NEWS: The CityHippy Week

Life is hectic right now, have so much going on and a young son to bring up but all week long I come across lots of great stuff that I just sadly do not have the time to blog about. But it is all too good to throw away and so in the last couple of weeks I have started posting a sort of news summary. I have now decided to make that a more permanent fixture on CityHippy.

Should give you lots to chew on over the weekends ;)

Enjoy.

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Ladies & Gentleman, it's Friday night! Welcome to...

The CityHippy Week!

Fairtrade festival focus
First up this week is the first week of Fairtrade Fortnight 2006. For those of us in the UK it is a two week Fairtrade fest that makes us all feel a part of something bigger. All the stores make more of an effort, some more than others as you will see below, and with lots of events up and down the country this fortnight is a wonderous time for a wannabe ethical soul.

This week I have noticed the following Fairtrade support / advertising:

• A mention about the Jewish Community backing Fairtrade in the Jewish Chronicle
• A full page Fairtrade ad in the Daily Mail last Monday
• A full page ad for Café Direct Palenque in the Daily Mail last Monday
• A full page ad for Fairtrade bananas at Sainsburys in the Daily Mail last Monday
• A homepage mention on the Sainsburys website
• A full page ad for Café Revive from Marks & Spencers in both the Daily Mail and the Independent last Monday
• A Fairtrade mention on the Marks & Spencers homepage
• A Fairtrade section in the Waitrose near where I work PLUS a mention of Fairtade Fortnight on their homepage
• A whole Fairtrade section on Ocado (Waitrose Online Shopping)
• This sign in the window of Marks & Spencers near where I work
  

• This Fairtrade-free (grrrr) window of the Starbucks near where I work (although they do mention it on their UK Homepage)
  

• This window of a Ladbrokes (a betting shop) where surprisingly there were three mentions of the Cafe Direct Fairtrade coffee brand on display. These days it seems like everyone is plugging in coffee shops to their stores.
  

Some other interesting green stories of note this week that caught my little green eye include:
Some UK ministers favour limited trials of the Suicide 'Terminator' seeds.

Leader of the UK Tory party, David Cameron, has plans to install wind turbines, rainwater collection and solar panels on his home in central London despite anticpated resistance from local residents.

Electic cars in London's Westminster district will now have access to special parking with recharging sockets in various places, subject to an annual £200 license fee.

The premier Fairtrade coffee brand, Café Direct, is to pay its first dividend (2p a share) back to those who helped them raise funds a couple of years ago. Hurrah! If only I had shares...sigh.

The definitive travel guides, The Rough Guides & Lonely Planet are working with ClimateCare to encourage readers to take trains instead of planes and to plant trees to offset plane usage and carbon emissions.

New leader of the UK's Liberal Democrats, Sir Menzies Campbell, is planning to use taxation to adjust people's behaviour and society's direction more towards sustainability.

The Drax power plant wants to use more biofuel so what do the UK Government do? They reduce the amount that can be counted towards green targets. Brilliant! They do care, honest.

And finally just wanted to flag up an email I recieved this week from Resource Solutions about Kelley Stoltz being the first music artist to offset the carbon cost of their album and earn themselves the 'Green E' stamp of approval. Kelley said: Hopefully, people will see their logo; check into what they do, and make renewable energy a part of their lives, too. Nice one Kelley.

…and that's the way it is folks!

Namaste

Al

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