Sustainable(ish)

It's half-term here in my corner of the UK, so I'm sharing with you some ideas for easy swaps and tips to help make your days out more sustainable(fish). Please do still listen if you're kid free, as most of the tips apply to grown ups too (maybe not the tantrums in the gift shop. Hopefully.) […]

In this episode of the podcast I've got another 5(ish) minute guide for you - this time with some tips and ideas creating new, more sustainable(ish) habits. It's very easy to have all good intentions, and to WANT to do things differently, but when we're busy and frazzled, those good intentions can all too easily fall by the wayside.  Whether you want to finally remember your reusable coffee cup wh...

Georgina Wilson-Powell is the founder and editor of Pebble - an online magazine and brand for 'stylish, sustainable living' that aims to empower people to make more ethical everyday decisions. In this episode I chat to her about all things sustainable (including finding a more exciting word for 'sustainable'!), hear about the projects that Pebble involved in, and about the personal sustainable(ish...

Welcome back to the Sustainable(ish) podcast and to Season 2!This season I've got some cracking guest lined up to inspire us all as well as some bite sized "5(ish) minute guides" where I'll try and to help you out with a sustainable(ish) problem in just 5(ish) minutes (the 'ish' is important here, as I'm discovering I'm not that good at not rambling and therefore keeping to time..!).For the first...

The kids are back to school and now there is no denying that we're on the downhill slope to Christmas and the biggest consumer festival of the year. Which brings with it not only a dose of magic and goodwill to all (hopefully) but also the stress, the overwhelm and All The Stuff. In this episode I share with you 12 'not so fun festive facts' that demonstrate quite shockingly the waste we generate...

The kids are back to school and now there is no denying that we're on the downhill slope to Christmas and the biggest consumer festival of the year. Which brings with it not only a dose of magic and goodwill to all (hopefully) but also the stress, the overwhelm and All The Stuff. In this episode I share with you 12 'not so fun festive facts' that demonstrate quite shockingly the waste we generate...

Wednesday 24th October is International Climate Action Day - Yay! But wait, hold on. What the hell is climate action? And what does it mean to regular people like you and me? Surely 'climate action' is something for governments and big business to be concerned with? Not for me to have to worry about in between school runs and work, and refereeing the kids. After all, what kind of impact can we hav...

Travel. We all want to do it- whether it's to experience the world and different cultures, or simply to get some R&R in the sunshine away from the gloom of the British winter or the fickle nature of English summers. But for most of us on the sustainable(ish) spectrum, it probably comes with a good smattering of guilt layered in - worrying about the carbon footprint of our flight, or wincing at...

​This is the first in a new series for the podcast of commentary type episodes, some might even say rants, about some of the big sustainable issues we're facing right now. I hope you enjoy! I couldn't sleep last night, and I got to thinking, and then to worrying, and then to freaking out, about climate change. The latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change) report  said that we need to...

In this episode I'm chatting to Amy Robinson who is the business development manager at Triodos bank. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, Triodos are the UK’s most ethical bank and have a tagline that is “money as a force for good" which I totally love! The banking industry as a whole isn’t one that I think would be seen as ‘ethical’ – we all have images of rich nanker types making their f...

I don't know about you but when I think about a 'green family' or a family living 'sustainably', I would expect to see lots of muted colours, wooden toys, maybe one of those bikes with a trailer, and the odd dreadlock or two. I know, I like to buy into stereotypes...But do you know what? My family is so NOT like that. The kids wear the same jeans and hoodies as their mates (although most of my kid...

This is another 're-purposed' interview from last year that I recorded with Lisa Stanley, co-founder of Good with Money - a website about "helping you become good with money while doing good with money too".  I don't know about you, but it took me far longer than it should have done to realise that the money in my bank might be being used to fund all kinds of businesses and organisations that didn...

This is an interview I recorded with Rachelle, the founder of Zero Waste Week in 2017, just before the 10th annual Zero Waste Week. In it Rachelle shares how she got started on her own zero waste journey, as well as 'fessing up to the fact that her own bin is possibly not be as "zero waste" as we might expect! There's so much great stuff in here, that it seemed ridiculous to keep it gathering dust...

In this solo episode I'm talking all things recycling. Or rather NOT recycling. We're digging into the 'waste hierarchy' (yes, I am aware this is the most dull sounding precise of a podcast ever - I promise it's not that bad! You might even giggle a bit...) to find out all the things we can do BEFORE we even think about recycling Useful links BBC news article - Recycled packaging may end up in lan...

As this episode goes live, we're right in the middle of Plastic Free July, a global movement to encourage people to reduce their consumption of single use plastics. Since Blue Planet II it feels like the world is finally waking up to the impact of plastic pollution on our planet, which is fabulous, but it can also feel really overwhelming. In this episode I'm chatting to Martin Dorey, founder of t...

Plastic is big news right now as we are waking up to the environmental impact of plastic pollution and our addiction to single use plastics. In this episode we're looking at ‘The Big 4’ plastic polluters: water bottles; coffee cups; plastic bags; and straws, and the impact YOU can make by choosing to refuse single use and going with the re-usable versions of each! Useful links Plastic Free July Re...

Renewable energy seems to really have the bit between it's teeth now, which is fabulous news. It has gone from contributing 9% of our electricity mix in 2009, to 25% in 2018 and in 2017 more renewable energy was added to the 'global grid' than energy from fossil fuels. In this episode I'm chatting to Tom Steward who is one of the energy boffins (and very lovely with it!) at Good Energy . It's a fa...

In this episode of the Sustainable Life podcast I’m chatting to Kim Tew, the founder of  Plastic Free Pantry which is the UK’s first plastic free online food shop. […]

In this episode I'm SO excited to be chatting to Anne Marie Bonneau, aka the  Zero Waste Chef. Anne Marie shares the story of how she got started on her Zero Waste journey, and her top tips for cutting out single use plastic. Useful links Anne Marie's blog - Zero Waste Chef Anne Marie on Instagram Anne Marie on Facebook Anne Marie on Twitter Beth Terry's blog -  My Plastic Free Life The Plastiki H...

In this episode we look at what Sustainable Living even means, and how to get started when it might be feeling really overwhelming. Useful links Episode 003 – Start with Why Episode 002 – with Chris Hellawell, founder of the Edinburgh Tool Library My ‘Sustainable 2018’ webinar – I talk in here about goal setting and chunking things down to help you get started My 'Making Sustainable Changes' workb...

Before we start – a little heads up about the background noise on this one – Sara works in an incredibly hip co-working space surrounded by trendy millenials and moustache wax, who can be heard getting themselves a skinnydoubleshotdecaffavocado latte in the background..! Sara Venn is one of the first people I thought of when I first had the idea for this podcast. She is an absolute inspiration who...

In this episode, I share why I think it’s so important for us all to get really clear on WHY it’s so important to us that we make sustainable changes in our lives. It may well be something you’ve never really thought about, but if you can spend a few minutes giving your ‘why’ some thought, it can be a really powerful motivator to keep you taking those all important steps forwards on your sustainab...

Tool libraries are a brilliantly simple concept, and are a pretty popular thing over in North America, but up until a couple of years ago, we didn’t have even one here in the UK.All that changed in 2015 when Chris Hellawell started up  The Edinburgh Tool Library . It’s an inspirational story of one man with a vision, who is creating huge positive change in his community and showing the Sharing Eco...

Yes, that’s right, a podcast! I’m SO excited to get this out there – it feels like this podcast been a long time coming, and I can’t wait to get on some of my sustainable living heroes as guests, and to chat with you each week about all things sustainable living and hopefully inspire and motivate you to think about the small changes YOU could make that would make a big difference. Hear more about...