Eats plants
In his book, Do No Evil, Michael Berumen writes that ethical judgements are universal and apply just as much to business as to any other social venue. He argues that death and suffering are evil or immoral and that this is universal; not subjective. For instance, in his chapter on the environment he says businesses… Continue reading People who make the world a better place
A third UK pet food manufacturer has released an insect-based cat food this year. Yora has been making insect-based dog food for a little while but the cat food was taking a while to materialise. I contacted them about it over a year ago now and they told me they were working on it. I… Continue reading Victoria gives Yora’s insect-based cat food the paws-up
Refilleries are popping up everywhere in Aberdeen; soon we'll need two hands to count them all. A refillery is a type of grocery store that allows you to refill containers with food and cleaning products as a way to reduce single-use plastics. It's heartening to see there's increasingly more choice for consumers because it means… Continue reading Refillosophy
Sometimes I feel sad about the world. I read the things people say online and I feel despair. What hope is there for us? Some people try to do the right thing and reduce their impact on the planet but what good is it when everyone else is more interested in their taste buds than… Continue reading The world needs more Bens
Last month for the first time ever I was impressed with the Aberdeen city council for installing European-style bike lanes at the beach. This was a first for Aberdeen which is an oil city with a transport strategy straight out of the 1970s. The bike lanes were built with funding from the Sustrans Spaces for… Continue reading I can’t even begin to desribe my frustration and disappointment with Aberdeen city council … again
David Hembrow is an Englishman who lives in the Netherlands and writes a blog called A view from the cyclepath. He also has a You Tube channel about cycling infrastructure. He's very good at making observations about people, transport, and infrastructure and drawing conclusions from what he sees. This video is a very good one… Continue reading Pavement cycling
Do you remember that scene in Bridget Jones's Diary where Renée Zelleweger and Hugh Grant hook up and Grant discovers the "absolutely enormous pants"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r14rDavjUWw&t=187s I've just bought myself The Jones Briefs from Davy J and they are absolutely enormous pants. Davy J is a British manufacturer of swim wear, making sustainable and long-lasting items… Continue reading Absolutely enormous pants
Earlier this year I applied for and received funding for the Aberdeen Cycle Forum to commission two visualisations of streets in Aberdeen with a bike path. One of them has just been released. It's for King Street and extends the King Street Design Competition we held by taking the winning designs and turning them into… Continue reading A vision for King Street, Aberdeen
I'm still so depressed about the Australian election result. It's Donald Trump all over again only worse because this time it's the country I grew up in and the people I know voting for tax cuts in favour of clean air; tax cuts in favour of halting the warming planet; tax cuts in favour of… Continue reading We did not reckon with the power that coal has upon Australian hearts
Last week the BBC came to our house and filmed us for a story on a low carbon family that aired on the news last night. It also went on the web at The Aberdeen family embracing a low-carbon lifestyle. In some ways I feel like a bit of a fraud because I feel there's… Continue reading Living a low carbon life
The Aberdeen Cycle Forum is organising a mass bike ride on Sunday 28th April at 11am, starting from Marischal College. This is part of Scotland's Pedal on Parliament 2019 but this year is a little bit different because the usual Edinburgh ride which attracts thousands of people is not happening. Instead the focus is on… Continue reading Mass bike ride in Aberdeen on Sunday 28th April
I've successfully completed one week out of 52 in my quest to avoid made in China. You might be wondering why I'm doing this. I have several reasons. China is producing many of the world's goods and doing so with a poor track record on the environment and workers' rights. Chinese-made products are often poor… Continue reading Where underpants come from
I've recently started drinking oat milk drink. I usually drink soya but Ben recently went dairy-free at home and prefers oat drink so I thought I'd give it a try. It's delicious. I'm addicted and prefer it to soya now. I like that oats are grown widely in Scotland and so I feel virtuous buying… Continue reading It’s not all or nothing
There's a great quote from George Monbiot in the Guardian this week. Part of the reason [why a plant-based diet is better for the environment] is the extreme inefficiency of feeding livestock on grain: most of its nutritional value is lost in conversion from plant protein to animal protein. This reinforces my contention that if… Continue reading If you want to eat less soya, then you should eat soya
I've been thinking a lot about sustainability recently both through my work at Award Force and also on a more personal level. It has become fashionable for corporations to talk about sustainability and I think, when done sincerely, it represents the best of humanity. I know there's a certain level of green-washing where corporations will… Continue reading Sustainability
Recently I discovered lentils and soya beans are grown in the UK and in the process I stumbled upon Hodmedod's, an online store selling British grown beans and other products. I decided to give it a try and bought the big vegan box: Apparently carlin peas make a good replacement for chickpeas. I will whip… Continue reading Hodmedod’s
We always put up our Christmas tree on the first weekend in December and we've just done it today. We have a Timbatree which we use every year. I bought it because I wanted to reduce my impact on the environment and a Timbatree is a good way to do it while supporting a British business at… Continue reading Time to put up the Christmas tree
I just watched an interesting TedX talk about the negative connotations behind the words vegan and vegetarian. Tell a stranger you're a vegan and they make all sorts of negative assumptions about you. This is why I prefer to call myself a plant-eater. A friend of mine once told me that when they first found… Continue reading A new word: Reducetarian
I saw this TED talk today about being a weekday vegetarian and thought it was quite good. I know that many people are put off by vegan/vegetarianism because it seems like an impossible task. But it needn't be done militantly and as Graham Hill makes clear in this video, eating less meat is still beneficial… Continue reading Weekday vegetarianism
Most people are familiar with the Hippocratic Oath as a do-no-harm pledge for doctors and physicians, but not many will have heard of the MBA Oath. It is the do-no-harm oath for graduating MBA students and the world's most famous school of business, Harvard business school, adopted it in 2009.Some of the promises made by students who… Continue reading Business ethics and the value of nature
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