Archive for July, 2007

Oops. I’ve missed the start of the 5th Annual Homeless World Cup.

Look out for some more coverage on this tomorrow, as Eric Cantona is running a special training clinic today for the 500 players who have traveled from all over the world to Copenhagen to take part.

All of the players in the Homeless World Cup are, yes, you guessed it, homeless, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent their country and change their lives.

77% of the players change for the better – coming off drugs and alcohol, moving into jobs, homes, training, and education. Some have gone even further and are have trained as football coaches or become players.

That makes it a hat trick of good news stories this week about the beautiful game, what with the Lions of Mesopotamia winning the Asian Cup last week, and football having the potential to promote green issues to kids.

Will football save the planet? Not on it’s own it won’t, but if initiatives like this continue to succeed, then it might just save the planet one person at a time.

Support sport making a difference:

» Join the homeless world cup fanclub

» Buy a fair trade football from EthicalSuperstore.com!

» Buy Goal! The story of the Homeless World Cup

This movie documents a simply, unfair story – 2 billion cups of coffee are drunk every day in the £40 billion world coffee market, yet only a handful of powerful corporations including Kraft, Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, Sara Lee, and Starbucks continue to get rich in a coffee trade that exploits coffee growers who earn less than £1 per day.

British filmmakers Marc and Nic Francis follow the fate of a group of coffee growers from the Sidamo area of Ethiopia along with their co-operative, lead by Tadesse Meskela who campaigns for fair prices on their behalf.

The documentary shows how far apart the winners and losers are in the coffee trade, with the filmmakers contrasting images of consumers nonchalantly sipping lattes in cozy cafes vs. women picking coffee beans for endless hours for a salary smaller than the price of a single latte, then their children get turned away for malnutrition treatment because they’re not yet sick enough.

The filmmakers also point to signs of emerging solutions. The fair-trade movement led by Fairtrade Labelling Organisations has created a system for coffee farmers to earn fair prices, which has achieved strong support among consumers in the UK and Europe – hopefully this film will help awaken a market of support in the U.S.

Fairtrade has begun to help some farmers financially, but for millions, the hope for a better future is still a distant one – as evidenced in the film where the first Fairtrade payment earned by the cooperative wasn’t enough to build the school the farmers so wanted for their children.

As the film was not produced with the pace or narrative intensity of a Michael Moore film or of the acclaimed An Inconvenient Truth, it leaves the audience with ample opportunity to reflect in their own thoughts and emotions about potential answers to the Black Gold problem. In addition to putting our ethical purchasing power to work by drinking more fair trade coffee from fair trade organisations such as Cafédirect, Traidcraft, and Equal Exchange, how about helping coffee farmers constitute, finance and manage super-cooperatives? Then they’ll have the power to stand-up to the multinationals to accelerate and extend their rise from poverty.

The farmers of the developing world deserve more than just a better future.

78 minutes, UK/USA (2006)
www.blackgoldmovie.com

» Watch the trailer for Black Gold on YouTube

Here’s a heart warming tale from banana producer Dole Organics. Each banana has a three digit code printed on a sticker that is pasted onto the banana. Type the three digit code into Dole’s website and it will tell you where your banana has originated from.

Dole Organic banana fan Amanda Shepard did just that, and was so impressed that she was moved to write to the banana growers of the Don Pedro Farm in Colombia to thank them for their excellent fruit.

And guess what? The farmers wrote back!

http://doleorganic.blogspot.com/2007/06/system-works.html

Did you know that ex-England goal keeper David James has turned into is¹ a bit of an eco-warrior?

The Portsmouth stopper is keen to strike an ethical compromise between success and consumerism.

James has converted his Chrysler car to run on rapeseed oil or “grow your own fuel,” as he calls it.

He also recycles, grows his own vegetables, is restoring his Devon farmhouse and set up the David James Foundation to nurture sustainable agricultural projects in Malawi.

Which reminds me, there’s a really good post over at Home Truth all about the football factory and how in West Africa…

“A young footballer can be worth much more than a diamond……It is the new slave trade. The reality for most young players is further poverty and abuse……”

Can football save the world? I doubt it, but so long as there are clubs like Dartford Town (first eco stadium) and Manchester City (installing a wind turbine) then at least it’s a step in the right direction.

:: Get involved! – Sign up for green electricity with Ecotricity and EthicalSuperstore.com

:: Read more – Can football save the planet? via BBC News.

:: 1. ^{^} David James occasionally writes for The Grauniad. Here he is, writing about the wind turbine at Manchester City.

Did you ever watch that BBC2 series called “It’s Not Easy Being Green”, with moustachio’d ex Army, ex Scrap Heap Challenge General Lieutenant-Colonel Dick Strawbridge¹?

It was all about Strawbridge and his family moving to Cornwall and trying to live a low impact life. The episode I watched was all about building a solar heat sink that would keep Dick’s greenhouse toasty warm throughout the night.

Which brings us on to Renewable Energy UK. This is an awesome site, all about building DIY projects just like the Lieutenant-Colonel’s heat sink.

I think I’ll have to start saving up my aluminium cans to build my own solar air heater.

:: http://www.reuk.co.uk

Spotted this range of limited edition, organic, fairly traded t-shirts:

:: http://www.tshirtart.eu

Speaking of T-Shirts, watched this video on YouTube all about manufacturing Organic Cotton T-shirts in Palestine.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5YaQ9MZ4WE[/youtube]

Hopefully, we can get some of them soon. Right now, we’ve got their range of 100% sweatshop and cruelty free, 100% vegan trainers, so click on the link to see the No Sweat products already available from EthicalSuperstore.com

Also added to the blogroll this week:

Butterfly Treasures – Neat little site that stocks gifts and accessories.

:: http://www.btgiftsandaccessories.co.uk

Mondomudi blog – Fair Trade Phil’s blog, news and views from around the ecosphere.

:: http://www.mondomundi.com/blog/

Environmental Graffiti – UK blog, well written and featuring some great content.

:: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/

¹Thanks Wikipedia

A group in Newcastle is at the forefront of a new way of campaigning which looks to tap into popular culture to get the message across about issues such as trade justice, arms control and climate change. Oxfam Outreach attends gigs, festivals and other events, simply talking to people and spreading the message.

Having recognised that music fans are often sympathetic to their aims, Oxfam Outreach have harnessed this potential, and used it to great advantage. So far, teams of Outreachers have campaigned at gigs such as Snow Patrol, Embrace, Richard Ashcroft, BellX1, Kaiser Chiefs, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Cooper Temple Clause and How Ethical! favourite, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly , as well as events such as the Newcastle Mela and Newcastle Green Festival. Upcoming events include festivals such as Womad, V-Festival, and many more. They are also keen supporters of the Just Fair Laughs comedy night, which takes place in Shearer’s Bar on the first Sunday of each month, and aims to raise awareness through comedy.

North-East Outreach Co-ordinator Heather Duff said “Campaigning is fun and it really does work. It’s a great way to get people involved, and we find that the response rates at the events are fantastic”.

In return for their hard work, Outreachers are provided with free gig and event tickets, as well as a feeling of a job well done. If you are interested in getting involved contact Heather Duff on outreachne@oxfam.org.uk or sign up on their website at www.oxfam.org.uk/outreach, which also contains more information on the programme.

For those not in the North East, there are also Outreach programmes in London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds and Scotland, and more information can be found on the website.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z33rsBDw0B8[/youtube]

Woolworths have come bottom of the latest Greenpeace league table of light bulb retailers, mainly because they won’t make a commitment to phase out inefficient bulbs.

Watch the highly amusing video and then write to Trevor Bish-Jones (CEO of Woolworths) by clicking this link:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/woolworths

You can even give your local store a ring and ask some of these questions.

Good work Greenpeace, you’ve just won the first ever How Ethical! Weekly Award for the Best Use of YouTube for Encouraging People to Take Action and Furthering the Green Cause.

Huzzah!

I had the pleasure of spending the past weekend at the Latitude Festival, on the beautiful Henham Park Estate, in Southwold, Suffolk. It was a superb festival, to say the least, and the sun shone all weekend, so the wellies stayed firmly in the rucksack, which was nice after the muddy mess that was Glastonbury.

What really made me smile this weekend was that the festival has made a huge effort to reduce its impact on the environment by introducing a number of new measures, some of which are just genius. The biggest change was in the way the bars worked. Obviously festival goers are a thirsty bunch, and go through a fair few pints of beer / cider / lager / whatever. One of the biggest problems with this is that it is normally served in single-use plastic glasses which end up strewn around the site making a mess and causing problems for the litter-pickers. By introducing a re-usable, more durable plastic glass, for which they asked a £2 deposit, the organisers ensured that the beautiful parkland was not blighted by this most common of problems, and that less plastic ended up in landfill. Why it hasn’t been done before, I don’t know.

The other big change was the introduction of a three bin system for waste. Festival-goers were asked to split there waste into ‘Recyclable’, ‘Compostable, and ‘Neither’, a system which was well adhered to, and by the end of the weekend the ‘Neither’ bins were by far the most empty. Another scheme to bring back next year then.

Transport was also looked at, and recognising the fact that public transport is one of the most environmentally friendly ways to get to the festival, a day-ticket holder campsite was introduced, which allowed those who weren’t camping all weekend to camp for one night, and use public transport to get home the next day, as evening buses around Southwold aren’t all that regular.

All in all, Latitude seems very keen to promote green issues, and the steps taken this year will no doubt be adopted by other Mean Fiddler festivals in the future, and I look forward to them being the norm, rather than the exception.

Here’s a neat site that helps you share the message about switching to low energy compact fluorescent light bulbs.

www.asimpleswitch.com

Which reminds me, I need to buy a new bulb. The last old skool bulb in my house has now blown.

It’s handy for me that EthicalSuperstore.com stock a whole range of energy efficient bulbs for lots of different applications!

www.ethicalsuperstore.com/tags/bulbs

From the number of requests we get for linking to us we know that not only do you love shopping with us, but you want to tell your friends and family too.

To make it easier we’ve created some “badges” that you can pop on to your website.

EthicalSuperstore.com/link-to-us

If you’ve got something interesting to say on your site about organic, green or fair trade issues, then we’ll include a link back to you from How Ethical!

Email linktome@howethical.com for more information.