What’s in your wardrobe?

Fashion can be both stylish and sustainable. Eco fashion is all about clothes, shoes and accessories that have been produced in such a way as to reduce their impact on the environment. Climate Week will be celebrating sustainable fashion, with tips, competitions and interviews to get you thinking about your wardrobe.

Dress your best for Climate Week

Tweet us a photo of you in your favourite sustainable outfit to @Climate_Week or post it on our Facebook page, telling us the story behind that outfit. How did you come across it? On what occasion did you wear it? The most interesting story and photo entries will win H&M vouchers! We have five vouchers worth £20 and one voucher worth £50 to give away. Your outfit could be bought from a sustainable collection, an unusual charity shop bargain, something you got from a “swishing” clothes-swap party or even a hand me down. Whatever it is, send us your trendy eco tale for a chance to win.

Climate Week’s eco fashion tips:

• Recycle: Donating your clothes to a charity shop and picking up a bargain in return is a great way to recycle perfectly good clothing
• Clothing collections: choosing sustainable fashion collections such as H&M’s ‘Conscious Collection’ means you can shop on the high street and be part of the movement for more sustainable fashion
• Launder at low temperatures: low-temperature washing can hugely reduce the total carbon footprint that results from your use of a piece of clothing
• Re-use: Clothing that is thoroughly worn-through can still make excellent cleaning equipment! There is nothing more effective than a holey shirt to polish the coffee table
• Re-fashion: Customise old clothes to give your wardrobe a new look – cut some jeans in to shorts, splash paint on an old shirt, or cut the sleeves off a cardigan to make ankle or arm-warmers
• Hand-down: Children grow fast, so get together with other parents and pass outgrown clothes on to younger children

We will be providing you with tips on how to shop and dress sustainably and we will be sharing links to sustainable fashion blogs, events and interesting stats and facts through twitter and our Facebook page. There will also be twitter interviews with eco experts in the fashion industry – this is a chance to find out more about sustainable fashion in the UK and learn some key secrets from those in the know. Be sustainable, be stylish!


To get involved, follow @Climate_Week, Like us on Facebook and join the conversation using the #CWfash hashtag.

Five teams will put their creativity, talent and stamina to the test by producing a performance against the clock. Each team contains award-winning writers and directors, celebrity actors, and fresh talent from the country’s top drama schools.

The play is taking place at 7.30pm on Friday 16 March 2012 in the Arcola Tent at the Arcola Theatre in London.

Tickets are available from the Arcola Theatre box office for £12. To book please call 020 7503 1646 or email boxoffice@arcolatheatre.com.

Starring: Special celebrity guests TBA
Writers: Bola Agbaje, Nick Drake, Ella Hickson, Nick Payne, and Sarah Solemani
Directors: Tom Attenborough, Cathal Cleary, Laura Farnworth, Lu Kemp, Ellen McDougall
Drama Schools: Bristol Old Vic, Central, Guildhall, LAMDA, and RADA

About Arcola

Arcola is proud of its mission to become the world’s first carbon neutral theatre though Arcola Energy, a programme of activity spanning everything from recycling bottles, to building facilities from old sets, to international green theatre partnerships.

Arcola Tent is an exciting pop-up, mixed arts venue, made almost entirely from reused or recycled materials. Soundproofing is provided by insulation materials from the Olympic site; the toilets and sinks are from a construction site near Cannon Street, and the space is heated by biodiesel made from waste oil from local takeaways.

It was fantastic to see such a diverse group of people together in one place, that are all acting to combat climate change. It was a chance for everyone to share their stories, inspire and be inspired, and start planning what they will be doing for Climate Week from 12-18 March 2012.

The highlight of the event was the panel discussion, which took place in the Faraday Theatre, chaired by Tom Clarke, the Science and Environment Correspondent for Channel 4 News. The panellists were discussing “The Need for Speed: How can we accelerate society’s response to climate change?”

Richard Betts, the Head of the Climate Impacts Programme at the Met Office, explained the current science underpinning the debate. He highlighted the need for adaptation to changes in the climate, particularly on flood plains and for new housing, taking account of likely risks.

Jo Hobbs, Head of Guiding Development at Girlguiding UK, discussed the attitudes of girls and young women to environmental issues. She talked about the importance of educating young people on practical solutions, which are empowering, instead of a focus on problems. Pointing to inspirational examples of what Brownies have been doing in Thurnby, Leicestershire, and County Antrim, Northern Ireland, she encouraged people to harness the power of youth to change the world.

The Rt Hon John Gummer, Lord Deben, former Secretary of State for the Environment, spoke next, talking about how businesses have been taking a lead on climate change recently. He said they should be praised for the action they are taking, motivating them to do more, which provides a stronger platform to hold underachievers to account. He also discussed how to keep climate change at the top of the agenda: providing politicians with at least five personal letters a week; and using existing passions, and the internet, as channels to discuss the issues – as he does on Catholic blogs.

Tony Juniper, former Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, current Chair of 10:10, and Special Adviser to the Prince of Wales Charities’ International Sustainability Unit, put an emphasis on using human psychology and culture, rather than technocratic arguments, to make change happen. He stressed the importance of reaching out beyond the usual suspects, to connect with people, and the power of example in altering behaviour. He used the analogy of a fire alarm – asking how you would respond if everyone sat calmly, compared to how you would respond if everyone ran for the exits in a panic.

Paul Noon, General Secretary of Prospect, and the TUC General Council lead on energy and the environment, looked at the tremendous opportunities for Britain in emerging low-carbon industries. He also discussed the importance of government implementing stringent regulation where necessary, pointing to the example of the Clean Air Act of 1956, which got rid of London’s smog without putting a tax on soot. He finished with a focus on the role of employers, and of the expectations that employees should have from their unions and employers.

This was followed by a lively debate amongst the panellists as questions were put to them. Even Tom Clarke, as Chair, contributed by providing comments on the role of the media play in providing coverage of climate issues.

Time was too short to get the chance to talk about all the points that were raised, and so as guests filed out of the theatre the Royal Institution was buzzing with debate and discussion.

If you would like to contribute to the discussion then join the conversation on Twitter by tweeting @climate_weekor using the #ClimateWeek hashtag.

Pictures of the event:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

We are delighted to announce the highlight of the Climate Week stakeholder reception, where an eminent panel will discuss:

“The Need for Speed: How can we accelerate British society’s response to climate change?”

The panel will include:

• Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts, Met Office
• Tom Clarke, Science Correspondent, Channel 4 News (Chair)
• The Rt Hon John Gummer, Lord Deben PC, Former UK Secretary of State for the Environment
• Jo Hobbs, Head of Guiding Development, Girlguiding UK
• Tony Juniper, Special Adviser to the Prince of Wales Charities’ International Sustainability Unit
• Paul Noon, General Secretary, Prospect, and TUC General Council lead on the environment

Keep checking the Climate Week website, Facebook page, and Twitter account for updates following the event.

**Contact us for a request at info@climateweek.com and we’ll get back to you with availability**

• Angela Hartnett, Gordon Ramsey’s former protégé, now the Michelin-starred chef patron at Murano
• Prue Leith, Great British Menu judge and founder of Leith’s School of Food and Wine
• Levi Roots, creator of Reggae Reggae sauce and host of BBC2’s Carribean Food Made Easy
• Anjum Anand, host of BBC2’s Indian Food Made Easy
• Atul Kochhar, first Indian chef to be awarded a Michelin star
• Rob Rees, the Cotswold Chef and Chairman of the Schools Food Trust
• Tim Anderson, winner of MasterChef 2011

As Climate Week approaches check the Eat Low Carbon page to find out how to share your recipes, and register your low-carbon meal as an official Climate Week event.

The competition for ages 11-14 was won by five bright young sparks from Pool Academy in Cornwall. They came up with the concept of the Fidgit – a product which turns the energy generated by fidgeting kids into electricity for recharging personal gadgets.

Climate Week arranged for the girls to travel up to London, spending a day turning their brilliant idea into a real prototype. This was done at the Arcola Energy Lab in Dalston, with the assistance of the eccentric engineer and educator Matt Venn.

With Matt’s guidance, the girls learned, assembled, and tinkered, until they had produced their very own working Fidgit. A couple of minutes of fidgeting was enough to start filling up the batteries on their mobile phones.

The big call to action is for everyone to eat a low-carbon meal during Climate Week. Three suggestions for ways you can make your food more sustainable are to cook it with:

• Less meat and dairy – make it vegetarian or vegan
• Local and seasonal ingredients – make it British
• Leftovers – make it into something else, don’t bin it

We are encouraging people to use this Climate Week, from 12-18 March 2012, as a chance to act on any of the issues around food and climate change. This includes sustainable diets, food prices, and food waste.

For more information visit the Eat Low Carbon section of the website, email info@climateweek.com, or call 0203 397 2601.

Britain’s best efforts to combat climate change were showcased on a previously unseen scale last week during the inaugural Climate Week.

Over 3,000 events were registered by organisations ranging from The Met Office to Manchester City, the NHS to the Stock Exchange, Government departments to Girlguiding UK. Events were held across the country, from Cornwall to the Hebrides.

During a new, supercharged week showing how every part of society is helping to combat climate change, Climate Week aims to inspire millions more to act during the other 51 weeks in the year. Climate Week gained the backing of the Prime Minister and leading figures such as Al Gore and Kofi Annan, as well as celebrities like Paul McCartney, Lily Cole and Michael Palin.

The week was kicked off by Britain’s biggest ever environmental competition, the Climate Week Challenge, with more than 130,000 office worker and school children signed up to take part. The challenge, revealed on the first morning of Climate Week, tasked teams to dream up new green ideas that can save or make money. More than 60,000 people including police, nurses, soldiers and scientists as well as school pupils, took part in the live version of the competition by simultaneously responding to the same task over the course of one intense day. The winning ideas, revealed on 4 April, are being judged by a panel including stars such as singer KT Tunstall, TV presenter Ben Fogle and footballer Gary Neville, as well as experts from the Energy Saving Trust and the Met Office.

The Climate Week Awards, announced at a ceremony at Lancaster House in London, celebrated the UK’s most inspiring actions on climate change. The heavyweight judging panel included economist Lord Stern, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and campaigner Tony Juniper. The finalists and winners show the superb range of low-carbon innovation and leadership being shown by every part of society. Winners inclulde a virtually waterless washing machine, a community hydro-electric project, an inner city area that insulated two thirds of its properties in one year, compostable packaging and a campaign for sustainable agriculture. For more information click here.

Event highlights included an Oxford ‘insect banquet’ by former Masterchef star Thomasina Miers to promote low carbon cuisine; an interfaith summit held at Lambeth Palace that saw both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi discuss the role of faith communities in tackling climate change; Mayor Boris Johnson launching a multi million pound fund for London’s low-carbon economy; comedian Al Murray, the “Pub Lordlord”, fronting the Climate Week Pub Quiz; and stars such as Lily Cole and Gemma Arterton showing how fashion can be part of the solution to climate change by modelling the low carbon designer Climate Week t-shirt, available at Tesco. Click here for men’s and here for women’s.

Best Community Initiative
WINNER – Settle Hydro
This small North Yorkshire town raised £410,000 from grants, loans and investors (including Take That’s Jason Orange), and now has its own source of renewable energy – a 165,000 kW turbine in the river Ribble. The project was conceived and run by two volunteers in their spare time, and the electricity is sold to the National Grid with profits divided between shareholders and community projects. To go to their website click here.

Best Educational Initiative
WINNER – Climate Change Schools Project
The Durham-based Climate Change Schools Project aims to turn young people across the North-East into “everyday experts” on climate change. Consisting of a network of 100 schools the project educates 5 to 18 year olds, and gives them the opportunity to team up with businesses, community groups, councils and meteorologists to take action ranging from energy audits to flood risk assessments, tree planting and theatre performances. For more information click here.

Best Local Initiative
WINNER – Low Carbon Lewisham Central
Low Carbon Lewisham Central aims to cut the footprint of an inner city London neighbourhood, principally through retrofitting loft and wall insulation. Launched in January 2010, its first year has seen 5,000 energy efficiency measures installed in an amazing two-thirds of the 1,000 properties in the area. For more information click here.

Best Initiative by a Small or Medium-Sized Business
WINNER – Continental Clothing Company, EarthPositive Apparel
Continental Clothing have established a blueprint for low-carbon fashion. The maker of this year’s official Climate Week T-shirt has spent two years developing its EarthPositive range, which has a carbon footprint 90 per cent lower than conventionally-produced clothing. Continental analysed and improved every stage of its production process. The clothing uses organic cotton and is made using electricity generated solely from wind power. For more information click here.

Best Initiative by a Large Business
WINNER – Whitbread Hotels & Restaurants and Veolia Environmental Services, Landfill Diversion Initiative
Whitbread, the UK’s largest hospitality company, has partnered with environmental services company Veolia to prevent thousands of tonnes of waste from hotels and restaurants going to landfill. Whitbread’s landfill diversion from its 590 Premier Inns increased dramatically from 49% to 66% between November 2009 and January 2011. By diverting waste – for example to anaerobic digestion – the hotels slashed direct CO2 emissions by 820,000 tonnes. For more information click here.

Best Initiative by a Public or Uniformed Service
WINNER – University Hospital of South Manchester
University Hospital of South Manchester is proving there are financial and social benefits to cutting carbon. Cutting CO2 emissions by 26% in 2010 meant the hospital could plough £120,000 from its energy budget back into patient care. Savings have been underpinned by the installation of two biomass boilers, one of which allows its Cardiac Centre to be self-sufficient in energy. Other measures include a ground source heat pump and more efficient lighting, insulation and building controls. The hospital has also engaged staff and the wider community with a regular farmers’ market, a staff allotment and a car share scheme. For more information click here.

Best Initiative by a Public or Statutory Body
WINNER – Department for International Development, Scuba Rice.
Flood-resistant “scuba” rice that can survive for two weeks underwater is protecting the lives of millions at risk from climate change. Rising sea levels and storms are forecast to cause a 15 per cent drop in rice production in developing countries. In a trial in Bangladesh, 95 per cent of scuba plants recovered after flooding compared to just 12 per cent for a traditional variety. Local farmer Mohammad Shahidul Islam said it was “like magic”. For more information click here.

Best Event
WINNER – Cape Farewell, SHIFT Festival at the Southbank Centre
SHIFT was a week-long climate-focused free festival of live music, comedy, theatre and art at the Southbank Centre, London in January 2010. It involved artists who had been taken by scientists on Cape Farewell expeditions to the Arctic, to see the effects of climate change. Performers included comedian Marcus Brigstocke, impressionist Alistair McGowan and singer KT Tunstall. For further information click here.

Best Campaign
WINNER – Forum for the Future, Farming Futures
Farming Futures generates awareness and action on climate change amongst farmers, working in partnership with leading bodies in the agricultural sector such as the National Farmers’ Union. It uses peer-to-peer communications to encourage farmers to see sustainable farming as normal, and has 40 real-life online case histories covering issues such as soil management, heat pumps and energy crops. For more information click here.

Best Technological Breakthrough
WINNER – Xeros, The Virtually Waterless Cleaning System
Yorkshire Company Xeros’ prototype washing machine uses polymer beads which absorb dirt into their molecular structure and work for hundreds of washes. It requires 90 per cent less water than conventional machines, and saves energy because there is less water to heat and the clothes are easier to dry. Independent analysis confirmed that it cleans as well as normal washers. A domestic machine is planned for 2013. For more information click here.

Best New Product
WINNER – Vegware, Compostable Packaging
Vegware is the only UK company to supply cafes and shops with disposable cups, cutlery and packaging made of compostable vegetable material. While they look like their plastic counterparts and cost the same, there is a huge difference in environmental impact. Plastic is difficult to recycle when contaminated with food, so most goes to landfill. Vegware can just be binned with all other food waste and composted into fertiliser and biogas fuel. For more information click here.

Best Artistic Response
WINNER – Red Redemption, Fate of the World
The computer game Fate of the World requires you to manage the earth’s food, water, energy and forests, while dealing with a growing population and threats from floods and extreme weather. Red Redemption raised £1 million for this follow-up to their BBC Climate Challenge. Their team has producers, writers and composers whose previous credits include James Bond and Dr Who. For further information click here.

Most Inspirational Young Person
WINNER – Ellie Hopkins
Ellie Hopkins is a Co-Director of the UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC). Over the past year 22 year-old Ellie has been responsible for the actions, campaigns, and finances of a campaign network and a 35-strong team. She raised money so that the UKYCC could join delegates at the 2010 UN climate negotiations in Cancun, and she was heavily involved in the conception and organisation of the group’s Power Shift youth conference (now being rolled out to 20 other European countries). For further information click here.

Most Inspirational Leader
WINNER – Garry Charnock
Garry Charnock was the driving force behind the social experiment to mobilise the Cheshire village of Ashton Hayes to become the UK’s first carbon-neutral community. In the first year, its carbon footprint was cut by 20 per cent. Garry went on to secure £750,000 of funding, including £100,000 to power the primary school and part of the village using solar energy and combined heat and power. More recently, he co-founded the charity Carbon Leapfrog. For further information click here.

1. Staff at London Zoo made a series of pledges on camera stating how they were going to cut their emissions. To see the pledges, go here. The zoo is also running a climate trail, showing how individual animals are being affected by climate change.

2. Fashion giant Vogue ran a piece online praising the production, ethics and design of the Eley Kishimoto Climate Week t-shirt, available at Tesco.

3. The Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group is launching a petition on the 26th March for a million green jobs to be created in the fight against climate change.

4. The Big Green Bus – a coach powered by biofuel – has been driving around London all week stopping in key areas, such as City Hall and UK AWARE. Visitors to the bus included eminent environmentalist Zac Goldsmith. The project was run by energy saving company PC PowerDown and green transport experts The Big Lemon.

5. On Monday 21st March the Church of England Shrinking the Footprint campaign held an interfaith event at Lambeth Palace, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Lord Marland.

6. Already, Climate Week is starting to impact in other countries. In Berlin the British Embassy hosted an event on Monday addressing the importance of energy efficiency in meeting emissions targets, attended by Minister of State Greg Barker and the German State Secretary Katherina Reiche.