What Size is Your Carbon Footprint? How Will You Offset It?
Greens around the world and anti-Tescoites are no doubt rejoicing at the fact that the carbon footprint is the topic du jour.
The omnipresent theme of an enviro-friendly lifestyle is comparable to Karl Marx, in that it can be applied to absolutely everything; and if I'm honest, it is really becoming a bit annoying.
It is easy to point the finger at the Tescopoly troupe, but realistically, they alone aren't to blame for the fact that the UK has the third lowest recycling percentage in the civilised world.
In the eye of this green storm, their PR has gone into overdrive, with Sainsbury's devoting Friday 27th April and Tuesday 29th May (to continue once every month) to giving their 'bag for life' gratis, as an alternative to their normal plastic bags (interestingly, in April they gave out more in that one day than they would sell in a year, £700,000 worth), along with their collaboration with designer Ayna Hindmarch and her "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" bag, which created an eBay frenzy in the UK and goes on sale in the US on June 20th.
Lucky Americans, but think about the poor Northern Irish, who will be charged 5p per plastic bag in Marks & Spencer from July.
(If the scheme is successful, it will be rolled out throughout the UK later in the year.
) That's the same M&S who recently announced a 28% profit, equating to £1bn.
Will it actually achieve anything though? Having lived in Germany last year, I'm tempted to say yes.
There, I began to appreciate the four-bin recycling system (paper, plastic, glass and waste) and the fact that I had to take a rucksack to the supermarket - the trick is to make recycling easy.
So what's all this faff about carbon offsetting? Well, Stelios has a lot to answer for.
Flying has never been more convenient and as its popularity soars, so does that of websites such as http://www.
co2balance.
com, where you can work out how many trees need to be planted to offset the carbon produced from your journey or home.
According to their boffins, "a single short haul flight produces roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) as travelling to London and Aberdeen and back 5 times by train.
" Call me cynical, but is there any way of ensuring that these trees actually materialise, or are these websites just a clever business idea, which pulls on the heart-strings of the ethically-minded? Can they guarantee that the money made from such websites and the ever-more stylish 'bags for life' is being used in environmental projects, and not lining the pockets of immoral fat-cats in their ivory towers? Until then, I'll continue jetsetting, recycling and turning the TV off at the wall.
That's easy.
The omnipresent theme of an enviro-friendly lifestyle is comparable to Karl Marx, in that it can be applied to absolutely everything; and if I'm honest, it is really becoming a bit annoying.
It is easy to point the finger at the Tescopoly troupe, but realistically, they alone aren't to blame for the fact that the UK has the third lowest recycling percentage in the civilised world.
In the eye of this green storm, their PR has gone into overdrive, with Sainsbury's devoting Friday 27th April and Tuesday 29th May (to continue once every month) to giving their 'bag for life' gratis, as an alternative to their normal plastic bags (interestingly, in April they gave out more in that one day than they would sell in a year, £700,000 worth), along with their collaboration with designer Ayna Hindmarch and her "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" bag, which created an eBay frenzy in the UK and goes on sale in the US on June 20th.
Lucky Americans, but think about the poor Northern Irish, who will be charged 5p per plastic bag in Marks & Spencer from July.
(If the scheme is successful, it will be rolled out throughout the UK later in the year.
) That's the same M&S who recently announced a 28% profit, equating to £1bn.
Will it actually achieve anything though? Having lived in Germany last year, I'm tempted to say yes.
There, I began to appreciate the four-bin recycling system (paper, plastic, glass and waste) and the fact that I had to take a rucksack to the supermarket - the trick is to make recycling easy.
So what's all this faff about carbon offsetting? Well, Stelios has a lot to answer for.
Flying has never been more convenient and as its popularity soars, so does that of websites such as http://www.
co2balance.
com, where you can work out how many trees need to be planted to offset the carbon produced from your journey or home.
According to their boffins, "a single short haul flight produces roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) as travelling to London and Aberdeen and back 5 times by train.
" Call me cynical, but is there any way of ensuring that these trees actually materialise, or are these websites just a clever business idea, which pulls on the heart-strings of the ethically-minded? Can they guarantee that the money made from such websites and the ever-more stylish 'bags for life' is being used in environmental projects, and not lining the pockets of immoral fat-cats in their ivory towers? Until then, I'll continue jetsetting, recycling and turning the TV off at the wall.
That's easy.