Ed Dowding

Category: Sustainability

Nature's gift: How much is the ecosystem worth?

A great series of articles from the BBC. 1. The full impact of the degradation of the natural world on the global economy – both on business and consumers. 2. The direct costs to businesses, both large and small. 3. The economic benefits of preserving the natural world.

What is ZCB30?

How to make a fast buck in the green economy

If you’re involved in one of the below, you’re going to make money in the next 20 years. Anyone care to go on an INSULATE BRITAIN! road trip around the UK? Renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, marine including wave, biogas, and fuel cell) Green buildings (green retrofits for energy and water efficiency, residential and commercial ...

Turn over a New Leaf

Supporting the vitality of the Commons

I mentioned I’m doing a course on the Commons who yesterday asked the question: How can we live and work in a way that supports the vitality of the commons? (It’s only week one, give us a break!) Here’s my reply: I couldn’t agree more with Mary Beth that “as long as we all live under ...

Invest in green energy

Key facts: 1) You’re doing something brilliant, 2) It’s 7.5% return, 3) You’re locked in for 4 years. EcoBonds from Ecotricity.

Good Guide

GoodGuide is in business to provide authoritative information about the health, environmental and social performance of products and companies. We believe that better information can transform the marketplace: as more consumers buy better products, retailers and manufacturers face compelling incentives to make products that are safe, environmentally sustainable and produced using ethical sourcing of raw ...

Economic reality check

I’ve written quite a lot about money, and plan to write a lot more. In the meantime Tim Jackson’s economic reality check video at TED summarises a great deal of it rather nicely.

Change your search engine, save the world

You’re still using Google, but results are piped via Ecosia, who use the money from the adverts (same amount as Google) to fund rainforest protection. Brilliant, easy, simple. Takes about 2 minutes to make it your default search engine. “Each web search saves about 2 m² of rainforest for free. We already protected 186,443,380 m².” Take ...

Prince Charles' new film, Harmony

HRH (who I’d LOVE to work with, if anyone knows anyone) has a new book & film coming out. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWJtS2VpYm0

World greenhouse gas emissions

Please note that deforestation accounts for TWICE AS MUCH greenhouse gas as all road transport. I think 10:10 would approve of getting people who like hunting, flying them to areas where illegal logging is taking place, and declaring fair game on all illegal loggers. I’d suspect that a few weeks in Indonesia or Brazil for ...

9 things I'd do if I were in government right now

Remember that reducing use is easier and more effective than increasing supply to meet ‘demand’. Invest in research (especially algae and solar). Invest in infrastructure, especially electricity grid, rail, and electric car stations. Do not build more roads. We have plenty, and cars are getting smaller anyway. Remove VAT from renovation works. Add VAT to ...

Turn off your unused mobile phone charger and save equivalent energy for 3 weeks of TV.

Charging a mobile for 1 hour uses 2 watts. Leaving the mobile connected to the charger after the battery is full for 7 hours uses 14 watts. Leaving the charger plugged in and turned on, but not connected to the mobile for 16 hours uses 24 watts. Over 1 year you use 14.6KWh. Turning the ...

Boomerang trade

The UK currently exports 131,000 tonnes of chewing gum to Spain, only to import 125,000 tonnes back again. We send 3,300 tonnes of cuddly toys to New Zealand, only to bring another 2,400 tonnes back again. One person in the US will, by 4am in the morning of 2nd January, have been responsible for the ...

Mottainai

Mottainai  is a Japanese term meaning “a sense of regret concerning waste when the intrinsic value of an object or resource is not properly utilized.” The expression “Mottainai!” can be uttered alone as an exclamation when something useful, such as food or time, is wasted. In addition to its primary sense of “wasteful,” the word ...

Bottled water is the answer to global warming

The world is melting. Guess what you need: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z2z2k4LoYQ The only words I can think of which would fully express my disappointment would be a hex to melt all consumers of bottled water within 2 miles of a tap. Alas, I don’t know any. Maybe the benzene will get them.

EDF – Environmentally Destructive Fuckers

EDF is not green, it’s not British.  And it spends £20m on marketing Green Britain day which is more than its annual spend on investing in new green energy (source). It operates 8 nuclear power stations in the UK It is the world’s largest corporate producer of toxic nuclear waste behind the US and Canada ...

It's not BP's fault, it's yours

I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone (especially in the USA) that it is our sociopathic craving for oil which is driving this, and scape-goating BP merely displaces the responsibility from those who demand the lowest cost oil (at all costs), and the governments who allow it. BP were just unlucky to be ...

3 neat business ideas

British high-end chocolate maker and retailer Hotel Chocolat, wants to expand even further. But rather than turning to banks or big investors for money, they’re inviting customer to buy bonds. Bonds that will pay chocolate returns.  Two values of Chocolate Bond will be issued: both with the return paid in monthly Tasting Boxes. Holders of a ...

French farmers turn Champs-Elysees into huge farm

The Champs-Elysees, has been covered in earth and turned into a huge green space in an event staged by young French farmers. Plants, trees and flowers were brought in by lorry overnight to transform the avenue into a long green strip. More than a million people are expected to visit over the next two days. ...