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From hydrogen-powered bicycles and solar panels to Bubble House Worm Farms and organic cotton -- it was a true cornucopia of all things sustainable in the famous O2 Arena over the weekend.
SmartPlanet spent Friday morning walking around the huge exhibition space, talking to pretty much all of the exhibitors. We had a chat with eco designer, Kate Millbank, who has just launched One eco interiors, Barclays tempted us with a Barclaycard Breathe credit card (we resisted), we had our hands cleansed with a lovely organic, herbal cleanser by Liv O'Hanlon from Great Elm Physick Garden, and John Turner from Valeswood ETD intrigued us with his hydrogen-powered bicycle.
Among the other exhibitiors, Nigel's eco store, Seasalt organic clothing company, Tam and Rob Fairtrade fashion label, The Greenhaus online shop and new green discount guide Green Zebra particularly caught our attention, with great-looking eco products and ideas.
Saturday and Sunday also offered talks and lectures by prominent environmentalists such as David Bellamy. Organiser, David Miall, said: "The talks were very popular, and David Bellamy was just fantastic."
With around 9,000 people turning up to have a look at over 50 exhibitors over the weekend, the show was 'massively successful', as the organisers said. Moreover, they have told SmartPlanet that we can look forward to another Sustainability Show next year.
31 October 2007 12:57pm
Dear oh dear oh dear.
The Sustainability Show my a$*e!
They phoned me to ask if Ethical Jobs and the Ethical Directory would be interested in taking a stand so I ran through a few questions about it with them the try and determine what exactly was sustainable about it, who they were trying to attract and how, and ultimately, whether or not it was really "The Greenwash Show".
As much of their profile at that stage was web based, I asked, reasonably enough I thought, whether or not their website was hosted using servers powered directly by renewable energy as this was readily available (see www.ecologicalhosting.com amongst others) and they replied that they were unaware that this was an option.
They agreed that keeping their website up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week using the same amount of power as a 500W security light that was left switched on was a BAD THING and that they would look into it.
Unfortunately they couldn't be bothered and so it is still sitting there, burning carbon, being hosted by names.co.uk who do not offered renewable powered hosting as an option. (I just phoned their sales team to check.)
Now, dear reader, you may think I am being very petty here and that surely it is a GOOD THING that it went ahead and focused attention on the broader issues and yes, you would be right, up to a point.
The problem I have is that when many large organisations are faced with opportunities to cut carbon in a way that does not give them a sales advantage, regardless of how they brand themselves, they just do not take it up.
In this case it would have cost a couple of hundred pounds at most but, because the outlay could not be immediately converted into extras sales they just didn't bother.
Needless to say, we didn't take them up on their offer of a pitch!
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