When You Realise You've Been Investing in Tobacco for Years

I had a bit of a shock this week.

I have been investing in several funds for some time, and when I delved into what they had invested in, I was pretty shocked.

A large chunk of the fund I'd invested in seemed to be buying stock of Tobacco companies and god knows what else.

I do not see a long-term future in the products they make, let alone condone the health, social and environmental issues tobacco causes around the world.

Starting today, I have begun to research the principles behind socially responsible investing.

In the next few weeks, I hope to try to understand where I have been going wrong and to choose a fund manager who has some dignity left.

I'll let you know of my progress here, once I've investigated where I should switch to.

Big Brand Data Centres - How They Look To Lower Cost and Energy Consumption

With an increasing amount of business being performed over complex computer networks, the need for larger data centres is becoming more and more pronounced. One of the associated problems with this increasing demand is the higher energy requirements needed to continue operations and the higher energy bills faced as a consequence.

A number of businesses are looking at new and increasingly radical ways of powering their data centres and reducing the amount of expenditure being spent on energy. This has become a particularly important issue as cloud technology begins to emerge as the technological format of the future and a greater amount of information needs to be stored in data centres.

Energy Consumption

Recent reports highlight the fact that energy consumption by data centres and their server racks has increased by 63% over the last year, putting them under financial pressure and raising concerns over how environmentally friendly they are.

With this statistic in danger of increasing in the future, it’s an element that industry insiders are keen to tackle as soon as possible. This has been illustrated by recent moves by Microsoft who are aiming to ensure their public image is not tarnished by accusations of huge energy wastage at their data centres.

Statistics show that the world consumes around 38 GW of power in data centres, a figure that has to change in the future. Though the importance of such centres is expected to grow as cloud technology becomes more and more popular, the actual energy consumed is hoped to remain stable.

Tackling Wasted Energy

Experts have proposed a number of measures that could pave the way for lower energy consumption in the future. One of the most interesting ideas is the use of low energy ARM processors, such as those found in the new Raspberry Pi devices. ARM processors are being developed to run low energy servers that can be packed into high density data centres – although they are a way off being able to power large server systems. As they continue to develop and become more prevalent, with a larger development base, they may be the technology that alters the way we store data in the future.

Google have also given a potential glimpse into the future with their recent decision to power an Oklahomadata centre with wind energy. This follows moves by the firm to improve their green image through the use of other alternative energy sources. As more and more companies come under fire for wasteful or poor environmental policies it seems as if energy sources like wind power may become the preferred means of keeping growing data centres running.

This will happen in one of the two ways mentioned above. Either technology will be developed which runs more efficiently and in a smaller space or cleaner sources of energy will be used to power the centres.

If not, the industry will either become unsustainable or tarnished by such a negative environmental image. In an age that’s increasingly concerned with eco issues, this would lead the overall industry to suffer financially – something which institutions are unsurprisingly keen to avoid.

Recycled Beer Bottle Glasses - Grolsch Goblet

I have not started Christmas shopping yet - but have been looking for great eco-friendly gifts to buy for people over the last few days.

I found these beer glass goblets, made from recycled beer bottles.

I am sure you could fashion one yourself if you hang around in a high street after most Friday nights in the UK.

Probably a bit too dangerous to do that, so these glasses make an unusual gift for the beer lover, as well as giving a good recycling message.

My personal favourite is the tumblers without the labels. Labels seem silly to keep, as they will not last long in a dishwasher.

Free Showersave with Savewatersavemoney

www.savewatersavemoney.co.uk are giving away free showersave attachments for your shower so you can start saving money by reducing your water usage.

Competition: Win a Wattson Energy Meter

Would you like to track how much energy you are using in your home? Well the Watson Eenrgy Meter can provide this service!

The Watson provides is a great gadget that gives a useful useful indication of your current energy consumption levels with different coloured lights. Blue indicates low energy use, whilst red indicates extreme power sapping appliances are in use!

Watson Energy Meter Competition
Win a Watson with Uswich Energy

Available to buy at the following gadget retailers:
I want one of those £99.99
Firebox £99.99

Sony Ericsson Elm has Green Credentials

Sony Ericsson have expanded it's GreenHeart portfolio with the Sony Erisscon Elm, which is due for relase shortly.

The Sony Ericsson Elm phone will benefit the environment and help reduce CO2 emissions through:
• Recycled plastics
• E-manual in phone
• Free from hazardous chemicals
• Low power consumption charger (EP300 GreenHeart™)
• Walk Mate eco application
• Green calculator
• Minimized packaging

The Elm will be shipped with a GreenHeart™ personal handsfree; the Stereo Portable Handsfree HPM-60J, which is a step towards reaching the 100 per cent GreenHeart™ accessories goal of Sony Ericsson.

"The Sony Ericsson Elm and the Sony Ericsson Hazel phones offer consumers a green choice without compromising on features or fun. These mobile phones also give consumers a better voice quality experience, with Noise Shield, Clear Voice and Intelligent Volume Adaptation. Both phones offer an easy-to-use social networking experience featuring the Widget Manager application, which allows users access to their social networking page via the stand-by screen and quickly switch between different social networks." said Fortuné Alexander, Global Marketing Director at Sony Ericsson.

Sony Ericsson announced its ambition to making all of its accessories 100 per cent GreenHeart™ compliant by 2011.

“Building on the established heritage of our parent companies we have worked continuously to maintain our leadership position by committing to reduce our own CO2 emissions by 20 per cent and product life cycle CO2 emissions by 15 per cent by 2015.” said Mats Pellbäck Scharp, Environmental Director at Sony Ericsson.

“The Sony Ericsson Elm phone, Sony Ericsson Hazel phone and the VH700 are a testament of our continued commitment to the environment and are part of the ongoing roll-out of our GreenHeart™ strategy announced in June 2009.” continues Mats Pellbäck Scharp.

Steve Alder, General Manager Group and UK Devices for O2, said: “Offering Sony Ericsson GreenHeart™ phones to our customers has been a part of our strategy to integrate sustainability across all our products and services thereby helping our customers reduce their environmental footprint. As an industry it is essential we embrace innovation in this area and incorporating greener credentials across our product portfolio is certainly a focus for us moving forwards.”

UPDATE: View Sony Ericsson Elm Greenheart now on Vodafone!

Good to see some movement on this, hopefully other manufacturers will follow. Remember to recycle your old mobile phones!

John Lewis Supports Eco Home Exhibition

John Lewis are supporting the Eco Home Exhibition at the Geffrye Museum, over the next few weeks.

"The mantra ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’
is prompting us to rethink our habits and behaviour. This exhibition will offer visitors food for
thought on what they can do to make small but important eco changes in their homes."

The Exhibition runs until Sunday 7 February 2010 in East London.

John Lewis now stock a great range of energy efficent appliances and recycling bins for the home.

Recycled Lego Cufflinks

Check out these recycled lego cufflinks below. They are wicked! Would also make a great stocking filler this year.



Just £5 :)

Sources:
Eco Wedding Shop
Christmas Gift Guide

Organic Cotton Shopper Bags

Check out the great rwange of eco-friendly shopper bag selection on lovingthatbag.com. Here is a Twiggy looking like a top model on an M&S shopper bag:



They seem pretty cool to me, they are great for going to the supermarket in style or for general use. Lets hope they can find more suppliers for environmentally friendly handbags to sell. I would really like to see a lot more online merchants selling some recycled fashion products over the next year, not just the tiny independent bag makers who are doing a fine job.

Mobile Phone Recycling Trebles in the UK

Good to see that cash-strapped britons are selling their old mobile phones instead of keeping them in a drawer at home!

Source: Hitwise - Mobile Phone Recycling Trebles


Jolly Green Blogger recommends Mobile Phone Xchange - they pay out the best money over the searches we have tried.

Time to sell my E71 as I have just upgraded to a HTC magic Google Phone...

Recycling Phones & The Environment

It is a great time to recycle your mobile phone, you can earn money for those all important pounds which you need at christmas! You can earn up to £200 from online companies such as mobile phonee xchange, where you just simply post your phone to them. They even take damaged phones.

With all the hi-tech waste that’s generated these days, it’s good to know that there are easy ways to dispose of your old mobile phones, which are harmful to the environment if you just chuck them in the garbage. With today’s increasingly green-conscious world, more people are looking for ways to help out and make it a cleaner, safer place for the next generation. Like all electronic devices, mobile phones contain heavy metals that, if allowed to leech into the soil, will pollute the environment with potentially disastrous results down the road.

Recycling also means that materials that have already been taken from the environment via mining and so forth are reused, thereby cutting down on the drain on the earth’s resources, which are not, contrary to what some people seem to think judging by their throw-away attitude, infinite. Recycling hi-tech waste like old mobile phones also saves energy since raw materials don’t have to be refined, and refining is extremely energy intensive. It also means that the cost of electronics will decrease without the use of raw materials and their expensive extraction methods, plus recycling creates jobs.

If you’re not sure how to have your old mobile phone recycled, Apple has a free programme that makes it really easy to do. All you have to do is visit their website and fill in a form, and they’ll send you a prepaid address label, which you just print and stick to your package, then simply chuck it in the mail and they take care of the rest. It’s good to know that some manufacturers are prepared to offer free disposal of mobile phones and the like to help preserve our environment. Now it’s up to us to make use of this and help keep our environment safe for our kids.

We recommend using an online service such as mobilephoneexchange, to earn back money as you recycle!

It Makes Sense to Recycle!

Here is a bit of research
and further insight into the
current financial crisis:

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern
Rock stock one year ago, it would be
worth £4.95 today. With HBOS, you
would have £16.50 left of the original
£1000. With XL Leisure, you would have
less than a fiver. And if you had
purchased £1000 of Seguro Air Lines
stock, you would have a measly 49p.

However, if you had purchased £1000
worth of Tennent's Lager one year ago,
drank the lot of it, then re-cycled
the cans at an aluminium plant for a
cash refund, you would have £214. And
so, based on the above information,
the best current investment advice is
to drink heavily and recycle.

Majority of Mobile Phones not Being Recycled

Global consumer survey reveals that majority of old mobile phones are lying in drawers at home and not being recycled!

This is from a Nokia press release I got sent. Come on People, RECYCLE your old mobiles. You can sell them on ebay, or send them off for recycling. We don't want mountains of old mobile phones, do we? They also contain many very useful metals which can all be re-used. Please read below for more info.

Espoo, Finland - Only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones despite the fact that most have old devices lying around at home that they no longer want, according to a global consumer survey released by Nokia today. Three out of every four people added that they don't even think about recycling their devices and nearly half were unaware that it is even possible to do so.

The survey is based on interviews with 6,500 people in 13 countries including Finland, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden, UK, United Arab Emirates, USA, Nigeria, India, China, Indonesia and Brazil. It was conducted to help Nokia find out more about consumers' attitudes and behaviors towards recycling, and inform the company's take-back programs and efforts to increase recycling rates of unused mobile devices.

Markus Terho, Director of Environmental Affairs, Markets, at Nokia said, "It is clear from this survey that when mobile devices finally reach the end of their lives that very few of them are recycled. Many people are simply unaware that these old and unused mobiles lying around in drawers can be recycled or how to do this. Nokia is working hard to make it easier, providing more information and expanding our global take-back programs." He added, "If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device we could save 240,000 tonnes of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same effect as taking 4 million cars off the road. By working together, small individual actions could add up to make a big difference."

The findings highlight that despite the fact that people on average have each owned around five phones, very few of these are being recycled once they are no longer used. Only 3% said they had recycled their old phone. Yet very few old devices, 4%, are being thrown into landfill. Instead the majority, 44%, are simply being kept at homes never used. Others are giving their mobiles another life in different ways, one quarter are passing on their old phones to friends or family, and 16% of people are selling their used devices particularly in emerging markets.

Globally, 74% of consumers said they don't think about recycling their phones, despite the fact that around the same number, 72%, think recycling makes a difference to the environment. This was consistent across many different countries with 88% of people in Indonesia not considering recycling unwanted devices, 84% in India, and 78% of people in Brazil, Sweden, Germany and Finland.

The survey revealed that one of the main reasons why so few people recycle their mobile phones is because they simply don't know that it is possible to do so. In fact, up to 80% of any Nokia device is recyclable and precious materials within it can be reused to help make new products such as kitchen kettles, park benches, dental fillings or even saxophones and other metal musical instruments. Globally, half of those surveyed didn't know phones could be recycled like this, with awareness lowest in India at 17% and Indonesia at 29%, and highest in the UK at 80% and 66% in Finland and Sweden.

Mr Terho said, "Using the best recycling technology nothing is wasted. Between 65 - 80 per cent of a Nokia device can be recycled. Plastics that can't be recycled are burnt to provide energy for the recycling process, and other materials are ground up into chips and used as construction materials or for building roads. In this way nothing has to go to landfill."

Many people interviewed for the survey, even if they were aware that a device could be recycled, did not know how to go about doing this. Two thirds said they did not know how to recycle an unwanted device and 71% were unaware of where to do this.

Nokia has collection points for unwanted mobile devices in 85 countries around the world, the largest voluntary scheme in the mobile industry. People can drop off their old devices at Nokia stores and almost 5,000 Nokia Care Centers. To find their nearest take back point people can visit www.nokia.com/werecyle.

Responding to the survey findings Nokia is developing a series of campaigns and activities to give people more information on why, how and where to recycle their old and unwanted devices, chargers and mobile accessories. The company is also expanding its global take-back program by adding many more collection bins and promoting these in store to raise greater awareness.

You Can also Recycle Mobile Phones at Envirophone, mobile phone xchange and 3 Mobile.

Ethical Superstore Sale - Save 80%

The Ethical Superstore currently has an amazing sale on eco-friendly and ethically produced items.

There are over 300 items in the sale, including cool eco-gadgets such as
water-powered calculators (£2.99) and wireless energy monitors (£34.99).

Eco Friendly Electronics at Digital Direct

Digital Direct have launched Eco Direct, where it presents the greenest electronic products available from it's site. Eco Friendly products include plasma tvs & DAB radios from top brands such as Sony and Pure Digital.

"It’s important for us to take care of our environment and look after our planet and more and more manufacturers are trying to do the same. Here we have created a collection of all the products we currently sell that will help you to reduce your carbon footprint."

So head on over to digital direct to compare these products power consumption and how they were manufactured.

Free Envirosax Eco Bag with Lonely Planet Guides

Lonely Planet is offering a free Envirosax Eco Bag and free shipping in June!

Envirosax is a well known eco brand and Lonely Planet readers will should snap this up!

John Lewis Goes Green

John Lewis have split their website into key eco areas to help customers buy environmentally-responsible products - Take a look for yourself!

Energy-efficient
If you'd like to do more to cut down on energy consumption, invest in the latest appliances and gadgets

Organic
If you want to reduce your exposure to complex man-made chemicals, find nature-friendly and sustainable options

Fairly-traded
If you'd like to help communities in need to grow and prosper, fair trade's the right direction

Sustainable
If you want to make sure the products you buy have been sourced responsibly, you have choices

Recycling
If you like the idea of new from old and reducing waste, choose recycled

Well done John Lewis!

Biodegradable Picnics

Here's a novel eco-friendly way to enjoy time out in the countryside or at a festival without leaving a harmful trace of your shenanigans.


This whole picnic set with the exception of the cloth will return itself back to nature, leaving you guilt free about your impact on your favourite beauty spot. It even comes in biodegradable packaging!

It's not Easy Being Green

Just found this cool site about a BBC programme - 'its Not Easy Being Green'



They have some superb video clips with ecellent green tips and examples of how people are reducing their energy bills, with help from Dick of course!

Check out Dick, hes a dude! That moustache is the greenest on the planet!


I found this excellent link while checking out the newspaper Briquette Maker on evengreener. Apparently this product was featured on the show. This device turns waste newspaper into fuel for heat for just £20!

Fairtrade Tea from CafeDirect

Our office has gone a bit greener this week with the addition of Fairtrade Tea from Cafedirect! I have been drinking this fairtrade tea all week and have ditched the PG tips.

Cafedirect work with 270,000 growers, encompassing 39 grower organisations across 13 developing countries, to bring people the best tasting and highest quality coffees, teas and drinking chocolate.

Growers of the tea are paid above market prices, and much of the profits are fed back into the growers businesses and communities. This money funds training and development programmes, empowering them to build a better, sustainable future.

You can order the delicious tea from the Ethical Superstore.