New look Good Food

The BBC’s Good Food magazine has had a makeover with improvements to their in-season and local food coverage. For a special, free, sneak digital preview of the October issue before it goes on sale, click here. The issue includes an article on British apples and an autumn menu from Rick Stein. Source: Big Barn

The Smarter Home

Wondering where all the green homes are? Now there’s a directory to help you find them. Vivavi’s new Modern Green Living Home Directory promises to help users “design, build, remodel, furnish or find a green home.” The directory features green residential communities in the US, Canada and around the world, and also includes a green …

Oh no! Not more junk mail

You can expect the amount of “unaddressed” junk mail coming through your letter-box to increase dramatically with an agreement expected this week to scrap the Royal Mail’s current three-items-a-week limit. These are the mailings addressed to “the occupier” that the postman puts through your door when he is delivering your “addressed” mail. Last year, the …

The secrets of the lipstick tree

There was a time when flowers and plants were used to colour our fabrics, paints and make-up, before the time of man-made chemicals. Now it seems, with concerns about the environment, our reliance on oil, and the effect that chemicals are having on our health, it may be time to go back to using these …

South Africa will be given US$11million to make 2010 World Cup “green”

South Africa is being urged by the World Bank to follow Germany’s example of making the next World Cup as green as possible, with the promise of a US$11million grant for transport and waste management.  The Global Environment Facility, a partnership between the World Bank and the United Nations gives grants to projects in developing …

CarbonLite sets the standard for carbon literacy in building

The Association for Environment-Conscious Building has put forward its new CarbonLite programme in the hopes that it will be adopted by architects and builders as best practice, or perhaps the government would consider including it within building regulations. As it stands, CarbonLite (“carbon literate” design) is a voluntary sustainable building programme with bronze, silver, gold …

Activists announce their intention to shut down the UK’s largest power station

Under the shadow of the Drax coal-fired power station, activists at the Camp for Climate Action began civil disobedience training yesterday. This is part of preparations for Thursday’s mass action which plans to shut down Drax. The training (and the camp itself) are open to the public, and people are urged to come down and …

Co-op switches to green energy

In a move that can only delight the ethical consumer, the Co-operative Group has announced that it will be switching all of its outlets over to green electricity.  More than 3000 Co-op shops, as well as its Co-op Bank branches, Co-operative Insurance (CIS) and the company’s Manchester headquarters and UK distribution sites will use green …

The emergence of windcrofting

Farmers are signing up to “plant” rows of mini-wind turbines in their hedgerows and on wasteland as part of an innovative new project to harness wind power without the usual objections over “unsightliness”. Personally I think that large wind turbines look graceful and beautiful on the horizon and account some of this opinion to the …