Going Green: On right side of green during festival season

This is a great question, it’s also a brilliant example of the way we’re changing our thinking. Taking care of the planet and thinking in an ecological way isn’t just about recycling or using less plastic, it’s having the environment as part of the decision making process in everything we do.

The good news is, yes, you absolutely can enjoy festivals while taking care of green issues but your question raises an interesting point.

Lots of us attend festivals, whether that’s literary ones or music ones and there are over 975 in the UK, but whose responsibility is it to reduce their impact or set an agenda that cares for the planet – is it down to the organisers or the attendees or both? Arguably I’d say both have a direct responsibility.

There’s a lot being done by festival organisers to be green - Nozstock Festival in Herefordshire have introduced a refundable eco bond scheme. Each ticket sold comes with a £5 eco bond that music fans can reclaim when they bring a full bag to the recycling centre on site. Nozstock has competitions for the best dressed tents and tidiest pitches.

Research has found 60 percent of festival goers admit to ditching their tents after festivals – a staggering figure, yet a 3.5kg tent is equivalent to 250 plastic pint cups. Only a quarter of UK festivals have initiatives for you to hire pre-erected tents with only 14 percent of festivals working in partnership with charities collecting tents – that’s a lot of leftover tents that end up in in the bin annually

Decathlon have relaunched their ‘No Tent Left Behind’ initiative. Anyone buying one of their tents for festival use can return it for a gift card for the same value until 13th September this year- no matter what state it’s in.

But it’s not just about what you do or where you stay when you get there. Up to 80 per cent of a festival’s carbon footprint is audience travel. There are lots of train options to get to the major festivals and there are often buses laid on that mean travelling by public transport is an easy option.

Coldplay are headlining Glastonbury this year and announced their carbon footprint after two years of touring is 59 per cent lower thanks to initiatives like kinetic dance floors allowing fans to create energy for the concert through dance, recyclable wrist bands and the band travelling by train. They said in a statement.: “We’d like to thank everyone who’s come to a show and helped charge the show batteries on the power bikes and kinetic dancefloors. Everyone who’s arrived by foot, bike, ride share or public transport; everyone who’s come with refillable water bottles or returned their LED wristband for recycling; and everyone who’s bought a ticket, which means you’ve already planted one of seven million trees so far.” There’s ways to enjoy the things we want to and still keep green living in mind.

Celebrity spot

​Taylor Swift started the United Kingdom leg of her Eras world tour this month. Beginning in Edinburgh before heading to Liverpool, Cardiff, London and Dublin, the 34 year-old singer paused on her first night in Edinburgh in between songs from her Folklore album to joke about the warmth of her on stage cabin. “It’s a beautiful cabin, but terrible insulation,” joked the 14 time Grammy winning artist.

Green Swap

​With the Euros in full swing and the country’s cars bedecked with flags, research has found a car with two small flags creates enough drag to burn an extra litre of fuel every hour it travels at 70mph. Switch flags for bumper stickers.

Charging your way to an eco driving experience

I’m asked a lot about electric vehicles, both in my working world and out and about as I drive one and people are naturally curious.

One of the issues I often hear is from people who want to drive an electric vehicle (EV) but they live in a flat or they don’t have off road parking so they can’t have a charger at home, .

Electric vehicle charging is simple, fast and possible in millions of places as electricity sockets are all around us.

Put simply, charging your EV means attaching the cable that comes with the car to a power supply – it could be at home, a charging point at a service station or in a supermarket car park – and plugging the lead into your car so it charges, a bit like your mobile phone does.

The process takes literally a matter of moments.

Lots of EV owners have chargers at their home and while there are thousands who don’t have driveways, there are so many easy and simple ways to charge your car instead.

Zap Map have a searchable database of chargers in your area. For longer trips,

motorway services all have fast chargers, this means you can have fully charged your car by the time you’ve been to the bathroom, had a coffee and had something to eat.

Depending on the size of the firm you work for, lots of companies have charging ports in their company car parks, so if you don’t, make sure you enquire about one.

Supermarkets have chargers too so you can charge while you get the groceries. There are lamppost chargers springing up across the country too.

Ealing Council is one of the local authorities that have lead the charge – excuse the pun.

They’ve installed around 60 lamppost chargers for residents and listens to proposals from residents for new on street charging locations.

There are also chargers that can be put into the pavement which have been designed specifically for EV owners without their own private parking.

The idea is that the user lifts a lid and can charge their vehicle and the company behind the initiative also sorts out council approval.

There’s also what EV owners lovingly call “Granny charging” or trickle charge which uses the traditional three point plug – like you’d get on a hair dryer – that you can also use to charge, it takes longer – hence the affectionate nick names – but with everything above there’s really no excuse not to consider an EV regardless of your living circumstances.

It’s worth remembering cars are stationary 90 percent of the time so there’s plenty of time to let your EV charge, even if you don’t have a charging point at home.

Ask a friend to show you how they charge their EV.

It really is as simple as just ABC.

Fact or fiction

20 percent of areas planted with wheat are what French farmers could lose due to heavy rainfall since October. Fact. France has had 45 percent more rainfall than average since October causing flooding and landslides on agricultural land.