5 things I have done today to help the planet… [Day 005 – 19 May ’19]

Day 5 was a Sunday.

Time to sit back with a nice cup of coffee and think long and hard about everything I do and how I can lessen my impact on the planet.

A little change here, a little saving there.

Lots of littles make a big...

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1. Drink Who You Know - Coffee as it should be

Today I was visiting one of my daughters in Swansea.

She was keen to show me a new coffee shop hidden away in a back alley just near where she lives.

It was a great find on many levels.

BaseKamp is a really smart and brand new speciality coffee shop that has grown out of the Afan Coffee Co.

They buy beans from small co-operatives around the world and roast their own coffee.

Today two of their coffees were organic, and they had several vegetarian and vegan options on the menu.

My kind of place.

And then I started talking to the guy in charge.

Fascinating to hear how they are getting connected to the farmers and co-operatives they are buying beans from. They even name each of their coffees after the farmers who have grown the beans.

This reminded me of a project I was evolving a few years ago - Eat Who You Know.

More on that soon...

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2. Count to 100 and clean yourself

As we have plenty of rain in Wales and our own springs water use is not a critical resource for us.

But hot water is a different issue. That currently requires us to burn oil to heat it up.

So anything we can do to reduce hot water consumption is a big plus.

Washing ourselves is one of our biggest uses of hot water.

I already take showers rather than baths so I am heading in the right direction.

My showers aren't particularly long but I have never actually timed them.

Today I set myself a target - could I complete my shower in less than 100 seconds.

I did it quite easily. So tomorrow I will set the timer to 90 seconds.

I am going to target 60 seconds as my ultimate goal.

I could of course not shower at all, but that's a different story...

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3. The Paperless Office - almost there at last

In November my company will reach its 25th anniversary.

For many years all our quotes and all our invoices were printed out, put in envelopes and posted to our clients.

About 10 years ago we finally switched to electronic delivery of those quotes and invoices.

But we still printed out copies for our client files that fill up the bookshelf in my office.

We swapped to digital storage of quotes about 3 years ago, but continued printing out invoices - one copy for the accounts file and one copy for the client file.

Today I decided to stop making the client file copy. Our accountant still likes us to have the paper copy for the accounting records.

But we are now down to just one printed copy.

It is not big bananas but it will save a ream of paper each year and maybe one or two ink cartridges.

Every little helps!

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4. Is your phone fair for the planet?

I am not a big smartphone user as we live in an area with very poor mobile signal.

But my 4 year old ebay cheapo phone has almost reached the end of its life.

Buying any new electronics is hard from a planet positive point of view.

Phones are resource intensive to make and I suspect have a fairly hefty ecological footprint.

I would like to buy as carefully as possible.

Buying a refurbished phone is one option that might be a little better.

As I have just subscribed to Ethical Consumer I thought I would check out what they have to say about phones and phone companies.

Their last research on phones is from 2016.

Although in the fast moving tech world this might be rather out of date their report clearly shows one phone way out in front ahead of all competitors.

That phone is the Fairphone 2. It scores 15 out of 20 - six points ahead of the next in line.

I have heard of Fairphone before. It is the "maker of the world’s only certified Fairtrade phone" and has been building “a movement for fairer electronics" since 2013.

That sounds like a good company to buy from. The phones are modular and easy to upgrade and repair.

Alas production of the Fairphone 2 has finished now and they are in a waiting phase until Fairphone 3 arrives. But no date is given.

They are however offering their own refurbished (New Life) phones...

• Fairphone 2 - New Life Edition

I really know very little about smartphones so I would welcome views from any phone geeks out there as to whether this looks like a good deal or not.

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5. The Daily Donation - Woodland Trust

The Woodland Trust is the UK's largest woodland conservation charity with over 500,000 members and supporters and more than 1,000 sites, covering over 26,000 hectares, across the country.

I have not been an active supporter of the Woodland Trust before but I know they do great work on both educational and campaigning fronts.

I have given a one-off donation of £10 today - but I think I will be trading that up to a full membership soon.

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Another day, another little bit of positive.

This is all spinning up new ideas for me.

So many things to try, so many things to do.

Time to focus, time to sharpen my vision.

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[ header image from pixabay.com // other images by @pennsif ]