Raise money for charity by web searches with VeoSearch.com

Received a comment following my post on the free eco search engine called Ecocho, letting me know about a search engine that supports sustainable development charities.

Veosearch gives money to a number of Sustainable Development projects through the online searches made via the site. It has just launched in the UK having started in Paris.

Their press release is available here.

Every search generates advertisement revenues. 50 % of these revenues are distributed to the charities on the site.

The searches are in partnership with Google, Yahoo, Ask, Exalead so should be pretty good.

The charities are engaged in at least one of the three main pillars of Sustainable Development: social work, environment protection or sustainable economics. The list of charities can be added to and can be found here.

For more information on Veosearch works visit the FAQs area, and to support specific charities, you need to register an account. After that, you support the charities you want by clicking on “add” or “+” on their own pages. These will then automatically be part of your selection and will remain until you change your selection.

Looks like a good idea and I will get round to changing the search engine on my blog to help generate revenue for one of the charities. More info on how to do this or other ways to show your support for Veosearch and its fundraising follow this link.

Norwich to get Connect2 pro-cycling funding for river crossing between city and Whitlingham Park

Sustrans, the UK sustainable transport charity, have been successful in the People's £50 Million Lottery Giveaway for their Connect2 project.


Sustrans will use the funding to invest in walking and cycling UK-wide as part of the 5-year Connect2 project in partnership with local authorities.


One of the Connect2 projects is up to £1 million to benefit Norwich by providing a river crossing from the City to Whitlingham Country Park.


The planned route would stretch from Whitlingham Country Park over the River Yare and River Wensum and behind Norwich City Football Club. Photos of the event to launch the Norwich bid can be found here.

The Tour Norfolk site has good information about Whitlingham Country Park and its facilities.

The former gravel quarry is now an excellent centre for water sports, and a great place for walking, cycling and wildlife. The official web site Whitlingham Outdoor Education Centre is here.

Sustrans are the charity behind the National Cycle Network, Safe Routes to Schools, Bike It and TravelSmart.

This might inspire me to pump up the tyres on my old bike and brave cycling again after more than 10 years!


I came across the excellent Norwich Cycling Campaign web site, which provides useful information to promote cycling and cyclists in Norwich.

NCC are also campaigning against the insane decision by Norwich City Council to pilot the use of our cycle lanes by HGV's, which I previously blogged about.

Happy Easter and good food from Horstead Farming Group

I hope you had a very happy Easter. It felt more like Christmas here with the snow. Been decorating today and the family sensibly left the house for a few days to avoid the dust, fumes and chaos.

I was left some lovely treats that my wife bought for me from a new farm shop that has opened at the Notcutts Garden Centre on Daniels Road in Norwich.

The farm shop is run by the Horstead Farming Group. HFG was established in 2005 and is a group of 5 family run farms based around Horstead in Norfolk working co-operatively.

If you live in Norfolk and want some lovely local traceable food, HFG have 3 farm shops at Blofield, Beeston St Andrew and Notcutts in Norwich, as well as two seasonal pick your own sites at Blofield and Sprowston.

If you do eat meat, I can certainly recommend their lamb.

Even if you don't, the veg was great and you can buy big sacks of locally produced spuds (25kg or 10kg) or onions (10kg or 5kg) and save on the shopping journeys you have to make.

Not something the supermarkets offer!

Plastic bag free day - 28th March 2008

The Norwich Carbon Reduction Trust, known also as CRed, is running a series of events over the year with a Plastic Bag Free Day in Norwich on 28th March.

On 28th March, if you are shopping in Norwich, or indeed wherever you are on that day, why not ask yourself, "Do I need another plastic bag?".

According to CRed, most plastic bags have on average a lifespan of 12 minutes and yet take over 400 years to degrade in landfill sites!

Each year in the UK, 13 billion plastic bags used in a year in the United Kingdom.

Norfolk is taking a lead on this issue. Already the market town of Aylsham is trying to become the first plastic bag free town in Norfolk.

So join the people of Norwich - both traders and shoppers – and support the Norwich Carbon Reduction Trust in saying no to plastic bags on Friday 28th March – make that the day you start to use a bag for life and prolong the life of the earth.

If you want to take this further and get better at managing the waste you produce at home and recycle more, why not get inspiration from Almost Mrs Average at The Rubbish Diet?

Future of waste in Norfolk - have your say

Norfolk County Council is inviting residents of the county to have their say on the future of how household waste is managed in the county.

You can complete the questionnaire online , or download it, or request it by email.

The deadline for completed questionnaires is 11th April 2008.

Visit this link for some useful background and related links to help you decide on what the priorities are.

The annoying and undermining thing for me was that I got a hard copy of this questionnaire about waste management in Norfolk as an insert when I bought a copy of the Eastern Daily Press newspaper today, which was wrapped in clear plastic just to emphasise that it was on sale for 25p today.

Big thumbs down to the EDP for being rubbish by creating unnecessary rubbish with this needless packaging!

Green Jelly Bean in the Times Online '50 Best Eco Blogs'!

Received an email from TheTimes Online that went as follows:

Hi there,
We thought that you might like to know that we have featured your site in our '50 Best Eco Blogs' roundup:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/environment/2008/02/the-top-50-eco.html
Please come along and check out some the entries: you're in good company!
All the best,
L**** A****

TIMESONLINE
The Times and The Sunday Times, in real time

You can follow the link here on The Times Online. Green Jelly Bean is mentioned in section 6 "The micro activists".

Wow. Didn't know many people read the blog. Better make sure I watch my language in future! ;-)

Fairtrade Fortnight 25th February - 9th March 2008

Fairtrade Fortnight started on 25th February.

More of us are concerned about where our food and goods come from and the circumstances of their production, the human rights, ethics and environmental aspects.

You can get lots of ideas about how you can get involved and raise awareness over the next few weeks on the Fairtrade Fortnight website. There are resources available to help put up displays and hold events at your school, workplace or within your community.

Go to the website to download the Fairtrade Fortnight 2008 Action Guide and get more information.

A list of events taking place in Norfolk are:

• Sheringham Quaker Meeting House: A Fairtrade sale selling merchandise and locally produced organic produce will be held at Sheringham Quaker Meeting House, Cremer Street, on March 1, 10am-noon in aid of Practical Action and Quaker Peace Projects in Northern Uganda. There will also be tea, coffee and biscuits available, all using Fairtrade ingredients.



• Dereham Baptist Church: To celebrate Dereham Baptist Church becoming a ‘Fairtrade Church’ it will be holding a ‘Fantastic Fairtrade Fare’, including a cafe serving Fairtrade tea, coffee, chocolate and homemade cakes, and stalls selling Hatti Hand-bags, Traidecraft and Stop the Traffik. March 1 from 10 am-12.30pm at Dereham Baptist Church.



• The Forum in Norwich: The Forum in Norwich is marking the end of the fortnight by holding a day of ‘Fairtrade festivities’ with local and national stalls selling fairly-traded produced, family entertainment, games and music – including the Norwich Samba Band. Saturday 9th March from 10am to 5pm.



• Wells library: 'Wells Action for Fair Trade’ is holding an exhibition throughout the fortnight at Wells’ library.



• Ethika, Timber Hill, Norwich: The shop which sells ethically sources, fair-trade and locally created clothes and homewares is holding a photo-graphic exhibition in the Timber Hill entrance of the The Mall in Norwich during Fairtrade Fortnight. The images will show how some of the shops produce is made both locally and in the developing world, including Rajasthani women creating the striking hand blocked tiger linens, wood turners and weavers in Thailand and East Anglian artists and crafts people whose work is also available at Ethika. From February 28 to March 8, 10am to 5pm daily.

Even if you don't want to go to any of these events, if you go to your local Co-op, you will get 20% off the price of all Fairtrade products.

Time to bulk buy on those goods you like to cut down on the number of journeys you make.

Chocolate for me then! ;-)

Calendar of Norfolk and UK Green and Ethical Events

I've decided to try to keep a calendar going of events in Norfolk and the UK that have an environmental or ethical living theme.

It's called NUKGEE for short, or Norfolk and UK Green and Ethical Events.

Over time it will improve and if you have any events that you think are relevant and of interest, please get in touch and I will add them to the calendar.

Although I put it together for my benefit so thay I didn't forget and miss out on things, I hope you find it useful too.

Cheap Dimmable Energy Saving Light Bulbs at B&Q

Went to a B&Q on the inner ring road in Norwich as I'm doing some decorating.

Spotted that this B&Q was selling off the switch dimmable version of the DigiLux Dimmable Energy Saving Bulb.

At £6.98, you won't get a better deal and I'm guessing that this deal will be nationwide.

The 20W bulb is equivalent to 100W.

If you don't fancy replacing light switches with low voltage dimmer switches to try out the dimmable version of these bulbs, then the switch dimmable version may be the answer for you.

You switch the light on and off in various sequences to dim the light and apparently it has a memory for the last setting and can easily be reset.

Pledge to Tread Lightly - join The Guardian's low carbon diet and save the world!

I got an email this week, and it read as follows:

Hi Tractorboy,

My name's N***** and I work for Outside Line, a digital PR agency.

At this moment in time we are currently working with The Guardian to promote their new Tread Lightly campaign:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/treadlightly?CMP=OTCTreadLightly

As one of the top 20 Green Bloggers, I am contacting you today as I thought your readers may be interested in reading about the Guardian’s ‘Tread Lightly’ initiative and learning more about how they themselves could making a real difference to this campaign.

Guardian Tread lightly is a new community site, which aims to encourage online communities into reducing their CO2 emissions through making weekly pledges and recording their actions against their pledges.

The idea is that every pledge is simple, straightforward, and something that everyone can do, so that people who are normally put off doing environmental things because it sounds like a lot of effort will find Tread Lightly a good solution to easing their carbon conscience.

A large part of what we are trying to achieve is to get community and online evangelists in the subject, such as yourself, to help us help educate and motivate the online community into taking those first small steps that make the big difference.

We have campaign outlines and a blogger’s button that we can supply you with, plus the Guardian weekly blog will make mention of key bloggers helping in the campaign, and we really hope you will consider being one of them.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you require any more information on this, if you aren’t interested then thank you for taking the time to read this and we wont bother you again.

Many Thanks
N***** P******
http://www.outsideline.co.uk/

It was a bit of a surprise to be described as an "online evangelist" on matters green!

Not sure I deserve this. Just trying to listen to my conscience and do the right thing when and where I can.

There are loads of these pledge-based groups around and I may do a post collecting some of the better ones I have found and subscribed to.

The Tread Lightly community seems worthy of a mention and I will add a link to the site on my blogroll.

Whether you are green, orange, red, blue or some sort of rainbow in terms of your politics, there is some good stuff here that goes beyond the standard Guardian readership.

Do have a look and maybe get involved. The issues go beyond politics and are about trying live a good life and cause as little harm as possible.

Even better, tell your mates as well and encourage them to live a low carbon lifestyle so that we can each save our little bits of the world. These bits could add up to a lot of planet.

Another incentive is that you could win a G-Wiz car in the New Year, or at least get a free cotton bag so you can stop using all those platic bags! :-)

If you want even more info, I asked for more from the PR company and received this:

Guardian Tread Lightly

Guardian Tread lightly is a new community site developed by Guardian environment that aims to encourage people into a low carbon lifestyle so that they come together to save the planet.

The idea is that people can go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/treadlightly?CMP=OTCTreadLightly1
where they will find a different pledge every week that, if they take an act on, will help them reduce their CO2 emissions. The pledges will all be quite simple, achievable things, so the first one will be change your light bulbs for energy efficient ones, and this will be followed by things like: take showers not baths, recycle all of your newspapers this week, turn down your heating by one degree and recycle your glass this week. The idea is that every pledge is straightforward, simple and something that everyone can do, so that people who are normally put off doing environmental things because it sounds like quite a lot of effort will find Tread Lightly a good solution to easing their carbon conscience.

Once a user has registered with Tread Lightly and clicked on Take the pledge, they will be sent an email reminding them of what they have said they will do and this will be followed at the end of the week with reminder to go back to the site and say whether you fulfilled the pledge or not and what the next weeks pledge is.

The user will then get a personal profile page that will show them what pledges they have taken, how much CO2 they have personally saved and how much it equates to (5 less cars on the road for a day at rush hour etc).

The community aspect of the site will include a message board / blog where people can share tips on how to achieve that weeks target, a little bar chart showing how much CO2 the community has saved so far (in kg) and what this equates to (big things hopefully, like a coal powered power station being turned off for 2 minutes), and users will be invited to write in and give suggestions of other pledges.

With a big community, it’s hoped that when all of the individual carbon savings
are added up over time, the users will have made a real difference to the environment.

The launch will be supported by a competition to win a G-Wiz car and a free bag giveaway. Anyone who completes a pledge by the end of November will be automatically entered into a competition to win a G-Wiz electric car. Anyone who completes 12 pledges by the end of February 2008 will be sent a free Tread lightly cotton shopping bag. .

Plastic bag tax - sign the petition

Plastic bags are useful and are a menace to the environment.

If we use them then we should pay for this.

Apparently in Britain, we use an average of 300 plastic bags every year. Each bag lasts up to 400 years, spending the vast majority of that time in a landfill site or strewn across the British countryside.

Other countries have been more active and successful at sorting out this problem.

In Ireland, a tax of 15cents per bag resulted in a 90% drop in plastic bag usage, and raised 3.5 million Euros which was spent on environmental projects. Bangladesh has banned polythene bags altogether while Taiwan and Singapore are taking steps to discourage their use.

Paying for what has been free and has caused us to be wasteful and thoughtless might start a change for the better.

Paying 10p or so for any plastic bag might encourgae us to start reusing them, use longer lasting bags, boxes or non-plastic bags.

If you think that it is time to pay the price for our wasteful, thoughtless use of plastic bags then sign this petition at Green England.

If you can go out and spend some time gathering signatures, a document version of the petition is available here.

They have hit the 10,000 signature target and it is still rising!

Sustainability, photography and the 3 Ps

So what is "sustainability"?

Sustainability is finding a balance between environmental, social and economic factors and can be defined as "treating the World as if we intended to stay" (Robert Gray, 1993).

A quick way of remembering the 3 factors is planet, people and profit.

Another way of putting it is making sure that we live our lives using and replenishing the resources we have on this one planet of ours, and not being greedy and wasteful in our habits, pretending we have enough resources as if we live on 3 or more planets.

The World Wildlife Fund has some excellent resources and have set up a "One Planet Living" Campaign that I urge you to visit.

It is very easy for us to say that the planet or environment is the most important thing for us to concentrate on. Certainly climate change, greenhouse gases, green issues seem to be the focus in the press.

I do not disagree with the planet's importance. Without it, we are goners.

Surely it is more realistic to recognise that for us to make sure we cause less harm, we have to consider all of these 3Ps and get the best balance we can?

Where is the likely success and lasting power of measures to save the planet if they in turn cost people their jobs because companies do not make enough profit to employ them?

I would emphasise the word “enough” here. “Excessive” is what we usually associate with companies making profits, and normally at the expense of others. I believe times are changing and I’ll give you an example based on my interest in photography.

I have some Pentax SLR gear, and in particular a great camera, the Pentax ME Super.

Hopefully, I will raise enough money via some eBay sales to buy a DSLR and am keen to still be able to use my existing Pentax based lenses. They are still good and I do not want to throw them away.

Consumer power and buying behaviour will change things. I want sustainable products in the shops so although I can’t change the situation overnight for everyone, I can at least play my part as an individual.

I sent an enquiry to Pentax via their web site to ask about how sustainable their products are.

The reply I received was as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your enquiry.

What I understand from your email is that you are interested in how social and environmental conscious we produce our products.

Please find more information about these topics on the
following website:
http://www.pentax.co.jp/english/company/environment/report/2006.html

I hope that your question has been answered to your satisfaction.

Should you have further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to
contact us again.

When replying, please make sure this email is included.

With kind regards,

J***** S********

Pentax Digital Camera Support Team

Looking at the links you find here is very interesting. They are certainly going in the right direction and taking steps to reduce their harmful activities and increase their beneficial ones. You will find statements about their company and products relating to the environment and social aspects. Their annual accounts show that the improvements they are gradually making has not stopped them from doing well financially.

Of course there will always be more that companies like Pentax can do. We should not damn them for not getting to a good situation straight away. Maybe we should encourage their efforts as getting the balance between the 3Ps takes time?

I am optimistic that if we all start asking companies questions about how sustainable their company and their products and services are, they will start to get the message that consumers will spend their money with the more sustainable companies and not with those who focus on profit generation.

Before you buy something significant, why not contact the company and find out what they are doing to make what they do sustainable?

Some other resources that are useful is “The Good Shopping Guide” book, Gooshing, Ethiscore, and “The Rough Guide to Ethical Living” book.

And if you want to be really sustainable, why not borrow the books from your local library rather than buy them?