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Eco Hero: Dale Vince

Anna Guyer | 25.04.10

Dale Vince is a campaigner through and through. He believes we can create a clean, green, low carbon Britain. He has conviction, integrity, vision and an ability to make the extraordinary happen.

Having founded Ecotricity in 1995 with what he once said was "no experience, training, qualifications or money," he has built a business around making a difference.

Today, Ecotricity is the seventh-largest retail supplier of electricity in the UK and one of the biggest builders of wind turbines. The company's 50-plus wind turbines power 40,000 homes and businesses across the UK.

Opinionated and outspoken, Dale Vince never hesitates to speak his mind, which includes exposing green wash and outing the Big Six energy companies on what little they are doing to create new green energy.

Dale puts his money where his mouth is: Ecotricity invests more than £400 per customer per year to build new green energy -- far more than any competitor. He takes a modest salary and refuses outside investment, choosing instead to reinvest the company's profits into building more wind turbines and creating new green energy.

Vince is this edition's Eco Hero for his vision, passion and action toward protecting the environment and creating sustainable solutions. His imagination inspires us - from creating his own green wind powered electric sports car to his plans for a green tractor.

His vision for a green Britain encompasses energy, food and transport to radically change the way we live. (Follow his views on his Zero Carbonista blog.)

Dale Vince: hero indeed. Guest blogger Anna Shepard catches up with him.

How would you describe yourself?
I’m a blend of things, I think we all are. Best fit label wise is probably Environmentalist.

What is your mission?
To change things.

What do you care passionately about?
The environment in all senses of the word.

Why is green so important?
It just feels like the single most important thing on the planet and in life. What could be more precious? The environment is all we have.

What is the next big challenge?
The challenge for consumers is to consume less and consume more responsibly. The challenge for the green movement is to be more ‘user friendly’ to be more appealing and less off putting to ‘would be’ greens.

The challenge for governments is harder – we’re stuck with a system (5 years in office) that reinforces, or even forces, short term thinking among politicians and prevents what really needs doing.

What is the role of government?
Government should be setting the agenda, telling us all what needs doing and why – getting buy in for the tough decisions and changes that need to be made – and for the fight against vested interests that has to be had.

What would you like to achieve in your lifetime?
Not sure. As a perfectionist I don’t think I can have a realistic end game…..:)

What top 3 green/sustainable principles do you live by?
I don’t have any. I think sustainability is axiomatic, it doesn’t require too much thinking about or documentation of principles.

What one thing do you wish everyone would do?
Think more.

What one message/philosophy would you like to pass on to your children?
Life is short. Follow your heart.

How long have we got to save the planet?
I think the notion of a date by which we have to save the planet is misguided and unhelpful. We can’t know what needs doing by when to avoid the worst effects of climate change, for example. And in any event just avoiding the worst effects of that is not enough. To ‘save the planet’ we have to do so much more. It’s a mission of a lifetime, all our lifetimes, no matter how old we are, we all have only our lives within which we can do this.

Who is YOUR Eco Hero and why?
Anita Roddick, for creating the Body Shop and for the stuff she did with it.

Photo: Dale Vince by Adrian Sherratt

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ecotricity, eco hero, dale vince, wind turbine, green energy

EDF NAMED AND SHAMED FOR ITS GREENWASH

Anna Guyer | 17.06.10

Today French nuclear energy giant EDF has launched Green Britain Day.  We need your help to expose EDF's Green Britain Campaign for the greenwash it represents.  EDF is not green, it's not British.  And it spends £20m on marketing Green Britain day which is more than its annual spend on investing in new green energy.  It's a travesty and we are outraged by how EDF is behaving.  Join us to support the Real Green Britain!

Consider the facts ...  

• EDF stands for Électricité de France = the state owned French energy provider
• It operates 8 nuclear power stations in the UK
• It is the world's largest corporate producer of toxic nuclear waste behind the US and Canada
• Its claims around "low-carbon energy" actually refer to nuclear power that has generated 1420 tonnes of high level nuclear waste that will remain a toxic threat to the environment for hundreds of years. 
• Only 1% of EDF's generation capacity in the UK comes from Renewables (Nuclear = 66%, Coal = 28%, Gas = 5%).
• EDF's electricity generated from their coal fired power stations is responsible for over 20m tonnes of CO2 emissions. 
• Over the last 6 years EDF spent a yearly average of £4.98 per customer building new green energy - this puts them in 5th place amongst the 'Big 6'

That's what Green Britain Day is meant to distract us from.

In this morning's London Metro, not one, but twelve pages feature ads for EDF's 'Green Britain Day.' EDF also bought the whole back cover.  Metro didn't do this for free. That's just a tip of the melting iceberg in terms of EDF's greenwash spend. There are also outdoor ads, deals with media partners including Heart FM, ITV, and MSN, and a costly TV campaign.

Frankly, EDF's big-buck advertising budget would be better spent investing in producing cleaner energy and less, say, in buying ads to cover up the company's self-acclaimed role as one of the "one of the largest participants in the global coal market," as the Guardian's Fred Pierce pointed out on last year's Green Britain Day.

So what's a person who really wants to make Britain greener to do?

Switch to Ecotricity, for one. Ecotricity is a British company reinvesting its profits into building more wind turbines and creating new green energy. Ecotricity invests more than £400 per customer per year to build new green energy -- far more than any competitor.

Ecotricity founder Dale Vince is dedicated to real green energy and, together with Greenpeace, is combatting EDF's greenwash.

"Only 1% of EDF's generation capacity here in the UK is from renewables - how come so little? Could it be that EDF spend more time and money on green image making than on green doing - I certainly think so," Vince says. "The truth is that EDF are one of Britain's biggest polluters. They should start a little closer to home if they really want a Green Britain. There's plenty of scope in the 20 Million tonnes of CO2 they pump into Britain's atmosphere each year - for example. We might all take them a little more seriously if they did as they say we should all do - so go on do something for the team EDF."

Ben Ayliffe, head of Greenpeace’s nuclear campaign, said: “EDF’s shameless advertising campaign is little more than an attempt by a French state-owned nuclear monolith to play the British public for fools. There’s absolutely no way it’s a green company. It’s only interested in fleecing taxpayers for billions of pounds to subsidise a new generation of expensive and dirty atomic power stations.

We want to expose EDF for what they are doing. Here are a few ways you can take help:

• 'How about Green France Day?' - why Green Britain Day is a fraud.

• Facebook: Exposing the Great British Greenwash

• Ecotricity: a British company dedicated to turning electricity bills into windmills. Find out how.

• Twitter: Ecotricity ic clocking the greenwash here. 

And finally, check out Mock Green Britain Day where you can design an ad (and see what others have done) to expose EDF. You can win free electricity for a year (up to £500), too. Note that these are some pretty peeved people and not all the ads are safe for work!

Mock Green Britain Day 

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green, ecotricity, green britain day, greenpeace, edf, greenwash

Eco Rally - A Green Car Race from London to Brighton

Sally Hill | 05.07.10

The Bridgestone 2010 Eco Rally takes place this Wednesday 7 July. The race will see a selection of ‘alternatively fuelled’ vehicles travel from Brighton seafront to Hyde Park in London.

This is the fourth year of the event, and will showcase a huge range of vehicles, including electric scooters and motorbikes, the famous Tesla Roadster electric sports car, and a 9-seater electric bus.

Drivers include ethical living columnist for the The Guardian and The Observer, Lucy Siegle, F1 racing drivers including Ross Brawn, and TV personalities Kevin McLeod and Vicki Butler Henderson. Patrick Holden, Director of the Soil Association and Donna Air make up one of the driving teams.

But the car we’re keeping a keen eye on is the ‘Nemesis’ (pictured), developed and driven by Dale Vince of Zero Carbonista and Ecotricity. The Nemesis is a ‘wind car,’ built from an innovative lightweight body and run from a battery which stores power from wind turbines.

Here’s an intro to Dale’s wind car project:

More videos documenting the journey toward making the Nemesis race-ready can be found on Dale’s blog, Zero Carbonista.

Also on the day:

An exhibition at the finish line showcasing the spectrum of green transport innovation, from conception to everyday use.

Imperial Racing Green will announce the winner of the ‘Racing Green Endurance’ competition for students who have built low emissions, hydrogen fuel cell, and battery electric vehicles which have competed in races across the globe.

The UK’s first solar-powered ferry will be taking drivers on a cruise after the race.

The RCA is hosting an exclusive soiree for drivers and partners, which will give a rare insight into the zero waste design process by viewing the RCA’s aerodynamic study for Bentley.

You can follow your favourite team via the Eco Rally site and blog, and stay tuned for Greenhouse’s tweets on the live action of the day.

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green, ecotricity, soil association, wind car, dale vince, eco rally, green car, tesla, lucy siegle

Va Va Voom

Anna Shepard | 05.11.10

Guest post by green writer Anna Shepard

Forget the myth of hair shirts and worthiness that plagues the green movement. Last night, at Somerset House, it was all glitz and glamour, champagne and canapés, and at the heart of it, one very stylish sports car.

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ecotricity, wind car, renewable energy, dale vince, wind energy, nemesis, damon hill

Greenhouse Weekly Roundup

Sally Hill | 07.01.11

'Trendspotting: the next big sustainability issues'
James Goodman and Martin Wright track the trends which will influence the coming year's sustainability debates.
Guardian Sustainable Business

'The Guardian's sustainability naivity'
Chris Milton disagrees and bursts open some interesting arguments based on the Guardian's list.
Sustainability Forum

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ecotricity, soil association, sustainability, food, waste, anaerobic digestion, recession, consumer, sustainable business, electronics