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New boiler on the horizon for Bono

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:51:22 GMT

Bono has been given the go-ahead to instal a wood-pellet boiler to heat his Victorian mansion.

Just 96 months to save world, says Prince Charles

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of economic and environmental collapse, the Prince of Wales has warned in a grandstand speech which set out his concerns for the future of the planet.

Just 96 months to save world, says Charles

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

What lies beneath: Plastics threat to UK beaches

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

At first glance Porthtowan beach looks like an advert for British Tourism. With white sand and turquoise sea bathed in bright sunshine, it appears to be the best seaside Cornwall has to offer. But just below the surface of this picture-postcard perfection is a darker and, at times, dangerously toxic scene.

Batteries included: Are eco-friendly cars any good?

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:00:47 GMT

The first shot of the electrical car revolution was fired on 10 January 1985.

Britain's green shame

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

When it comes to environmental sustainability, the prognosis is grim: Britain is "winning battles, but still losing the war".

Are we losing the green war? Britain fails to hit environmental targets

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

When it comes to environmental sustainability, the prognosis is grim: Britain is "winning battles, but still losing the war".

Cyclo-therapy: How much have you thought about your posture and set-up? Getting it wrong can cause injury

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It's over a year since I drove past a little bike shop in Sussex and popped in for some socks. About an hour later I had the socks. And a new pair of shoes. Oh, and a gleaming new roadbike worth £2,000. I've cherished my Trek Madone, with its blue carbon frame and wispy wheels, but last week I was reminded of the perils of the impulse buy – my companion over hundreds of miles is completely wrong for me.

Auto-ban: German town goes car-free

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The Germans may have given the world the Audi and the autobahn, but they have banished everything with four wheels and an engine from the streets of Vauban – a model brave new world of a community in the country's south-west, next to the borders with Switzerland and France.

Eco Chic: Should we wear a uniform?

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:53:57 GMT

Last week I blithely ended my column by saying that to be fashionably ethical what we need to do is to buy fewer clothes.

Riding the wave: Finisterre has become the favourite brand of discerning surfers by prioritising ethical standards over ever-changing styles

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

There's a lot about Finisterre that seems too good to be true. The British surf-clothing company, proud owner of a stack of ethical and environmental awards, has a sickeningly wholesome image. With product descriptions that read like Greenpeace guidelines and a website full of lifestyle photos of the team (plus dogs), smiling and leaning against a battered Land Rover, it all looks alarmingly idyllic.

Pot of gold: Is California's revolutionary Rainbow Grocery supermarket utopia?

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Picture a fluorescent-lit barn of a supermarket, marooned in an ocean of a car park, staffed by listless 19-year-old part-timers, its shelves crammed with groceries packaged to within an inch of their irradiated lives. Wait a minute, you don't have to picture this at all – there's a supermarket near you just like that, isn't there? Well, shoppers, it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, the future of the supermarket is already here; the problem is that it's 5,300 miles away under a motorway flyover in California.

Crawling with great ideas: The 'future garden' festival focuses on conservation and insect-friendly innovation

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

"When I was a kid, growing up in wartime London," says David Bellamy, "there were butterflies everywhere." Clouds of African butterflies have been back in Britain this May, reminding us of what we have lost. Several million Painted Ladies dropped in from Morocco for a summer stint in our green and pleasant gardens, providing a tantalising glimpse of the riches of the past.

The seven ages of green

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

What began as a fringe movement among Sixties peace activists and left wing campaigners has become a mainstay of the mainstream, with greenerati encompassing world leaders, eminent scientists and Hollywood film stars.

Absolutely prefabulous: Eco-living has never looked this good thanks to a new wave of prefabricated palaces

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Sweden has friggebods, New Zealand's are known as "bachs". To Canadians, they're simply cabins. Call them what you want, but these small hideaways in the wilds have had a recent green makeover thanks to advances in prefabrication techniques and renewable- energy technology. Few of us can justify a second home when resources – financial and environmental – are in short supply, but these six modular marvels, the best designs from around the world, make the idea of buying a parcel of thinking space somewhere beautifully uninhabitable, much more reasonable.

Credo: Wangari Maathai

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

When I started the Green Belt Movement [an NGO that combats deforestation by training rural Kenyan women to plant trees] in 1977, I was starting a small project. But it moved from one step to another. We've since planted more than 30 million trees [earning Maathai a Nobel Prize]. It's been very surprising.

Join the bio bunch: Bertie Eden's vineyard is reaping the rewards of biodynamic wine-making

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The garden of Eden is a beautiful place. "There is great history here," says Robert "Bertie" Eden of his adopted home in the South of France, looking out over rolling hills bright with shades of green and yellow. In this wide landscape, framed by distant black mountains, only one village rises up from the fields on a mound, still medieval with its tightly clustered sandstone homes and single, square church tower. But the history is also in the fields. Look closer and they are filled with rows of what look like black, gnarled hands, twisting up from the soil. These are the vines.

The ultimate green car – but where do you fill it up?

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It's silent, it's pollution free, it's nippy, and it'll get you round town for £2,500 a year, fuel and maintenance included. So, is it the car of the future? Maybe.

Hydrogen-powered car makes debut

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:18:51 GMT

A new lightweight hydrogen-powered car, capable of speeds up to 50mph, was shown off in London today.

Eco Chic: Calculate your fashion footprint

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:44:43 GMT

Recently Phil Patterson came to have a look at my clothes. I was a little anxious – not because he’s a McQueen-esque fashionista (oh no, he wears anti-microbial socks for three days running) – but because he’s invented a tool for assessing how environmentally-friendly your wardrobe is.

McCartney urges 'meat-free days' to tackle climate change

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Chargrilled asparagus and lemon tart – that's the vegetarian menu for a glamorous cast of musicians, actors, writers and artists starting a mass movement today to limit meat eating and combat climate change.

Kitchen bin war: tackling the food waste mountain

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

An ambitious "War on Waste" campaign to tackle Britain's mountains of food-based rubbish with a range of radical new measures is to be launched tomorrow.

Simon Usborne: Why, when theft is rife in our cities, is it so difficult to find safe places to leave our bikes?

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

'The Independent' has moved offices. No difference for you, but for us hacks who toiled for years in the concrete wasteland of South Quay, in the tatty outskirts of Canary Wharf, on the windswept backwater that is east London's Isle of Dogs, it's nothing short of life-changing. Where once we worked on a road whose brightest outlets included NatWest and a branch of Office Angels, we have now shipped due west across the capital to High Street Kensington, home to things called restaurants, shops, parks and real people. I can only imagine the feeling is like that of early Italian settlers sailing into Manhattan past the Statue of Liberty. Well, almost.

Richard Bradford: Vacuuming the ceiling - or why there are issues with eco paints?

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:46:55 GMT

It’s the hottest day of the year so far. I’m standing on the edge of the bath, desiccating my inner nostrils with the rising exhaust heat from our vac, as I suck curled flakes of eco paint from the bathroom ceiling.

Geothermal power plant to supply electricity

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Britain's slow but steady march towards renewable energy took a step forward yesterday when plans were revealed for the UK's first power plant to produce electricity from geothermal energy – the Earth's own heat.