Chocolate is good for you, and the world
by David Masters
Forget your New Year's resolution to burn off the Christmas pounds for a minute, and listen to this: chocolate is good for you. Cacao, the fruit used to make chocolate, contains antioxidants and minerals with well known health benefits. Cacao has more antioxidants that green tea or blue berries. Antioxidants reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. Useful minerals in cacao include copper, magnesium, phosphorus, and calcium. Magnesium is one ...
14th UN Climate Change Conference Begins
by David Masters
The UN Climate Change Conference opened in Poznan, Poland this week, where more than 192 nations will continue negotiations over a post-2012 successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Delegates at the conference will be starting where they left off at the last conference in Bali, looking to put together policies for international action on climate change, in preparation for the final agreement talks in Copenhagen next year. Speaking at the opening day of ...
Starbucks goes 100% fair trade
by David Masters
Starbucks has announced that every coffee drink it sells in its 700 British and Irish shops will now be fairtrade. In the past, customers at the international coffee shop chain had to request a fairtrade drink - and the choice was only available for filter coffee. The move will see fairtrade coffee beans used for every drink - including espresso, latte, cappuccino and mocha. This will boost Starbucks' fairtrade sales in the UK ...
Mayor Johnson’s metamorphism into eco-warrior
by David Masters
London Mayor Boris Johnson today pledged to make Britain's largest city the eco-capital of the world. This represents a major turnaround for the conservative politician, who once lambasted 'eco-moralists' for speaking 'mumbo-jumbo' and compared the fear of global warming to 'stone age religion'. Keen to escape his reputation as an eco-sceptic, Johnson said he wants London to become a world leader in reducing carbon emissions and constructing an economy based upon green ...
EA plans 80 new wind turbines
by David Masters
The Environment Agency this week unveiled plans to build up to 80 wind turbines in EA-owned locations across the UK. EA Chairman, Lord Chris Smith, told delegates at the Agency's annual conference that 80 new wind turbines could provide enough electricity for 90,000 homes - equivalent to the number of houses in a city the size of York. The money made selling electricity from the turbines would bring in £2.4 million extra ...
Recession will dent ethical shopping
by David Masters
Shoppers are set to shun organic food for cheaper alternatives during the economic downturn. Researchers at Mintel predict that around half of organic food shoppers will switch to non-organic alternatives in the oncoming recession, as they seek to stretch every penny spent. Organic food and drink is big business in the UK, worth £1.6 billion per year. The sector has grown at an annual rate of 16% over the past five years. The tightening ...
London is world’s biggest Fairtrade city
by David Masters
London has been awarded the status of the world's biggest fairtrade city after over a thousand businesses in the capital agreed to sell fairly traded goods. It is the 400th of the UK's towns and cities to be awarded the status, which demonstrates an area's commitment to promote and provide fair trade products. Close to 1,000 retailers and 600 cafes and restaurants now sell product ranges that carry the fair trade mark. Businesses ...
Harry Hill’s fairtrade salted nuts
by David Masters
British TV star Harry Hill launched his own brand of products this week, and it’s not a new perfume fragrance, but fair-trade salted nuts. The 43 year comedian, who hosts the hit show TV Burp, will not make any money from the nuts, which will be sold for 59p per packet. Speaking at the launch of the nuts in London Zoo’s rainforest zone, Hill said he was inspired by Hollywood star Paul ...
UK fashion sweatshop workers severely underpaid
by David Masters
Not a single fashion store on the UK high street pays its sweatshop workers a living wage. Anti-sweatshop campaigners have warned that progress towards ensuring that clothes-makers overseas are paid a living wage is moving at the pace of a 'glacier'. A new report by campaign group 'Labour Behind the Label' says that the high street fashion industry – worth £36 billion per year – is only ‘dabbling’ with the idea of ...
eBay launches ethical shopping website
by David Masters
In a move that could shake up the future of consumerism, ethical shopping has gone mainstream. Capitalising on the ethical shopping trend sweeping the world, eBay has launched a new trading website for environmentally friendly products made using natural, organic, or recycled materials. In addition to offering environmental goods, worldofgood.com allows users to buy products made in the majority world, allowing producers to earn a fair price for their work without profits ...
Japanese Greenpeace activists Arrested
by Grant Draper
Two activists have been arrested by Japanese police, for apparently stealing a box of whale meat, which led to exposing the government-sponsored whaling programme. A box of whale meat from a whaling ship was shipped to a private address, later to be used as evidence, proving the general corruption on the matter and exposing the scandal by passing the evidence to the Public Prosecutor in Tokyo, of which no investigation was ...
Banana wars for supermarkets
by Grant Draper
Recent supermarket price wars publicise the lack of awareness, or care, for Fairtrade standards. In an effort to gain market share, ASDA got the ball rolling with a 5p price cut per KG, with Sainsburys and Morrisons followed immediately, and eventually Sainsbury's did the same, although their banana stock consists of only Fairtrade bananas. The recent price cuts are not realistic margins for supermakets to be retailing, and in the end its ...
Breakthrough technology recycles CO2 vehicle emissions
by David Masters
New technology that recycles the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from car engines is to be unveiled later this month at a Green Car exhibition in Liverpool. Developed by Origo Industries, the system captures CO2 emissions from a vehicle's engine and saves them to be transformed into bio-oil. The bio-oil can then be used to re-power the car, or even to give free energy in the user's home. Bio-oil is created by regenerating the ...
Amazon put in jeopardy by clean air
by David Masters
A team of scientists from the UK and Brazil have made a startling discovery: the Amazon rainforest is in jeopardy and is likely to become a grassland savannah by the end of the century. Even more startling is the reason behind the Amazon's impending doom: cleaner air. The study, published in the journal 'Nature', and based on a joint research effort by scientists from Exeter University, the Met Office and the Brazilian ...
Fairtrade Foundation expansion
by Grant Draper
A Managing Director has been appointed for the Fairtrade Foundation, as part of its five year plan for change. The position, which was taken by David Lowbridge, a managing director at both Country Casuals in 1987 and Austin Reed Group plc, will make the staff count eight, in the ever expanding structure of the organisation. With David now appointed, the Deputy Director will now have enough free time to concentrate on the ...
Fairtrade awareness increases 13 percent
by Grant Draper
The Fairtrade mark continues to hit new heights, with the latest poll indicating a 13% increase in awareness of it in 2007, from 57% to 70%. The new facts also indicate in general the purchasing of Faritrade goods is on the increase, with more and more consumers regularly or occasionally buying related products. The 2008 sales figure for fair-trade products will be greatly anticipated and hopefully on the increase, as it was ...
Fuel protest in London
by Grant Draper
The heat continues to boil, as over 300 owner operated lorry drivers protest against the cost of diesel, which is now in excess of £1.25 in some areas. The main route to and from the west to central London, the A40, had a lane closed to accommodate the drivers on their way to deliver the petiton. The protest, which was held in London, hopes to achieve the scrapping of Alistair Darling's proposed, ...
UK CO2 emissions rise faster than EU average
by Grant Draper
Plans to cut emmisions with the EU carbon trading scheme by 20% by 2020 may have to be altered, with an overall European increase of under 1%, but still equating to 16 tonnes of CO2. New figures show Britain’s emmisions increasing by 2.2%, and Germany's and Spain's also on the increase. The EU are looking to point fingers, and who better than Germany (an increase of 8.99 million tonnes), Spain (an increase ...
Brown expresses concern over food shortage
by Rachel Thomas
Yesterdat the Prime Minister yesterday put rising food prices on the world agenda as he wrote to his contemporary G8 leaders in order to organise an international package on food shortage. Gordon Brown has expressed concerns over the fact that the speed towards environmentally questionable biofuels are being taken up could lead to a disruption in the production of food. Brown is expected to make this issue a part of the G8 ...
Trees planted in Scotland to offset Manchester eco-conference
by David Masters
Carbon Offset Scotland, an Edinburgh-based energy saving company, is planning to plant a tree for every delegate who attends the Envirenergy conference being held today in the Old Trafford Stadium, Manchester. 350 trees will be planted in Scotland to reduce the event's carbon footprint and to help offset its environmental impact. Carbon Offset's managing director, Angus Crabbie, said: "If I wanted to give a tree the best possible chance of surviving for ...