Ethical Consumer has released the most comprehensive ethical buyers’ guide
to laptops and netbooks. The guide brings together work from a number of key
NGOs such as Greenpeace and the Enough Project alongside their own research. This unique report ranks twenty six I.T. brands across twenty three ethical categories, to give you all you need to know about the relative ethics of each company.

Ten years old and its still going! Powerbook G4, just replaced with MacBook Pro

I’d like them to include product longevity into the mix too, having spent
most of my working days in front of Macs, which just keep on going and
going. It astonishes me when my PC colleagues have to replace their
computers due to performance issues, which probably have nothing to do with
the hardware itself. Macs just seem to outlast most Windows driven computers
in my experience.

Apple’s operating system appears to be more energy efficient too, when you
consider that the Mac mini has been top of our efficiency charts for the last two years – despite it using the same Intel processors as its PC cousins.

Are you around Gloucestershire this weekend? (10/11th September) As 28 homes and businesses throughout the Forest of Dean and Newent will be open to the public demonstrating how to save money and CO2 through energy saving design and technologies. This is Transition Forest of Dean and Newent Eco open homes event, part of the Heritage Open Days scheme. As well as seeing Rainwater harvesting systems and self sufficient gardens our own home and studios, in Hartpury, will be open as an example of a new build and barn conversion can embrace eco-ideals. We’d like to demonstrate that it was possible to build a well designed home, sensitive to it’s locality whilst minimising it’s environmental impact and to strict budget! The part green oak framed Chapel Farm house was built re-using lots of materials from the previous house (which had suffered terminal subsidence) is clad in locally produced larch from the Forest of Dean, and designed to maximise solar gain with high insulation values. The outbuildings at Chapel Farm have also been converted to create a modern working environment too. We have a ground source heat pump and two 1.5 kw wind turbines. In 2007 Chapel Farm was a finalist in the Grand Designs Eco-homes Awards.

For more information click here

What is Forest Eco Open Homes?

You could run 10 of these Philips monitors for the same price as running one 100w light bulb!

Great progress from Philips in designing a computer monitor that uses less energy to run than a low energy light bulb. The Energy Star approved 19 inch 192EL2SB LED monitor has shot to top of our rankings using a mere 10.4W. That means you could run nearly 10 of these monitors for the same price as running one 100w light bulb! Compared to the worst performing monitor, a saving of £12.23 per year might not seem like a big deal, but if you are business and buy in bulk the savings can make a real difference to your energy bills. It is a positive step that manufacturers are developing energy efficient technology and seeing it a as a great selling point. Earlier this year Philips launched its 27 inch business monitor which reduces its power consumption by 80% when not in use.

After its £1m fine for failing to provide accurate information on the amount of electricity supplied from renewable sources, it’s nice of British Gas spend some of its £740m profits on full page newspaper ads telling us how they can help lower our energy bills. The adverts come after they announced a price hike which will cost the average dual fuel energy customer an extra £190 a year. Whilst energy conservation measures are a good thing, British Gas, and the others energy companies who are offering free loft and cavity insulation, or giving away low energy light bulbs are doing so to help them avoid a fine and meet their obligations under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT). Would they be offering free insulation or giving away energy monitors without being required to? I think not.

Also the EnergySmart service British Gas promotes will only help people who have internet access and it also relies on a change in behaviour to make savings through the use of an energy meter. You might be mislead by the title; it is not offering a Smart Meter (allowing usage to be accurately read) and passing on the savings of meter readings to the customer, as the National Audit Office is calling for, but is offering an energy monitor and relying on the user to do the work.

When you buy a freezer with an ‘A’ energy label, you expect it to be just that and perform accordingly. So finding out that another company had been prosecuted for misleading energy labelling, didn’t fill me with joy. It did, however, give me some reassurance that the checking up of energy performance claims is being taken seriously. This is especially true when the company in question, Icetech, who incorrectly labelled their Norfrost Freezer (C4AEW) an ‘A’ when rigorous tests by the National Measurements Office (NMO) found it to rate as a ‘F’, is still claiming on it’s website that their ‘range has been developed to be the most energy efficient freezers in the World’. And that the Energy Saving Trust has designated a selection of their appliances as “Energy Saving Partners”. Something I could find no reference to on the EST website. Under the same investigation by the NMO in 2010, an Ice-king chest freezer, manufactured in China, but sold in the UK by John Gillman and Sons, was mislabelled as A+ (B on the web), but performed as an ‘E’ or ‘F’ in tests. see Sust-it’s press release.

So who cares if these products are mislabelled, if we’re getting a bargain? Well, not only are these appliances creating more CO2, their lifecycle running costs could end up costing the consumer up to £200 more to run. Both the models mislabelled were sold at the lower end of the market, making them attractive on price, especially if the shopper thinks they are comparing them with other ‘A” rated models. This is a real issue and let’s hope that businesses take note, particularly as the government has announced plans to ensure that the Green Deal won’t rip off consumers. And that Icetech have learnt from there £12,000 fine and £28,000 costs and have, as they state is the press release carried out a “…. complete reassessment of production and testing procedures”.