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Eco Hero: Julia Hailes

Anna Guyer | 08.03.10

If working for sustainability of our planet was an Olympic sport, Julia Hailes would be on the podium with a green medal. A tireless advocate for an eco-friendly lifestyle, she dedicated herself to environmental issues long before anyone ever knew it was important, or that we would need to think about it, or it became the fashionable status symbol that some consider it to be today.

The list of her contributions on social, environmental and ethical issues is too long to list here, but you might know her as the author/co-author of nine books on green living, including the best-selling Green Consumer Guide published in 1988, which sold over a million copies.

That book and it's 2007 sibling, The New Green Consumer Guide, serve as veritable bibles of how to live your life in a responsible and green way. Julia highlighted green issues and wrote about solutions before sustainability was a word on the public or boardroom agenda.

As a modern day Robin Hood, Julia leverages the grown-up salary she makes as a green consultant for some of the biggest companies in the country, so she can work for the smaller, less wealth-laden causes about which she is passionate. Currently, she's particularly fired up about supermarket refrigeration and resomation (an alternative form of cremation using water and with less impact on the environment).

I am work-shadowing her at the moment to learn more about sustainability - and on how to be superwoman. I've seen her turn up in comfy clothes, disappear into a public loo at a station, and emerge in smart clothes and quirky boots ready to take on the world. I sit, listen and learn while she tells clients or the minister or the councillor or whomever exactly what she thinks, how it is and what they need to do about it.

She connects people. She is pragmatic. She makes me laugh. She is an inspiration and she shows that you can stay true to your beliefs. She's my Eco Hero, and here are her answers to our Eco Hero questionnaire.

1. How would you describe yourself?

I describe myself as a campaigning consultant. Also, because I do lots of different things I summarise it by saying that "I wear many hats but they're all green.'

2. What is your mission?

Making a difference. When I co-founded SustainAbility with John Elkington, in 1987, we decided that the values of the organisation were like a three pronged stool, with all the prongs being equally important. They were to make money, make a difference and enjoy ourselves while we were doing it. I think that's still a pretty good approach to my work.

3. What do you care passionately about?

Saving the rainforests. It tears my heart out when I see chainsaws ripping through the forests, orangutans clinging to wrecked trees or swathes of tree stumps stretching into the distance. It was my concern for the rainforests that got me into the environmental field. Now I work on a huge range of issues and I'm passionate about many of them. For example, it might be strange to feel passionate about waste but I do. We've become such a disposable society where products and resources are consumed like there's no tomorrow. This has to change.

4. Why is green/eco so important?

Because it's all about the world we're living in. I don't want to live in a brown and dead landscape or in a society like the TV programme Survivors where everyone is at war with each other. Actually, I thought the film Avatar illustrated the contrast between an industrial and consumerist society vs. a green community that values nature. Most of us would prefer to be in the Avatar camp.

5. What is the next big challenge?

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Coalition Government: The Opportunities

Anna Guyer | 14.05.10

Two great things have brightened up the Greenhouse this week.

First, Energy Secretary and Lib Dem Chris Huhne told Radio 4 yesterday that Britain has the greatest potential in Europe for renewable energy.

Despite the fact that he also said that nuclear power plants could still be built in the future -- though without public subsidy -- it's great to hear his thoughts on the vast sources of renewable energy that could be harnessed here:

"I think the most scandalous legacy of the last 13 years is the fact that here we are sitting on the island part of Europe that has the most potential for wind power, for tidal power, for wave power, we are literally have an abundance of potential renewable energy and yet we have one of the worst records of any country in the European Union for generating electricity from renewable."
-- Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy


Second, writer and campaigning consultant Julia Hailes has published a brilliant piece in her blog outlining her own "eclectic green manifesto for the incoming government."

I think Julia has some really good points in this piece and backs them up with an assembly of links and resources that make sense.

Find Julia Haile's Coalition Manifesto here.

The incoming government would do well to listen.

Chris Huhne photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org

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It’s not easy being green…

Richard Lemmer | 25.04.12

Guest blogger Julia Hailes discusses the best way turn a property green...

In 1986, when I bought my London flat, I re-painted and re-carpeted it throughout. Since then it’s had a few minor makeovers, some carried out by tenants, as the property has been rented since 1995. But in 2010 I decided to do a major overhaul – and the key objective was to make the flat as green as possible.

I’ve worked as an environmental consultant for 25 years and have written nine books on eco-issues, including green building. Yet despite all of my experience, I missed “Superhomes” status on this project by just 1 per cent. Superhomes is a scheme that promotes eco-renovation. To obtain their accreditation, the carbon emissions of a property have to be reduced by 60 per cent or more – my rating was 59 per cent.

The pivotal factor in falling short appears to have been my windows. The Victorian sash windows had been in a terrible condition, rattling in places and with large gaps that let the air in and the heat out. I got them repaired and draft-proofed, which did reduce the heat loss, but clearly I should have had them double-glazed.

My mistake was to repair the windows before eco-renovating the entire property. I subsequently discovered that I could have used Slimlite double-glazing in the existing windows. One compensating factor is that I’ve installed insulating blinds throughout the property (although they can only retain heat when they are pulled down).

Insulation is the key to eco-renovation. Given that my flat is at the top of the building, I wondered if I could exclude insulating the floors and instead benefit from the heating in the flats below. “Definitely not,” said my architect, Jerry Tate. There were two reasons why. First, insulation provides acoustic benefits, reducing noise transfer between flats. Second, the flat below could be vacant and would therefore not send warmth through to my floor. Taking account of both performance and eco-credentials, I chose a range of insulation products from Knauf, including glass fibre wall insulation, 85 per cent of which is composed from recycled glass bottles.

Choosing the flooring was one of the most challenging tasks. In the sitting room and kitchen area I wanted something that was durable, sustainable and looked good. I opted for bamboo, one of the fastest growing plants on earth. I chose one that wouldn’t get dented by high heels and so will last a long time. It looks good, too: the bamboo has been squashed flat, so the natural ridges are visible.

Of equal importance is the sensible disposal of waste materials from the flat. Keen to avoid landfill disposal I tracked down DS Smith Recycling, who took all the waste, including carpets, wood and plasterboard, and recycled it. The clean wood was made into chipboard and some of the gypsum powder in the plasterboard was incorporated into new boards.

I started on this project with the huge advantage of being an environmental expert and yet I struggled. Despite using an eco-architect, the research we all had to carry out to find the right products was extremely time-consuming. I am delighted with the end result, and I’m sure it will be cost-efficient to live in, but I don’t think I’ll be able to increase the rent.

Domestic eco-renovation needs to be much easier and more cost efficient if it’s going to make any serious contribution to reducing the UK’s carbon emissions.

A version of this post originally appeared on FT.com

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