Jurdy is the alter-ego of Jen Jurden.

Sinister, innit!

There are events in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh and Southampton.

There’s just one week left to vote on who deserves the Worst EU Lobbying Award for 2008, and the nominees are:

The agrofuels lobby (including MPOC, Unica and Abengoa) – nominated for their misleading campaigns to promote agrofuels as green;
The European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines (EAASM) – nominated for hiding the involvement of big pharma corporations in their campaigns;
The European Business and Parliament Scheme (EBPS) – nominated for abusing their location and lobbying from inside Parliament offices;
Brussels-based lobbying and PR agencies Gplus and Aspect Consulting – nominated for supporting the spread of war propaganda in the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia;
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) – nominated for its deceptive lobbying campaign to avoid CO2 reduction obligations in the aviation sector.

See how the nominees reacted to their nominations here:

Vote now!

Watch this, you’ll like it. It gave me goosebumps.

[via: ecorazzi]

Joan doesn’t watch TV, heat her home, or even cook her food. She eats raw fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds and she doesn’t go on holiday.

Joan Pick told The Daily Mail newspaper: ‘I have to experiment with the energy efficient lifestyle to prove it’s survivable. Everyone has a unique function in this life, and mine is as a pioneer of personal energy efficiency.”

She has also given up men, saying that she is impossible to live with.

Imagine what life would be like living with Joan:

• No TV
• No heating
• Only raw food
• Make your own clothes
• Walk and run everywhere, no cars, no buses, no aeroplanes
• Tea with condensed milk

That’s dedication.

Photo credit: The Times

[via: ETA, The Times, Living Frugally]

Watch the video and visit http://www.coalfinger.com/.

[via: The Ecologist]

From the edie news feed:

Jonathon Porritt, founder director of Forum for the Future and chairman of the government-backed UK Sustainable Development Commission, became the second individual to receive an edie award for raising public awareness of environmental issues, after Al Gore picked up the award last year following the release of his climate change movie An Inconvenient Truth.

“Following in Al Gore’s footsteps, in receiving this award, is obviously a great honour,” said Porritt.

“And all the more timely given just how important it’s going to be to keep green issues right at the top of the agenda in such difficult economic conditions.

“That’s certainly going to be my principal challenge over the next few months.”

Other awards went to:

Arup - for being the consultants’ consultancy. The employer those working in the industry would most like to work for.

ERM - five of the seven best consultancy in their sector awards.

Atkins - for being voted best environmental consultancy overall, as well as the prize for offering the best advice on water & wastewater.

Awards were also made for business projects that are good for the environment, including an initiative from Coca-Cola using the popularity of league football to promote recycling, and Mitsubishi’s ambitious reinvention of building heating and cooling systems which will save over 3 million tonnes of carbon by 2016.

The awards were judged by a panel of experts including:
Lord Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency
Liz Goodwin, chief executive of the government-funded Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP)
Peter Bonfield, director of the Building Research Establishment (BRE)
Tom Stephenson, head of applied sciences at Cranfield University (a centre of excellence for environmental disciplines)
Peter Stansby of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

For the full list of winners click here.

Getting started:

Of course here at EcoStreet we will be offering guidance for creating your own green Xmas. But if you want to read more, I can recommend a little tome that is chock-full of useful and interesting information on the subject, it’s called Green Christmas: How to Have a Joyous, Eco-Friendly Holiday Season and it’s written by Jennifer Basye Sander and Peter Sander, with Anne Basye. In this book you’ll learn all about green gift-giving, alternatives to bought Xmas cards, how to make your own eco-friendly decorations as well as how to entertain and get away for the holidays without expanding the size of your carbon footprint too much. So if you can’t decide whether it’s more eco-friendly to buy a real Christmas tree or a fake one, and the best method to dispose of it afterwards, then get yourself a copy of this little book (and one for anyone else you think could do with one too).

Green Xmas Shopping Sites:

Natural Collection are having a Christmas Fayre sale with 25% off selected lines including wrapping paper, cards, calendars, decorations, chocolate and tableware. Check it out. Sale ends on the 18th November.

BigGreenSmile is giving 10% off orders of £40 or more until the 16th November. The code to use at checkout is 10NOV16.

Biome Lifestyle is offering 10% off your order, valid until the 19th of December (the last order date before Xmas), when you enter ILOVEXMAS08 at checkout.

Ecotopia have a whole host of discount codes for their eco-friendly goods. Hurry, because the discount codes expire on the 30th November.
Here they are:
5% off all houses nest & habitats - AHAB511
5% off any item in Parent and Child Catergory - APAR511
5% off any food or drink - AFOOD511
20% off all spinning tops - ASPIN2011
15% off any toy and games in parent & child category - ATOY1511
5% off all eco gadgets - AGAD511
20% off santa torches - ASANTA
20% off Bat torch - ABAT
But wait, that’s not all! They offering free P&P for orders over £75, and 10% off all cardboard paperpod products until 15 December 2008 when you enter code: ACARD10 at the checkout.

Nigel’s Eco Store has lots of eco-friendly Xmassy stuff for sale. Why not have a look.

TRAID. Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development

TRAID was nominated in the Re:Use category at the Re:Fashion Awards 2008 (there’s still time to get tickets if you hurry).

They’re a charity shop with oodles of style. I used to frequent the one in Brixton when I lived there a few years ago, and picked up some awesome togs there, cheap. There are lots more TRAID’s all around London, and one in Brighton.

Oxfam: Second-hand store, Ethical Collection, Oxfam Unwrapped and Christmas

Buy second-hand clothes online, or at your local Oxfam shop. Jeans, coats, tops, vintage and bridal wear are all available at their online shop.

Then there is their Ethical Store for reasonably priced new organic and Fairtrade wardrobe basics and accessories, food and drink, stationery, books, Christmas stuff and home accessories.

eBay: buy second-hand and vintage clothes, accessories, furniture and anything else you could imagine

It’s easy to buy and sell second-hand clothes on eBay. Just set up an account and you can bid on stuff you want, and list the stuff you don’t. I have picked up some amazing bits of furniture, boots and shoes and a great hat on eBay, well worth having a look at.