Holiday Extras have just published a 30 page guide highlighting how travellers can help make overseas travel more sustainable.

With contributions from the Travel Foundation, the Guide features expert advice on everything from choosing a destination and the greenest airlines to carbon offsetting schemes and practical tips on making your journey to the airport and hotel stay more environmentally sound. On top of that users of the online guide are also encouraged to contribute their own top tips and comments on green travel. It’s not all about chaining yourselves to trees and being a war paint covered eco-warrior, its the little everyday decisions that can save our planet.”

See more at http://www.holidayextras.co.uk/green-travel.html

Green Phoenix Festival have announced that they are the first UK Festival to gain UN Blue Laurels badge as it is recognised as a United Nations University Regional Centre for Expertise for Education on Sustainable Development (RCE).

The Green Phoenix Festival taking place at Gibside National Trust Estate between 19-22 August and hosts a wide ranging debate and discussion programme run by Dr Caspar Hewett of The Great Debate (http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk).  Just confirmed are Clive Lord, founder member of Green Party, and Tony Allan, Stockholm Water Prize Laureate as high profile speakers taking part in The Great Debate programme (http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/GrPhoenx10.html), Niel Bowerman co-founder of Climatico and the Climate Change Project; Medical Journalists’ Association prizewinner, Rita Carter; Suzy Dean, lecturer and journalist on multi-culturalism, freedom and democracy and Daniel Ben-Ami author of Ferraris for All: In Defence of Economic Progress. Debates at the Festival include: What is sustainable culture?; Energising Innovation; Food and Water Security; Limits to Freedom; Limits to Growth in 21 Century; The Borders of Imagination; The Legacy of Multiculturalism and Are We Masters of our own Destiny? 

Music includes legendary reggae act The Wailers, as well as wonderful world, folk including Martha Tilston, Eily Portman, dub group Zion Train and festival acts Seize the Day, The Baghdaddies, Maybe Myrtle Tyrtle and Diddly Squat, as well as theatre, cabaret and a family friendly area.  Four, three and two day and Sunday tickets available, however the Festival has a new lower capacity of 4,000 people so tickets are very limited. To buy tickets and for the full line up see www.greenphoenixfestival.org.uk

Black Dog have published a new edition of Recycle – The Essential Guide – with new and updated information on the topic that has progressed massively in the last five years.

Recycle is an accessible and comprehensive resource and is fully illustrated with an introduction by Observer columnist Lucy Siegle.  Recycle provides clear information about materials and the process of recycling with a comprehensive international directory of organisations and authorities involve in the recycling process as well as a consumer directory for eco-design and a glossary of recycling terms.

The book contains sections on glass, paper, metal, plastic, domestic and compost and international case studies including Eire’s plastic bag tax and Germany’s Green Dot programme.

Priced at £19.95, you can get a 40% off the price as a discount simply by emailing  jess@blackdogonline.com with a delivery address and quoting “A Greener Festival Offer’  as the subject of your email – Jess can then arrange your order.

Recycle – The Essential Guide is the indispensable handbook to recycling today. With vibrant visuals and a clear, accessible layout, the book is an invaluable resource that tackles everything from the urgency of resource depletion on a global scale to what the individual reader can do to reduce waste in their own home

www.blackdogonline.com