Good Energy launches groundbreaking deal to pay homes for solar heat

People across the UK have installed solar thermal panels on their roofs to produce their own energy, but until now none of these small scale generators have been paid by the government or energy suppliers for their power. Good Energy, the UK’s only 100% renewable electricity supplier, is launching Good Energy HotROCs, the UK’s first …

All I want for Christmas is a fluffy duck

Charity Practical Action are giving you the opportunity to buy a Practical Present for someone you don’t know this Christmas. Here’s how it works. You buy a fluffy duck for your aunt Mabel, and somewhere in Bangladesh a poor family have duck eggs to eat. Okay, I’ll explain that again. Practical Action works together with …

Green wrapping idea: Surprise balls

No need to buy wrapping paper. Just wrap up your presents with what you have lying around at home, and make the gift into an adventure. Surprise balls can be made with scraps of fabric, yarn, lace, bias-binding, rick-rack, whatever you can find in your sewing box, and they’re ideal for wrapping a number of …

Buy Nothing Day 2008

This Saturday, November 29th 2008, it’s Buy Nothing Day. The annual day off to put away your wallet and switch off from shopping. 24 hours to detox from shopping, save money, reduce your carbon footprint, and stop being a consumer. Sinister, innit! There are events in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh and Southampton.

Vote: Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2008

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 …

US President-Elect Obama is serious about climate change

What a refreshing change from the old order of US government, I hope that the UK will be maintaining their “special relationship” with US now that the shrub has been ousted. Who knows, Gordon Brown might even learn something from the new guy. Watch this, you’ll like it. It gave me goosebumps. [via: ecorazzi]

Joan Pick, sustainable woman

While she was working as a scientist advising on energy efficiency, Joan Pick radically changed her life. She hasn’t flown since 1971, and hasn’t been in a motor vehicle since 1973 (except for a trip in an ambulance and one in a funeral car). Joan runs and walks everywhere from her home in Croydon, she …