute and my recent flight to San Francisco.
» www.carbonneutral.com

The main website is comprehensive, and aimed at business users. Visit the shop to find the simple solutions for 'CarbonNeutral Driving', for example:
» www.carbonneutral.com/shop/index.asp

While researching to which institution I shall move my accounts and mortgage, I found this condensed version of the Good Shopping Guide - very useful.
www.foe-scotland.org.uk/miniGSG/

For more detail on the ethics of the financial services industry the Ethical Investment Research Service website is worth a visit.
www.eiris.org/

I read a few websites that cover design, technology and environmentally conscious product design. Here are a few that I find useful, interesting or inspirational:

Treehugger
Environmentally conscious lifestyle and products - I find this one best to browse by category - e.g. lighting
www.treehugger.com/files/lighting/index.php

MetaEfficient
"A guide to the most efficient things in the world"
www.metaefficient.com/metaefficient/

Modern Contemporary Design
www.mocoloco.com/

Josh Rubin's Cool Hunting - Art, Design, Culture and technology:
www.joshrubin.com/coolhunting/index.html

The independent is covering the opeining of a new chain of coffee houses, Progreso, which uses entirely fairly traded coffee. This is a good thing.
news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=578273

The latest installment of the Ethical Living series at The Guardian covers organic vegetable delivery schemes. The benefits are numerous: with support for locally grown produce, minimal environmental impact, etc. through to more subtle points such as a more varied diet (the variety encourages you to work with new recipes).
money.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving/story/0,13437,1246093,00.html
money.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving

The article recommends that you try farmers' markets. These are a great source of locally produced food, to quote the Hampshire Farmers' Market website:
"At a Hampshire Farmersí Market all produce being sold must have been grown, reared, caught, brewed, pickled, baked, or processed within Hampshire or ten miles of the border. The producer, or someone directly involved with the production, must sell the produce themselves and no bought in produce is allowed.

The intention is to allow smaller local producers an outlet direct to the public enabling them to become less reliant on wholesalers and supermarkets."
www.farmersmarkets.net/
www.hampshirefarmersmarkets.co.uk

What are we doing about it?
We are going to trial Riverford, a vegbox company that we met at the Southampton Festival. We asked them plenty of questions covering ethical and environmental issues (reuse, recycling, organics, wildlife, fair prices, pollutants etc) and were very impressed with their responses. I will post an update here when we've trialled the service.
www.riverford.co.uk/en/

"Do try this at home" is a concise article which describes 16 ways to save energy in the kitchen and to promote environmentally conscious buying & disposal of kitchen appliances. Top stuff!
www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1215343,00.html

Once you've read that, you may want to read about Leo Hickman's ethical kitchen makeover: in which a typical family kitchen is checked out by ethical auditors who also offer practical tips on how to sort out your kitchen!
www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1215342,00.html

The guardian have a section on ethical living:
money.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving

I've recently been looking at whether it is possible to be more ecologically conscious with a car. Obviously the simplest solution is to use the car less: walk, use the bike or (heaven forbid) public transport. Another simple thing is to share a car (carpooling). Here are a few options for more environmentally aware drivers:

Use less fuel by driving more efficiently. Less fuel used means less exhaust:
www.whatprice.co.uk/tips/fuel-efficiency.html
www.shropshireonline.gov.uk/travelwise.nsf

Hybrid electric-petrol vehicles offer much higher fuel efficiency and therefore lower emissions through electrically assisted acceleration. The Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic (Saloon) are fairly normal cars that offer this. Honda also offer a very unusual car, the Insight, which gets something like 700 miles per gallon! It just looks strange
www.toyota.co.uk/
www.honda.co.uk/

LPG produces a lower volume of harmful emissions than petrol or diesel, and many cars are available pre-converted. It also seems readily available throughout the UK. It is also possible to buy smaller dual-fuel cars now, such as the Nissan Micra or the Vauxhall Corsa.

Grants are presently available for converting to cleaner fuels (LPG, Natural Gas, Electric & Hybrid, Fuel Cells & Biofuels) for your vehicle from the PowerShift scheme. The powershift scheme have an excellent & useful website:
www.powershift.org.uk/

Fuel cells are exciting, but a long way off. Apparently DaimlerChrysler, Ford and Ballard aim to make fuel cell cars commercially available by 2004. See the "New Electric Car (Necar)" project for more information.
www.automotive-technology.com/projects/necar4/

Finally: why do all-electric cars have to look so ugly? Rhetorical question. The most normal looking vehicle is the Think City which was recently produced in partnership with Ford (although this relationship has ceased).
www.thinkcar.com/
www.drivelectric.com/

This short article: Wear your ethics with pride offers a summary of the real issues around the clothing industry. The author points out that we as consumers lack the information required to make an ethical purchase.
www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1153724,00.html

The Ethical Trading Initiative brings together companies, trade unions and NGOs. It is possible to see which retailers are on board and which are not.
www.eti.org.uk/