Claire said “Festival Wood is a positive reforestation initiative from A Greener Festival. It is not an offset scheme. Festival Wood is an opportunity for the festival community to give something back to the great outdoors that we love to enjoy. A festival legacy that will grow and grow and be there for future generations”

Dundreggan will be a very different place in 50 years time. Natural woodland, with open glades intermingled with denser areas, will stretch up from the banks of the River Moriston. This diverse forest of oak, pine, aspen, hazel, juniper and birch will grade into montane scrub that will cover much of the higher slopes. Wildlife flourishing in this abundant woodland habitat will include red squirrel, capercaille, European Beaver, wild boar, osprey, badger, black grouse and wood ants. The wild boar were hiding when the AGF team got there – they tried to find them! Twinflower, creeping ladies tresses and other rare woodland plants will thrive. The forests of Dundreggan will no longer be isolated, but part of a larger expanse of native woodland from Glen Affric Nature Reserve in the north to Glan Moriston, and the shores of Loch Ness in the south east – a new Caledonian Forest.

More here http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/groves/festival_wood.php  and you can make  individual donations online – and more festival donations – and supplier donations – would be most appreciated!

Photo: Claire, Ben and Helen at Dundreggan planting Trees, May 8th 2012. A big “thank you” to Rosie for looking after us!

The organizers place great emphasis on regionality and sustainable event management and in cooperation with students from the Academy, Baden-Wurttemberg and the Green Music Initiative (including advising the Melt! Festival and the Berlin Music Week), an environmental management system has been developed for the May Field Derby. This green master plan is titled “Greener Maifeld Derby” and summarizes a package of measures that improve the environmental performance of the festival now and to improve in the coming years, piece by piece.

Among the highlights of the green measures for 2012 are:

* Bicycle Rodeo May Field – a bike ride to the festival site, followed by secret concert for all participants
* Additional local buses for night departure from the festival site
* Matching car-sharers with passengers
* The purchase of green power for the festival site
* Increased use of energy-saving LED technology for lighting the stage
* Intelligent, fuel-efficient power amplifier systems
* Locally based  catering with a high proportion of vegetarian dishes
* Discounted bike (pedal-power generation) in the Green Music Lounge
* Environmentally sound printed materials
* More online marketing, less flyer
* Eco-fair Merchandising
* Waste reduction and waste separation

For more information go to  http://www.maifeld-derby.de/2012/greener.htm 

Sainsbury’s is shrinking the volume of its own-brand toilet rolls – a packaging move which it claims will take 500 lorries off the road each year. The retailer is the first company reduce the diameter of the inner cardboard tube on every roll by 12mm, cutting the number of delivery lorries required by the equivalent of 140,000kg of CO2. However it was quick to allay fears that consumers might be short-changed by the move. On-pack information will reassure customers that each roll contains the same number of sheets and the same quality.  And Nike has revealed plans to lightweight its shoebox packaging in a bid to cut the weight of the cardboard by 10% and generate cost savings through less material use.

More on retail – Puma has launched an in-store footwear and clothing takeback scheme across all of its stores and outlets in Germany. Its Bring Me Back programme – which will be rolled out globally next year – follows on the heels of Marks & Spencer’s Shwopping scheme launched last week by Joanna Lumley.  Under the initiative customers will be able to drop off any style or brand of clothing, shoes and accessories for reuse, upcycling, or remanufacture.

The UK Government has pledged to develop a National Adaptation Plan (NAP) dealing with climate change impacts on the marine environment.   The announcement, made by Marine Environment Minister, Richard Benyon, followed the release of data from the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) which focuses on how climate change is affecting fish and shellfish in British seas. MCCIP’s report identified both opportunities and threats in the marine environment, linked to climate change. It also highlighted potential social and economic consequences of the changes which are taking place.  “Climate change is having a big impact on the distribution of fish stocks and this is going to present some significant challenges for policy-makers, fisheries managers and for the fishing industry itself,” said Richard Benyon, adding that the new NAP would address key marine environment concerns.

England’s municipal recycling rate now stands at 42.5%, showing a slight improvement over the past 12 months, according to latest figures released by Defra.

Harpenden in Hertfordshire is the new frontline in the ongoing battle over GM crops with activists threatening to target the wheat being grown at the Rothampstead research station. The wheat is described as a ‘eco-friendly’ GM crop and produces chemicals which ‘frighten off’ aphids and attract aphid predators such as ladybirds and wasps.  Opponents say the wheat proses a real risk to British farming and could pollute other crops.  a day of action is planned for May 27th.
More on bees – the Telegraph (indeed that right wing bastion of sense and reason to its readers) reports on the risk from neonicotinoids “the nerve poison harming our bees’. Neonicotinoids  are used as a pesticide – often used to coat seeds – and are the fastest growing insecticide in the world – with sales over 1.5 euros in 2008 – and used both in farming and in gardens and Thiacloprid is an active ingredient in Bayer Provado.  But the chemicals et into the pollen and nectar and whilst they may not immediately kill the bee they give it a massive ‘hangover’ – often meaning the bee gets lost (and dies) or reduces its effectiveness so bee colonies don’t produce enough food in the long term and starve.  Research from the University of Exeter showed honey bee’s performance went down by 6% to 16% when exposed to the sort of neonicotinoid dose they would get when foraging in oilseed rape. Research from the University of Strling shows that bumble bee colonies grow more slowly when exposed to neonicotinoids and produce fewer queens – and make the bees lethargic and reluctant to forage. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/9257431/The-nerve-poison-harming-our-bees.html

In Peru, coffee farmers are facing real problems from climate change with newly unpredictable weather and wildly differing rainfalls. And the problem is made worse by deforestation. Now Cafédirect  is using the global carbon market to encourage farmers to plant more trees above the coffee plantations where they have been removed – and the trees will capture carbon – which in the future can be traded as a carbon credit, for the benefit of the community. If Cafédirect’s project succeeds it could provide a blueprint for indigenous communities all over the world. Peru’s vice president, Marisol Espinoza, said: “Climate change is a huge worry for us in Peru and we hope this initiative in Sierra Piura can be rolled out to other regions too. It is so important because Peruvian coffee is special. It protects biodiversity, and it’s about development of whole communities. It also has an amazing aroma and taste. That’s the taste of social justice.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/13/peru-coffee-climate-change-carbon-trading

A drive by businesses in Ireland to improve energy management has seen them save more than €150m in energy costs, according to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).

Consent has been given for what’s claimed will become the ‘highest generating capacity’ onshore wind farm anywhere in England and Wales. Consisting of 76 turbines and scheduled to generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of up to 206,000 homes a year, the newly approved farm is the Pen Y Cymoedd 299MW development, located between Neath and Aberdare in South Wales.

Edie.net reports that a new UK approach to Emissions Trading has gone out to consultation with the promise of cutting ‘red tape’ and saving businesses both time and money.   The new plan centres on the creation of a single regulation for the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), replacing the 13-part process which is currently in use. It’s also suggested that small emitters and hospitals will be given the opportunity to ‘opt out’ of EU ETS altogether from 2013, moving instead into a lighter touch alternative scheme.

The UK legal sector has reduced its carbon emissions by nearly 35,000 tonnes in 2011, according to a new report from the Legal Sector Alliance (LSA) which shows emissions have declined steadily over the last three years, with the period showing an average reduction of 18%, compared with 12% over the previous three-year reporting period.  Launched in 2007, the LSA aims to take action on climate change by following seven principles including; reducing the carbon footprint of their operations, integrating awareness of climate change across business and engaging in public debate on climate change.

EU member states need to stop “watering down” their energy efficiency proposals and recognise the potential for job growth, according to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

A Leicestershire pig farm has taken advantage of a Government planning exemption on small-scale renewables schemes on farms by installing solar panels to run its pig feeding facilities.  Lodge Farm has installed a 39.6kWp solar photovoltaic system.  This is expected to generate more than 34,153 units of green energy per year for use on the 320 acre site and provide £11,236 in tax-free income from the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme.

The results will be published later this year.

THANK YOU. The Greener Festival Team

A smartphone wheelie bin application to notify householders of changes in waste collection services will be launched by two of England’s top performing recycling councils this summer. The Binfo app, which will go live in time for the Jubilee weekend on 2-5 June, will be available for Android and iPhone users and has been designed to alert residents to new recycling services as well as service changes.

The UK’s Green Party says that the UK’s drought status and hosepipe ban during a period of torrential rain is the result of mismanagement by water companies who said that the current water restrictions demonstrate an urgent need for better water management by companies, as well as for climate change issues to be addressed. The Green Party also called for water companies to tackle leaks, which it says will save water, reduce costs and provide thousands of jobs. And Scottish Lib Dem MEP George Lyon says that Europe’s need to increase food production is being blocked by energy and water constraints saying the last time the ERU needed to improve food production “In the 1950s and 60s unused land was put into production, poor land was improved, lots of water was used for irrigation and energy, which was dirt cheap at the time, was thrown at the problem,” adding “The challenge today is to achieve the same output boost while trying to reduce the amount of energy and water used in production and doing so without any new land being available.”

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has come under fire from leading environmental figures after what was heralded as a keynote green economic speech was downgraded. Reacting to the speech made by the Prime Minister at the Clean Energy Ministerial in London, a number of green NGOs, businesses and politicians have disputed claims that new policies and reforms enacted by the Coalition have been responsible for driving the UK’s green economy.  Labour shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint MP criticised the PM for failing to deliver a “proper” speech, saying it demonstrated the Government’s real lack of support for the green economy.  Energy secretary Ed Davey launched the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) by pledging that the UK would develop a policy framework with ministers worldwide that supports clean tech innovation.

Sustainability may be past the toddler stage but it’s not much more grown up than that, according to Forum for the Future deputy chief executive Dr. Sally Uren. Speaking at the ‘Sustainable Business in Practice’ conference Dr Uren said that while “sustainability language” had hit the mainstream that she wasn’t sure it was fully embedded in business as “if it was we would be much closer to a sustainable economy”. Rather, she said that sustainability is in its “teenage years as it has had a growth spurt and got us to where we are now.” It has also left the toddler stage where people didn’t really understand it”, she added saying it is “coming of age”.  And in the wake of the Clean Energy Ministerial in London, Lib Dem peer Lord Redesale who is chair of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, said that while the coalition has set out an ambitious goal to be the ‘greenest Government ever’ and made some positive steps that progress towards renewables remains “painfully slow”.  NHS hospitals have been told that they could make significant savings in the future by tapping into the waste they produce to power their sites as part of a decentralised energy strategy.  This is according to MITIE, a leading outsourcing firm, which is working with a number of NHS trusts to improve their sustainability ratings.

Edie.net reports that twelve EU regions are to join forces to develop a common framework in a bid to improve the consistency of recycling and recovery rates across Europe.  The partnership project ‘Regions 4 Recycling’ (R4R) will run over three years and will formulate a methodology for waste data observation, selective collection and recycling rates that will enable participating regions to share best practice to improve their recycling performance. Countries involved include France, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Romania, Estonia and Ireland. So far, there is no UK involvement.

Subject: 24 hours to save the bees

Dear friends,

Bees don’t just make honey, they are vital to life on earth, every year pollinating 90% of plants and crops — with an estimated $40bn value, over one-third of the food supply in many countries. Quietly, globally, billions of bees are dying, threatening our crops and food. But if Bayer stops selling one group of pesticides, we could save bees from extinction. Four European countries have begun banning these poisons, and some bee populations are already recovering. But Bayer, the largest producer of neonicotinoids, has lobbied hard to keep them on the market. Now, massive global pressure from Avaaz and others has forced them to consider the facts — and in 24 hours, Bayer shareholders will vote on a motion that could stop these toxic chemicals.

Let’s all act now and shame the shareholders to stop killing bees. The pressure is working, and this is our best chance to save the bees. Sign the urgent petition and send this to everyone – let’s reach half a million signers and deliver it directly to shareholders tomorrow in Germany!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/bayer_save_the_bees/?vl

Please Sign the urgent petition to Bayer shareholders now, then forward this email:  http://www.avaaz.org/en/bayer_save_the_bees/?vl

Firefly has also announced that it will be providing sustainable power at  three new festivals

Lunar Festival 1st-4th June 2012
Tanworth in Arden, Umberslade Estate, Warwickshire

WOWFest 17th-19th August 2012
St Martin’s Down, Isle of Wight

Nova 5th-8th July 2012
Bignor Park, Pulborough, West Sussex

And Firefly have been invited back to the Great Escape in Brighton and are set to produce an outdoor stage due to be sited on Jubilee Square. Heralding the start of the UK festival season, The Great Escape now in its sixth year, returns to Brighton with a merry throng of international and UK music acts in but a few short weeks from now. From the 10th -12th of May, the City of Brighton will host over 300 bands playing in 30 venues over the 3 days of the festival. Headliners this year include Maximo Park, The Temper Trap and Booka Shade

The Campaign for a More Sustainable Olympics (CAMSOL) has admitted that it was behind a fake London 2012 Olympic Games press release saying  oil and gas giants BP has been dropped as a sustainability partner. Both the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and BP have fervently denied this is true – instead slamming the release as a hoax.  Speaking to edie.net a BP spokesperson said the press release as entirely false, saying “it’s a complete hoax – the release doesn’t come from LOCOG or obviously BP”, adding that “we know it’s a hoax and will be continuing to tell people so”.  There has been series of disappointing news stories from the Olympics which is a shame (and a missed opportunity) – and the latest is that Despite a commitment to a zero waste Olympic games, shops and suppliers at London 2012 will be able to hand out plastic bags to visitors. According to packaging guidelines issued by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), official London 2012 licensees, shops and suppliers will use plastic bags made form low density polyethylene (LDPE).

However ……. the London Legacy Development Corporation  have said that the London 2012 Olympic Games legacy will set a benchmark for sustainable living with the creation of a park complex built to zero carbon and waste standards.   After the Games the Corporation will develop the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, a 225 hectare site housing up to 8,000 homes, five sporting venues, with 45 hectares of bio-diverse habitat and a network of pathways, cycle routes and waterways.  The homes on the park will utilise energy-efficient home appliances which should lead to a 15% reduction in emissions from energy use by residents over a five-year period.  All timber products used during the construction process will be sustainably sourced and major materials will feature a 25% minimum recycled content.

This really is ‘ANOTHER PLANET’ ! Running out of resources – mine asteroids? Sound like science fiction but Avatar director James Cameron is one of a number of big name investors behind a new company called Planetary Resources which plans to research the possibility of using robot ships to mine rocks in space – which may have a potential value of up to 12.4 Trillion EACH – and there are some 7,500 already indentified. The consortium includes Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Microsoft Chairman Charles Simonyi. Image: NASA.

The UK has been singled out for its success in “drastically reducing” the amount of municipal waste sent landfill over the past decade – but it still lags behind Europe’s best performers. A European Commission (EC) report found that between 2002 and 2009, the UK cut the amount of waste going to landfill from 464kg per capita to 259kg but despite this, it remains well behind countries such as Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Sweden who all landfilled less than 3% of their municipal waste in 2010, compared to the UK’s 48%.

Shale oil gas – it has highly environmentally destructive mining techniques which run the risk of creating earthquakes and which release methane and which also pollute or water – so surely a big NO? Well – maybe – Charles Clover argues in the Times (Sunday 22^nd April) that until renewable energy sources are developed and catch up with demand, we need to think about the use of gas as beneficial – as the quickest way of cutting carbon emissions in most big economies is by “converting from coal to gas which produces half as much carbon dioxide as coal”.  It’s all in “This shale rage is threatening to put out the lights”.

Investment in the UK’s clean energy sector made a strong comeback last year – growing by 35% after struggling in 2010 – with offshore wind “poised” to create significant future investments.  A new report ‘Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race?’ by the Pew charitable trust says that investment in 2011 reached £5.89bn ($9.4bn) – up from £4.36bn ($7bn) in 2010 when it slipped from third place to thirtieth as investment fell.

Engineering professor Julia King, vice-chancellor of Aston University had predicted that over 2 million engineering jobs could be created over the next decade as the UK looks to cut carbon emissions to meet key targets,  King, who advises the Government on education and technology issues and is a non-executive director of BIS, said “Engineering is crucial to our quality of life and to combating climate change.” And Edie.net reports that the UK must act now if it wants to take the lead in smart grids and create thousands of high skilled jobs.  The research by Ernst and Young for the SmartGrid GB group, a stakeholder group of 23 businesses, claims that the UK could be at the forefront of smart grid technology if it takes an innovate approach and acts quickly and this could help create around 10,000 high skill jobs and contribute £13bn to the economy by creating a £5bn export market.

Shell is developing low-carbon biofuels from inedible plants and crop waste that could potentially be blended at higher concentrations with petrol and diesel. The company’s biofuels research team is working with biotech firms and academic institutions across the world on the flagship project in a bid to commercialise its R&D work in this field.  However it admits the research being carried out is highly complex and poses “considerable challenges” and says not every process being developed will become commercially available.

Two-thirds of the top performing councils that operate a dry recycling household collection service in Britain are adopting a co-mingled approach. The findings from a WYG report found that 20 out of 30 leading recycling authorities considered co-mingled collections to be more cost-effective and generated higher recycling rates than separating materials out at the kerbside.  The research, which was part funded by Biffa and trade body PlasticsEurope, will further fuel the long-running debate over co-mingled versus source-segregated collection schemes.

Good to hear that Jenny Dawson is using food waste from London’s new Covent Garden (basically perfectly good food that has not been sold by wholesalers) and is making chutneys from the fruit and vegetables for her new business , Rubies in the Rubble. the 7.2 million tonnes of annual foodwaste in the UK has traditionally gone into landfill where it decomposes producing CO2 and methane – and global warming.

Sticking with food … the British Hospitality Association (BHA) has joined forces with Specialist Waste Recycling (SWR) in a bid to improve the management of waste streams at hotels, restaurants and food service providers As part of the new partnership, SWR will provide businesses in the hospitality industry with tailored waste management schemes to help them better manage and reduce their waste.

Want to invest in green energy? There is a new scheme set up by Abundance Generation bridging the gap between members of the public and renewables projects that need funding. The first project is a £1.3 million wind turbine in Gloucestershire that will provide power for 500 homes. The inimum investment is just £5 – and the maximum £50,000!

Naughty boys: The UK’s South West Water (SWW) has been fined £16,000 after polluting the Tamar Estuary with poor quality sewage effluent. The company pled guilty to four water pollution offences at Plymouth Magistrates. SWW also had to pay £4,211 in costs.

One year after piloting the bike industry’s first carbon fibre recycling program, Trek Bicycle has recovered over 31,750kg of material from its manufacturing facility in Wisconsin, US. The bike manufacturer entered into a partnership with Materials Innovation Technologies to divert the fibre from landfill through a closed loop production process.

A four-star Welsh hotel has installed a £0.5m biomass plant on site in a bid to generate its own biomass fuel and cut its energy bills. The new 600Kw renewable energy system at the Tre-Ysgawen Hall Country House Hotel and Spa in Anglesey aims to reduce the hotel’s £200,000 a year energy bills by nearly 50%.

In fact, Energy-from-waste (EfW) has the potential to meet a third of Britain’s domestic gas demand according to new research. However in order to exploit this opportunity, a further 80 EfW facilities need to be built by 2020, on top of the 30 already operating in the UK.

The UK and US are set to forge a new agreement on greener energy initiatives, with a floating wind turbines project kicking off the partnership. The agreement forms part of the Clean Energy Ministerial talks which sees energy ministers from 23 of the world’s leading economies gather in the capital to discuss the transition to clean energy technologies.

I’ve just come across CleanTech Solutions , an interesting blog by Salman Zafar – its full of interesting blogs and reblogs – and you can find out more about Salman and topics as diverse as recycling aluminium, waste to energy (or EfW!) and biomass energy in South East Asia at Salman’s Infobahn at http://www.salmanzafar.org/

And finally, can we pass on AGF’s congratulations to Edie.net  reporter Carys Matthews who completed the Brighton Marathon in the super fast time of three hours and thirty minutes – and raised £690 for our friends at WaterAid in the process. Go Go Go Team Green!

The campaign is designed to bond people with their portable homes and encourage them to reuse instead of discarding them. Left behind tents causes a huge problem for many festivals each year – not to mention the environmental impact.

Sign up to Love Your Tent on Facebook here:

See www.loveyourtent.com for more information.

Here are some initiatives that Bestival & Camp Bestival are running:

– Summary of Green Initiatives at Bestival
One page PDF with outlining the key initiatives being employed by Bestival & Camp Bestival to reduce their carbon footprint.
– Free Tea For All (and other ways to keep Bestival green & tidy)
A free cup of tea for bringing the rubbish around your tent to a recycling pen and a list of other ways that Bestival & Camp Bestival encourage their audience to be green.
– Tomorrow’s World Field
Read more about the Science Tent, the Farmers Market and the chill out deck chairs provided by The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust.
– Campsite Hubs 2012
Rob da Bank’s introduction to the chalet hubs present in each camp-site.