Last month I wrote about Patagonia and their experiences trying to be a sustainable clothing company, including how they were trying to encourage customers to recycle their clothing when they had finished with it. Last week the Isle of Wight-based clothing company Rapanui got in touch to say they’ve been inspired by the circular economy […]
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The Story of Change
Green consumerism: “a great place to start, a terrible place to stop”. That’s the message from the latest from The Story of Stuff project, which looks at why we can’t consume our way to sustainability and how real change is made: I’m not going to add too much comment, since others have already done so. […]
Totally Locally
This week I came across Totally Locally, a campaign to encourage local shopping. It caught my attention, as it looks like a great way for Transition Town initiatives and other local community groups to promote local business. The campaign is essentially an off-the-shelf marketing kit, made available free of charge. Totally Locally provide the brand […]
10 facts about your clothing footprint
Okay, ‘clothing footprint’ is an awkward term, but it’s a useful catch-all for the land, water, chemicals, resources and emissions embodied in our clothing. It includes growing the fibres, manufacturing the garment, washing it, and then finally disposing it. WRAP has just released the results of its rummage around laundry basket, and here are ten […]
Love your local market
Last week saw the launch of local markets fortnight, a national campaign to raise the profile of local markets. It’s quite a necessary campaign. Not so long ago, the market was the heart of most British towns, but they have been squeezed out in recent decades by the supermarket. Built out of town, shoppers drive […]
Slave labour on the high street
At school, we all get taught that the slave trade was abolished in 1833 after a long campaign by William Wilberforce. It was a historic moment of course, but actually rather limited in the grand scheme of things. It stopped the trading of slaves within the British Empire, but in no way did it end […]
India says no to the supermarkets
There’s been a bit of a war going on in India’s retail sector recently. Under current rules, single-brand retailers can only be 51% owned by foreign companies and overseas supermarkets can’t operate at all. It means that international brands have to partner with local firms to open shops, and smaller, locally owned stores are protected […]
Happy Birthday Fairtrade Gold
This time last year, the Fairmined mark was launched by the Fairtrade Foundation, and Fairtrade gold took a step towards the mainstream. One year on, the idea is slowly gaining ground. And slowly is the only way it can gain ground, because ethical mining is not an easy thing to certify. To earn that Fairmined […]
The Big Switch: collective bargaining for cheaper energy
There’s an unusual experiment happening right now in Britain’s energy market. It’s being run by the online community activist network 38 Degrees and consumer group Which, in response to high energy prices. They are inviting people to club together to negotiate cheaper prices by mass bargaining. There’s an open market for energy in Britain. You […]
The end of the road for carbon labeling?
This week supermarket chain Tesco announced that they have dropped their plans to introduce carbon footprint labeling across their range. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The project was announced in January 2007, and 15 months later the first 20 products hit the shelves. Crisps, orange juice and light bulbs were among the […]
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