It’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the right time of year to cook up a brew of solar tea. Remember, your kettle is one of the biggest energy vampire gadgets you’ve probably got, so change the way you make your tea this summer? You’ve heard of slow food, this is slow tea.

Step 1: You’ll need a big jar or wide mouthed bottle.

Step 2: You can make teas with all sorts of herbs, whatever you have on hand. I used 4 rooibos teabags and 2 springs of fresh mint. Bung them into the jar and fill with cool filtered or tap water.

Step 3: Place the jar in full sun and leave for as many hours as you can wait.

Step 4: Strain and drink warm, or chill for iced tea. Sweeten with honey if desired.

In central London on the evening of Tuesday 27th October, 8 green leaders will present their view on the future of their industry. To those in the know, it’s quite a star-studded occasion. Green Tomato Cars will give their view on the future of sustainable transport, Ed Gillespie from Futerra will speak about ethical communication and consumer attitudes, and Terra Plana will comment on how its ethical footwear will evolve. Sam Kimmins, Sustainability Adviser at Forum for the Future, will give his take on the future of sustainable construction. Other presentations will be from Germination (a cutting-edge event company furthering social progress), innovative web community Project Dirt, The Hub (a shared workspace concept for social entrepreneurs) and sustainable lifestyle magazine Sublime.

Each of the 8 presentations will last no more than 8 minutes, and to keep things highly visual, no more than 5 words per slide are allowed. It means that 80% of the ideas in a normal presentation can be communicated in 20% of the time. The evening will be held at St Giles Cripplegate Church in Barbican, EC2. Further adding to the creative spirit, guests are invited to help reduce waste and bring their own reusable vessels for wine.

Inspiration and insight won’t just come from the presenting businesses either. Up to 250 keen, green thinkers and doers are expected to attend, so there’ll be food for thought in the conversations and networking, too.

Want to know more and book your ticket? Here are the details you need to know:

When: Tuesday 27th October
Start time: 6.30pm for a 7pm start (drinks will be available – you’re encouraged to bring your own cup for extra green points!)
Where: St Giles Cripplegate Church, Barbican, London, EC2Y 8DA (for map click here)

Tickets are limited, costing £9.50 in advance or £15 on the door.

You can buy your ticket here: http://futureofgreen.eventbrite.com

To find out more, click on http://www.insider-worldwide.com/trend-evening-green-futures/

Salathiso hot boxes are simply two polystyrene-filled cushions in beautiful Shweshwe fabric that can be placed in a cardboard box for insulation, but I’ve been using my hot box without the cardboard box and it works pretty well. During winter I plan to use a cardboard box for extra insulation.

Here’s how to use a hot box:

Once you’ve brought your pot of food to the boil, remove it from the heat source and place it (still in the pot) in the bottom half of the hot box (I put a folded piece of newspaper under the pot for extra insulation and to soak up spills should they happen). Then fit the top cushion snugly on top. You can now leave your food safely cooking away while you get on with your day.

I’ve made a series of very successful dishes with my hot box over the past few months including stews, savoury mince and curries, and my absolute favourite thing to cook in the hot box is rice, because, for the first time in my life, now I too can cook rice perfectly.

It’s been easy to adapt my usual recipes for use in the hot box, all you need to do is reduce the amount of cooking liquid (because less is lost through evaporation in a hot box than on the stove), and leave the food to cook in the hot box for a longer period than you would do on the stove. For example I’ve found that 2-3 hours makes for perfect rice, while stew, soups and curries need between 6 and 12 hours for optimal results.

If you’d prefer to get started with some tried and tested recipes, check out this link (pdf).

In South Africa:

Salathiso hot boxes are available in Cape Town from Wendy Walton who is based in Diep River. You can contact her at waltfam@telkomsa.net or on 021 712 6424 (please tell Wendy I sent you). A hot box from Salathiso will set you back R140, but if used often will save you far more than that in electricity in the long run. (BTW these are still cheaper than other locally available hot boxes.)

In the UK & US:

Hot boxes (or hay boxes as they’re also known) don’t seem to be available for sale in the UK or US.  So how about making your own.  Try the links below for instructions:

Mother Earth News
The Prepared Home
Instructables
Selfsufficientish

The OWL shows you how much electricity you use and how much it costs you, as well as the level of harmful C02 emissions you are contributing to the environment through your electricity usage. It gives you everything you need to know to start saving electricity, and can end up saving you up to 25% on your electricity bill. So at this low price, your investment will pay itself back in no time, and save the planet at the same time.

The offer is only valid until the 18th of August 2008, so don’t hang around if you want one! Find out more and read product reviews here.

Energy saving light bulbs
Saving up to £100 per year. Initial outlay from £7.99 per bulb.
“A good start to cutting energy bills is to replace old fashioned light bulbs with energy saving ones – householders can reduce their annual electricity bills by around £100 and save money on buying ordinary light bulbs. For instance, our 11 Watt compact classic light bulb, equivalent to a 60 Watt incandescent bulb, lasts 15 times longer so consumers won’t have to fish out money for new ones every so often.” – Nigel Berman, Nigel’s EcoStore

Radiator booster
Saving up to £98 per year. Initial outlay £19.99.
“With radiators known for their inefficiency in distributing heat around the room, people tend to turn their thermostat up a notch using more gas, spending more money on heating bills in return and increasing their impact on the environment. By installing a Radiator Booster on top of their radiators, householders could enjoy significantly lower heating bills – by £98 a year – as well as warmer rooms. The booster’s fans suck the warm air up and push it out through the ends distributing it evenly around the room, in addition to reducing the heat losses through the wall behind the radiator.” – Nigel

Ecoballs
Saving you up to £74 per year. Initial outlay £29.99.
“When it comes to washing clothes, the average British family gets through 247 washing loads a year and with each costing about 33p, their yearly washing powder bill amounts to nearly £82. Although it doesn’t seem like a lot, replacing it with Ecoballs costing 3p per wash, they could be saving a massive £74 a year.” – Nigel

Ecobutton
Saves you up to £50 per year. Initial outlay £14.99.
“Householders could click themselves to even lower electricity bills by using an Ecobutton every time they take a break, as leaving a desktop computer on while not in use wastes around £50 a year on average. This great USB device that powers down computers at a touch of a button and will save them money, electricity and reduce their carbon footprint.” – Nigel

Bye bye standby
Saving you up to £37 per year. Initial outlay £29.99.
“And because people are generally notoriously bad at turning things off, they burn away another £37 a year just by leaving TVs, stereos, DVD players and other electricity guzzling devices on standby. They could be saving this money for a rainy day by plugging the Standby energy saving kit into any wall socket to control any appliance (up to 1000W) with a remote control.” – Nigel

Total annual saving £367 with £150.89 investment in the first year.

This post contains affiliate links.

The greentomatokit can reduce your yearly energy consumption by 400kg of CO2, which is the equivalent of 17 car
journeys from London to Bristol. You can also save up to £100 a year by using the contents of the kit, and considering that the kit costs a mere £9.99, that’s a very good deal.

The kit contains items that have been sourced for their ability to be used in all homes, their net environmental benefit, their ease of use, and their ability to save you money:

• a reusable cotton shopping bag
• two energy saving lightbulbs
• two radiator panels – to reflect heat back into the room, increasing the radiators output by 10%
• a water saving device – to save a litre of water every time you flush
• a room temperature thermometer
• “no junk mail”, “turn it off” and “recycling” stickers – because sometimes we all need a reminder

These kits are a great starting point to going green, and would also make a good gift for others who you’d like to encourage to become greener. You can buy them direct from greentomato.org, or you could enter our giveaway for a chance to win one of five greentomatokits.

This competition is now closed.

Advertisement: Reduce your CO2 footprint by as much as 2 tonnes/year & save up to £150 on your energy bills.

South Africa’s state owned electricity provider Eskom leads by example in this cool advertising campaign.

[via: WattWatt]

Advertisement: Reduce your CO2 footprint by as much as 2 tonnes/year & save up to £150 on your energy bills.

Advertisement: Reduce your CO2 footprint by as much as 2 tonnes/year & save up to £150 on your energy bills.

Find out where you feature on The Power of One, Climate Change Influencer Index. Influential? Then this is the week to work even harder to spread the word and get your friends and community to commit to their 20%.

Find out about events in your community here.

10 easy to follow energy saving tips
1. Turn your thermostat down by 1′C.
2. Turn your water heater down to 60′C.
3. Close your curtains at dusk to prevent heat escaping.
4. Turn off lights when you leave the room.
5. Don’t leave appliances on standby and remember to switch off chargers when you’re not using them.
6. Fill the washing machine or dishwasher before switching on (or at the very least use the half-load setting).
7. Only boil as much water as you need for that cuppa. An eco-kettle makes this easy.
8. Replace your regular light bulbs with energy saving light bulbs.
9. Wash your laundry at 30′C.
10. Don’t use the car for short journeys. Walk or cycle instead.

5 of our favourite energy saving gadgets
1. Wattson – It’s stylish, it’s desirable… it’s the energy saving style icon of the noughties!
2. Efergy Energy Saving Monitor – This does the same this at the Wattson (more or less), at a third of the price. It’s no style icon, but it gets the job done.
3. One Click Power Panel – Switch off up to 8 peripherals with just one click when you power down your PC or hi-fi.
4. Savaplug – Do you have an older fridge that chews energy but can’t afford to replace it? This little gadget can save you £55-£65 per year and help reduce your energy use.
5. Standby Energy Saving Kit – Too lazy to switch it all off properly when you’ve finished using it? With this kit you can switch off the television, DVD player, stereo, PC with a remote control. And it can save you up to £40 a year in energy.

[via Eco-Living]

Advertisement: Reduce your CO2 footprint by as much as 2 tonnes/year & save up to £150 on your energy bills.