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Government launches online green living guide

Posted: 31/12/2006

A new online guide to greener living can now be found on the government's main public website, Directgov. The guide aims to help the relatively uninitiated take simple steps toward tackling climate change and other environmental issues. It includes changes involving the home, shopping, travel, food and drink, waste and recycling, the garden, and also ideas on how to be greener in the workplace, school or community.

In a press announcement Environment Secretary David Miliband said “Providing a reliable, easy to understand online resource is one way to help people find out about what they can do to tackle climate change. There are lots of different things individuals can do reduce the harm their lifestyles do to the environment. This online guide provides information to help people who want to take action to make informed choices – not lecture them about what they should do.”

The guide, which can be visited at http://www.direct.gov.uk/EnvironmentAndGreenerLiving/fs/en, covers a wide variety of topics in simple straightforward language. Included in the greener home section is advice on energy and water saving, renewable energy systems, greener DIY - how to improve your home and the environment at the same time, and buying greener furniture, flooring and fittings.

Unfortunately, in the section on greener furniture and flooring, although the site says purchasers can make a difference by choosing sustainably produced wood and efficient fittings, and mentions the problems caused by illegally logged timber, the guide goes on to recommend not only FSC certified timber but also PEFC labelled goods.

Recently a consortium of concerned NGO's said "The Government has decided to accept timber produced under the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) scheme as proof of sustainable timber procurement. Whilst this system has made some improvements in terms of standard setting in recent months, several schemes under the PEFC umbrella still allow large scale, unsustainable logging in high biodiversity areas and inadequate tracking of timber from the forest to the point of sale".

However, apart from that quibble, there seems to be plenty of good ideas and common sense advice to be found in the Greener Living Guide, and those wishing for a more in depth look at greener homes can buy the latest edition of the Green Building Bible, available from www.newbuilder.co.uk.

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