
Paul Allen is the development director of
the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales, one of Europe’s leading demonstration sites for renewable enrgy and green technologies. He is the designer of many renewable energy systems for CAT and has himself lived for many years 'off the grid'. He is currently touring the United States by mass transit, and he is interested in making contact with groups wishing to set up ‘post-carbon’ demonstration centers similar to CAT. In this interview Paul shares his thoughts on the evolution of CAT, the future of environmentalism, and what we can all do to speed up the eventual adoption of clean technologies and practices by mainstream society.
Treehugger: CAT started out as an idealistic experiment in communal living but has grown into one of the leading educational centres for sustainability in Europe. Can you tell us a little about how the role of CAT has changed over the years?...

Actors and musicians often act as if they have all the answers to the world’s problems. Not
Matt Costa. The talented singer/songwriter from Southern California has a genuine concern for the environment, but he doesn’t pretend to be an expert. The 24-year-old Costa says he would rather learn from others than preach a specific message, at least at this stage of his career. At the same time, he lends his music to environmental projects, such as a recent '
Thank You Ocean' public service announcement, and a forthcoming National Geographic film about global warming. In addition, all Costa-related materials are printed on recycled paper and a percentage of his album sales go to the environment through
1% For The Planet. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Costa on Saturday evening before his show at New York City’s famed Bowery Ballroom. We spoke about global warming, camping, and touring with fellow eco-celebrity Jack Johnson....

A little while back we alerted readers to a
tree planting event in the West Yorkshire village of Hebden Bridge in the UK. Under the banner of
Treesponsibility, a group of local residents have been responding to severe flooding by reforesting the watershed above their town. In so doing, they hope to bring about "climate change of a different kind", as they encourage people to take responsibility for their own carbon emissions. They have also played an important role in defeating plans for an open-cast mine, and they are currently opposing the expansion of aviation capacity in the area. TreeHugger recently attended one of their plantings, and took some time out to chat with Penny Eastwood (pictured), one of the key people behind the organization. In this interview, she sheds a little more light on the ambition of the group and their strategic vision for the valley.
The site for the weekend’s planting is a sloped field, kindly donated by a local farmer. The plan is to get 1000 trees in the ground here. While this sounds like a lot, the group always plants a minimum of 10,000 trees in every growing season, and they are envisioning a 25 year program of planting that will transform the valley. A group of about 40 people have gathered, some local, some from further afield, and they are busy clearing turf, planting saplings and carefully mulching them while being battered by the strong West Yorkshire winds. Looking over the landscape, it is clear why tree planting is so important, as Penny explains:
“The most important thing is to think where we are in terms of the island that we live on. We are very close to the main Penine watershed. Because we live in these narrow, funnelling valleys, when we get intense storms this becomes a very dramatic area. Soil washes down, rubble washes down, and water washes off the hills.”
...

Just about now,
I.D.'s December 2006 New and Notable Issue, featuring our Umbrella Inside Out
finalists and winners, is hitting newsstands. Grab a copy! We're proud as can be of all of all of them and happy that Rainer Wolter, our fashion winner, is already making a difference in the conventional fashion world through his refusal to work with fur.
Seeing Rainer's re-fashioned umbrella dress on the runway at Paris's Ethical Fashion Show last month thrilled me (Rainer rhymes with "designer," btw). Nothing about it belied rain-protective origins as it floated down the catwalk. While laying eyes on the final design was satisfying, spending time with the man behind the garment proved genuinely inspiring. Between round tables, dinners and excursions, Rainer's uniquely principled, kind and humorous characteristics became as apparent as his already obvious talent. At the time, Rainer's boss,
Emmett McCarthy of Project Runway fame, had decided to incorporate fur. This meant that, due to his cruelty-free leanings, Rainer would have to quit. Upon his Paris departure, he didn't know what was next for him, but trusted that something would come up. When we caught up last week, I expected to hear job search woes, but his tale took a refreshingly hopeful twist...
>>Continue reading this post>>...

The Duke of Cambridge Organic Pub is the first organic pub in England, opened in 1998 by Geetie Singh. Treehugger interviewed Geetie, the Managing Director, whilst partaking of a delicious lunch at the busy and cozy gastro-pub in the trendy Islington area of London. Having quaffed some Eco Warrier beer to get into the spirit, we asked Geetie about her philosophy at the pub. She said that her menu is led by ingredients that are hearty, basic and full-flavoured. She wants to have all of the food sourced as locally as possible; and tries for a radius within the London area. If the food is not local, then it is of British origin. There are more seasonal foods available now because organic growers have expanded their season due to climate change. Given the compact size of Europe, in terms of cartage, she noted that there is little difference between bringing something in from France or from Scotland. In the same way, wine shipped by sea from New Zealand may cause less pollution than that driven from Italy. Nothing comes by air freight. It is important to find a good chef, give him artistic freedom, and then work with him to think about organic principles....

Early this year
we alluded to the arrival in 2007 of a new line of green outdoor apparel. Details were thin on the ground, but tantalising nevertheless. Now their website is finally live and has a sneak peek of the upcoming clothing range. Plus, they’ve launched a blog, tagged the
Thought Kitchen, and a repository of inspiring stories known as the
Collective to interact with customers. Their site also includes a vid of Nau designers describing their raison d'être for focusing on beauty, performance, sustainability. Boy, have they set themselves an impressive challenge; “The Nau mission is to combine the generosity of the human spirit and the power of technology with business innovation to increase shareholder equity, protect the environment, enhance social justice and provide humanitarian relief worldwide.” And, as Nau’s CEO puts it, “Along the way, we’re hoping to sell some really cool outdoor clothing.” With all these lofty aspirations we wanted to dig a little deeper. Their press kit says, “We seek every opportunity to educate, inspire, influence and disrupt. Once we find the opportunity, we aim to present our case thoughtfully and genuinely. If you want someone to listen, whisper.” So we decided to ask a few quiet questions of Ian Yolles, VP of Marketing for Nau....
Roger Duncan serves as the Campaign Coordinator for Plug-in Partners, a national campaign for plug-in electric vehicles (PHEVs) striving to demonstrate clearly the viability of this market by doing the following: garnering support in the form of online petitions and endorsements by city governments across the country; procuring "soft" fleet orders; and developing rebates and incentives. TreeHugger's Eckhart Beatty recently had the chance to chat with Mr. Duncan about plug-ins and the future of automotive transportation.
TreeHugger: Why was Plug-in Partners founded in Austin, Texas?
Roger Duncan: As one of the more progressive utilities in the nation,
Austin Energy has long led the nation in energy conservation. I was asked to see what else we could be doing in the area of clean energy, and I told the City Council we should start a new initiative in the transportation sector since I saw an eventual convergence between the electric and transportation industries. In my capacity as a manager we might be able to take advantage of the abundance of wind and solar potential to power cars. Soon we began seeing a convergence between the electric and transportation industries....
Artecnica are a product design studio with a difference, not only do they make beautiful and innovative products, but they make products with a conscience. When I was in LA recently I went to meet the co-founder and art director of Artecnica, Tahmineh Javanbakht, to talk to her about their work. Artecnica’s Design With Conscience program started with the production of Tord Boontje and Emma Woffenden’s
tranSglass series in Guatemala. This series of vases, carafes, drinking glasses, and candleholders made from recycled wine and champagne bottles, epitomizes Artecnica’s efforts in ethical production. The bottles are collected from recycling plants around Guatemala City, then they are cut and polished by specially trained artisans. These men used to work in the packaging factory that produces the tranSglass series, now they have a highly skilled job making top quality design products that are sold all over the world....

When passing through Matakana seems like a regular small town north of Auckland surrounded by beautiful landscapes and a stunning coast line. However if you get the chance to stop there and spend some time you’ll soon come to realise that things run a little deeper and a little slower in this town. In fact it has been said that Matakana is on it’s way to becoming the first registered Slow Town in Australasia. The
Cittaslow movement started in Italy in connection with the
Slow Food movement that concentrates on protecting the environment whilst promoting local goods and produce. The success of Matakana’s local farmers market shows just how popular the idea of supporting the local food industry is in this community. It is not surprising then that the American chef Dean Betts, who brings years of Slow Food experience to this part of the world, has chosen to open Cosi, his latest restaurant, here....

A mid 1990’s news story from Europe spawned the first car sharing network in Canada in October of 1998. Since then, co-founder Kevin McLaughlin has worked tirelessly on making
AutoShare an affordable and viable option to car-ownership in cities across Canada. His dedication to the environment does not end there, as he has also co-founded
Evergreen, a national NGO aimed at bringing communities and nature together to form a healthy and sustainable environment. Despite these responsibilities, Kevin helps to raise his young son and still finds time to volunteer at a bird and dog rescue program started by his wife. We talked with Kevin about the workings of AutoShare and how he manages to find the time to do so much.
TreeHugger: When talking to new customers, what have been the biggest reasons for signing up with AutoShare?
Kevin McLaughlin: Cost savings, convenience, building an insurance record, going to IKEA, and helping the environment....
Green Key Real Estate is the first and only sustainability-minded real estate business focused on serving the residential market in San Francisco—and one of the first in the U.S. Its president Chris Bartle founded it in 2005. An Ecobroker and associated with the Bay Area Green Business Program, he is dedicated to greening his industry. Chris started selling sustainable businesses, principally in northern California as well as nationally through
The Evergreen Group, a company he still runs. (Previously, he was an agent with Zephyr Real Estate and a management consultant with Ernst & Young.) A pioneer in one of the hottest emerging segments of the industry today, Bartle is a humble but persistent business leader, confidently leading the way in the world of green real estate across the Bay Area. He holds a BS Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University, and an MBA from USF. He is a CA Real Estate Broker and a Certified Advanced Green Building Professional with Build It Green. Bartle spearheads the Sustainable Business Happy Hour, a Green Drinks- associated networking and social event held monthly in San Francisco, and has coordinated it for years....

A less persistent person might have been put off by Joe’s brusque tone on the phone when I rang to ask him for an interview. “I am always being asked for interviews” and “I am very busy” and then came his comment that ‘sustainability’ is just the new “buzz word”. Ouch! This wariness of journalists turning up on his doorstep all of a sudden is understandable when you realise Joe has been working devotedly on
Rainbow Valley Farm for nearly 20 years and on many other sustainability projects around the world for years before that. Joe is a pioneer and it is clear to many of us that society in general has been slow to heed the advice and warnings that people like him have been giving for years. The most amazing thing to me is that in the face of constant adversity there are people like Joe who carry on regardless because they a truly passionate about what they believe in....

Having been given a brief crash course in Permaculture by
Darren on Waiheke Island I decided to find out a bit more about this sustainable farming system by paying a visit to New Zealand’s resident Permaculture guru Joe Polaischer. Joe and his wife Trish Allen have lived in the
Matakana area, north of Auckland, for 19 years. They arrived in their house truck, when Matakana was still a small sleepy village, and bought a large piece of land in a valley that all the local farmers believed to be useless, hence it was going cheap. Today those 20 acres are now some of the most fertile in the surrounding area and
Rainbow Valley Farm has become a worldwide example of what can be achieved by farming with Permaculture principles. Joe is asked to travel all over the world to give lectures and workshops on the subject, but what he loves most is to stay at home and work on his garden. This is where I found him a few weeks ago. Luckily I arrived at lunchtime so Joe was able to spare some minutes of his time to talk to me while we ate lunch, which had been picked straight out of the garden....

AAA of Northern California offers a wide array of automotive, travel, insurance and financial services to more than four million members. AAA has been a leader and advocate for the safety and security of all travelers since it was founded more than 100 years ago. To help build awareness of all the new alternative fuels and vehicles available, AAA of Northern California launched the
Greenlight Initiative. The new program will help motorists make sense of all the new options available and encourage the development of transportation choices. We recently had a chance to chat with Jenny Mack, AAA's spokesperson for the California State Automobile Association (CSAA) and the Greenlight Initiative™....

As we begin to realize the extent to which personal responsibility and action can make a difference in the world around us, Anna Lappé is an inspiring example of just how much one determined individual can accomplish.
Among the many projects that Anna is involved with,
The Small Planet Fund is of particular note. Founded in 2002, The Small Planet Fund is a volunteer-led effort to support courageous movements bringing to life on-the-ground, citizen-led solutions to hunger, poverty, and environmental devastation around the world. As a testament to the Fund's success in the last four years, two of the eight grantees have been honored with Nobel Peace Prizes and the Fund has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars.
For those interested in supporting the Fund's efforts, most of the Fund's money is raised at an annual gala. More information about the Fifth Annual Party and Fundraiser is available at
http://www.smallplanetfund.org/events.html
TreeHugger: Many people encounter a sense of powerlessness or paralysis when confronted by a huge problem. How do you manage to tackle as many projects as you do, and do you have any tips for getting out there and making a difference?
Anna Lappé: I think many of us have this sense of powerlessness because we feel our problems are so huge -- melting ice caps! irreversible species loss! recurring genocides! -- that we feel anything we do would just be a drop in the bucket. But I like to remind people that the more apt metaphor for our feelings of futility would be that we feel we’re drops in the desert: the water dissipates before even touching ground....

On Tuesday, we posted
the first part of an interview with Ian Roderick of
Go Zero, a community intiative based in the village of Chew Magna in South West England. We heard how villagers teamed up to envision a zero waste village, grouping themselves together to address waste and recycling, people and consumption, transport and energy, and the converging world. Specific initiatives included publishing a local food guide, holding a carbon makeover day, and setting up a spin-off company to look at rural mobility issues. In this second part of the interview, we learn how the group's success attracted national media attention, and how they are inspiring other villages to follow in their footsteps. We also learn about an exciting and ambitious initiative that is emerging from the group’s international work:
The groups initial success in mobilising the community in such a short space of time started attracting attention from the media – first local and then national. Both the
Independent and
Guardian newspapers ran pieces on the group, and television crews started showing an interest. While this exposure was, in many ways, good for the group, Ian welcomes the fact that this interest has since died down a little:
“…we were inundated. It was good, but the trouble was it was building up hype and excitement, and that’s not sustainable. We’ve come over that and we are in a steady state of progress. We are all aware that this is a 20 year process, if we have 20 years. You can’t change a village in a year or two. This place is stuffed with SUVs… We’ve got to accept where we are, imagine where we want to be, and plot a path towards that goal.”...

A little while back, we wrote
here about the
Go Zero initiative in the village of Chew Magna in South West England. Now it seems the group is spreading its wings, reaching out to other communities in the area and inspiring them to set up similar schemes. As a spin off project, members of the group are also setting up a national charity called "The Converging World," which will use the carbon offset process to create emissions savings both in the developing world and in the UK. Clearly something very exciting is afoot in this otherwise sleepy corner of Somerset, so TreeHugger decided to pay the village a visit to find out more. We met up in the local pub with Ian Roderick (pictured), an active member of the organisation from the beginning, and he kindly filled us in on the story of Go Zero. The conversation was a lengthy one -- it was a nice pub, he was a nice man, and there was a lot to talk about -- so we've split the interview into two parts. Today's post looks at the history of the group and some of its early initiatives and successes. The second part of the interview, to be posted on Thursday, includes details of the groups future plans, along with Ian's thoughts on how we can all help to avert catastrophic climate change.
According to Ian, the group owes its origins to a series of
Coffee House Conversations, which were set up by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) on the subject of a ‘zero waste’ society. One resident of the village, John Pontin (who also played an key role in setting up Bordeaux Quay, which we reported on
here), is a senior member of the RSA and was actively involved in these meetings. At the same time Chew Magna was going through the process of drawing up a "parish plan." Ian takes up the story:...
"Barny Haughton is a great pioneer and one of the unsung heroes of the organic movement. He has been serving up food which is not only delicious, but local, organic and sustainable since 1988, long before these issues became fashionable."
- Patrick Holden, Soil Association 2006
Barny Haughton is chef and proprietor of
Bordeaux Quay, an exciting and innovative restaurant, bar, bakery and cookery school which we reported on
here and
here and which he set up with business partner and property developer
John Pontin OBE. Prior to setting up Bordeaux Quay, Barny founded
Quartier Vert where he has been cooking, teaching, baking and eating for almost two decades. He has also been deeply involved in campaigning for a more sustainable approach to food and is an active member of the
Slow Food movement. In this interview with Treehugger he discusses the vision behind his latest project, the future of organic and local foods, and sheds a little more light on the ecological building which is home to Bordeaux Quay.
Treehugger: Bordeaux Quay incorporates not just a restaurant, but also a bar, deli, bakery and cookery school. What is the vision behind such an ambitious project?
Barny Haughton: Bordeaux Quay was born from a desire to create a beautiful space to eat; a place where diners and staff alike feel they are making environmentally responsible choices whilst enjoying good food. This model is based on Quartier Vert, my first restaurant in Bristol. Quartier Vert originally housed the bakery and cookery school which have now moved to the bigger space of Bordeaux Quay....

After three weeks of staying with my good friends Laura and Darren at their home on Waiheke Island I thought it was about time that I told you a bit about their life here. 18 months ago they bought what’s known as a lifestyler’s block on the island 30 mins ferry ride from Auckland. Lifestylers, as the name would suggest, are those people who choose to put the way they live their lives ahead of any other priorities that may motivate them. They generally have a strong will to escape city life, to cultivate and to live off the fruits of the land with as little impact on the environment as possible. For me being a city kid, used to the hustle and bustle of Barcelona life, Laura and Darren’s place on the highest and least populated part of Waiheke can seem like the end of the world, albeit the end of the world with spectacular views and air so fresh it burns the lungs – just how the end of the world should be I hear you say! In a series of upcoming posts I want to tell you a bit about how they are trying to live the ‘Good Life’. An eco-wedding, solar panels, organic veggie patch, woofers and a cultural community festival are all part of the package....

Gregor Barnum is the Director of Corporate Consciousness at
Seventh Generation, leading marketers of natural, non-toxic cleaning products and other household goods. Gregor holds a Masters Degree from Yale Divinity School with a focus on ethics. He is a firm believer in rethinking the way we do business, creating institutions that are actually a force for good. He kindly agreed to talk to TreeHugger about the work that Seventh Generation have been doing on envisioning the future of the company. In this interview he shares his thoughts on ethics, organisational change, biomimicry and green consumerism. We also learn a little more about what makes him tick as a person.
This interview was exerpted on TreeHugger Radio number 2, which aired October 12th on
Air America’s EcoTalk. To hear the show, and others, visit
EcoTalk.net.
TreeHugger: We understand that Seventh Generation have been really busy with something called Unfolding the Future. Tell us a little about this project....
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the
if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.