Latest helpfulness...
Self-checking tyres
Thanks to a spate of recent publicity, including a high-profile TV ad campaign, we all know that saggy tyres mean fewer miles per gallon.
After X and Y: the Micro Generation?
Fancy following in the footsteps of David Cameron and George W Bush?
Top five blogs to help you save energy
Saving energy is, if you’ll excuse the analogy, not like turning off a light switch.
Wind of change blowing through old homes?
Amid all the hype over new “eco-towns” and carbon-neutral building, the fact that we’re stuck with a lot of old, distinctly leaky housing stock seems sometimes to be forgotten.
What will a HIP do for your house?
Home Information Packs (HIPs) have finally come into force, after years of wrangling and a few months of near-farce.
Nice carbon calculator, if you can find it
The government is doing its best to come up with tools we can use to learn about our effect on the environment, and hopefully minimise it. Back in June, DEFRA launched a great carbon calculator for the home. In mid-July it followed up with an entertaining environmental game.
The low-carbon home that just isn’t green enough
It’s bad news for the owners of the Roundhouse, known as one of the UK’s ‘greenest’ homes. Despite its rather dainty carbon footprint, it’s set to be demolished - apparently because it’s not of “positive environmental benefit”.
Heat turns on patio fires
Patio heaters have sprung up outside pubs and in back gardens like flame-toting toadstools in recent years. But in an increasingly energy-conscious society, they’re a conspicuously inefficient way to burn fossil fuels.
Offsets get the green light
Alongside the reformation of the Spice Girls, the idea that we can pay a little extra to make up for our pollution is one of this year’s most contentious issues. Now the government has weighed in, simultaneously supporting the concept of carbon offsetting while having strong things to say about the current provision.
Progress, 1930s style
There’s an interesting story in last weekend’s Times that DEFRA is funding a project to develop recyclable car parts from hemp fibres.
