Week 40: Become a school governor…

This is all about leading by example and having an effect on those running the country in the future when they are still at school. The one thing I would like to see in my area is more children walking or cycling to school, but there are many other things that governors can get involved in.

I know this is going to sound like a cop-out but I really don’t have the time. My job means that I work on average two evenings a week and am away on average one night a week, so you couldn’t rely on me to be there. However, I throw down the gauntlet to you, the reader...

Week 39: Say goodbye to cheese on toast and cappuccino…

The agriculture sector is responsible for a lot of the water pollution. Sewage which runs off from dairy farms is high in nitrates, which adversely affect the ecology of rivers and lakes, so should we opt for non diary alternatives such as soya or rice? I have tried soya but must admit it is an acquired taste and it is difficult to find when you do some much travelling as I do.

In addition, some studies show that humans are intolerant to diary anyway and it can increase the chances of some cancers. To find out more visit www.vegansociety.com

Week 38: Rewire your house and make it safe twice over…

Apparently the plastic sheathing for electrical cables is PVC – the second most common and most harmful plastic to the environment. So what are the alternatives?

I googled this problem and came up with loads of websites, but this caught my eye -
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/articles/article/bioplastics/

It’s a fascinating read and one that signals a real change in the corporate world attitude to renewables with this one sentence -

‘With US President George Bush’s recent pledge to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuel by 2017 - driving the price of maize up 60pc in the past two months - the farmer’s field is fast turning into a high tech bio-battleground.’

The consumer just needs to be aware and have access to these alternatives and isn’t that the job of the marketer?

Week 37: Work with community campaign groups…

This is focussing on getting as many recycling services as possible in the area, which is a super idea. Our council sent out a questionnaire a couple of months ago and included in that they asked what else we could be recycling. At the time I couldn’t think of anything but when I was at Tesco yesterday I noticed that they are now recycling empty drinks cartons, which we haven’t been able to put in our local collections before.

I suppose what I am saying here is that we really don’t think enough about what we can recycle. Another opportunity for marketers to open our eyes – after all, as the advert tells us ‘recycle, the possibilities are endless’.

Week 36: Be energy efficient…

This weeks challenge was to undertake an energy audit of our home. So I googled energy efficiency survey and came up with http://www.nef.org.uk/energyadvice/index.htm

I then clicked on the link for my location and was re-directed to the homepage of e-on, where I then had to search for an energy survey to get to what I wanted. So, web people a little bit of clever programming and you could have deep-linked me straight into where I wanted to go! Full marks though for asking me if I wanted to be kept up-to-date with information on how to improve my energy efficiency.

Anyway, the survey was pretty painless to complete and came up with a very good report at the end, which gave us a rating of D on a scale of A-G (A being the best and G being the worst) with recommendations on how we could easily get to C and save nearly £100 per year!

The recommendations were get more energy saving light bulbs, which as you know we are working on, install a condensing boiler and fit thermostatic radiator valves, which we can do when the current ones need replacing.