Hello! I'm Chris (otherwise known as Bluefish), one of PECT's volunteers. I've been tasked with a blogging challenge - to explore food, packaging and our obsession with buying things! Check out the rest of my posts here...

I had been e-mailed by my associate at PECT to tell me that my blogging services were about to be terminated simply because I was an incompetent baboon. Well, really!

I had risen to the challenge, furiously researched until gone 3am and woke close to lunchtime and grimaced at the pile of packaging that made my living space look like the inside of the re-cycling bin.

Sitting beside my Netbook was the result of my search. The holy grail of my expectations; a paper portal to PECT - my bag of sugar, humble but ‘green’ gold.

That special? More than that; the packet is dynamically important as an icon for clear, clean planet thinking and the words on the back and their website read like the opening salvo of the battle hymn ‘Halt the Eco-rot before the rot gets hot’.

Over the top? Judge for yourselves; this is what they say:-
"The sugar in this bag has been grown and produced in East Anglia. The sugar beet comes only a short distance to us, directly from the fields of local farmers. We make this product with concern not just for the quality of the sugar but also our impact on the environment. We are committed to reducing our use of energy and try not to waste anything, which is why we have had our carbon footprint measured."

Familiar words indeed but it goes deeper...

"In February 2008, British Sugar was confirmed as a pilot partner to support the development of PAS 2050, the world’s first method for assessing the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services, developed by British Standards and sponsored by the Carbon Trust and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs."

This work is of vital planet importance; if you can’t measure it you can’t control it and the significant bit is that no one forced British Sugar to go down this route.

Tom Delay, Chief Executive of the Carbon Trust, commented: “If we are to meet an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 innovative businesses have a key role to play. The work that British Sugar has done to pilot the PAS 2050 standard has been invaluable in helping to deliver a UK standard for the measurement of the greenhouse gas emissions from goods and services enabling businesses around the world to look beyond their direct operational emissions and make their supply chains more carbon and cost efficient.“

If this is beginning to sound like an advert for British Sugar then I am glad – Eco heroes need all the exposure they can get but that is not the end of the excellence.

Production of sugar from beet yields an equivalent amount of high energy animal feed co-product which contributes to the food chain. Sugar beet is a valuable “break crop” in the arable rotation enhancing soil fertility and contributing to reduced fertiliser and pesticide use, greater biodiversity through the following cereal crops and is recognised by the RSPB and Natural England as being of considerable value for biodiversity and birdlife.

Finally back to the packet and the bit I liked most of all. It says that "while making sugar we even use the heat and water to produce over seventy million tomatoes. We then put the sugar into bags made of recyclable paper."

As I sent the results of my searching into the e-mail ether towards Nyree Ambarchian at PECT I wondered whether it was natural to love a bag of sugar.

Tags: Chris Lawrence | food | Do your bit for the environment

Hello! I'm Chris (otherwise known as Bluefish), one of PECT's volunteers. I've been tasked with a blogging challenge - to explore food, packaging and our obsession with buying things! Check out the rest of my posts here...

The e-mail to Nyree Ambarchian outlining my insightful musings on ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ arrived at PECT central @ ten thirty three am.

Way above the heads of the walking shoppers; on the first floor of The Green House in Cowgate the elysian fields of environmentalism were alive with activity.

My ‘e’ was opened, read, printed and grabbed from the tray with a speed that would have excited me if I’d seen it happen. I didn’t. I was five miles away; just as well really.

With the ‘e’ heartily clutched between her fingers Nyree Ambarchian was at that moment addressing her fellow PECT persons quietly but with an edge of frustration honed to executioners axe.

‘This docile, patronising, mutant candidate for re-cycling has just e-mailed to tell us what ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ is. That wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for his first offering – listen. He sent us this – ‘pedigree are subjecting postmen to torture.’ That was it, nothing else. Somebody here passed on my request for something ‘quirky’ for the Blog to an imbecile. Whoever it was – thanks. You hooked this Bluefish, whatever it is so you chuck it back.’

Sometime later, as the sun was sending rainbow patterns through a prophetic droplet of rain onto my spider outside the window, my Netbook e-squawked. It was my PECT associate. I read the gruesome news; ‘Oh four asterisks, is this the end’ I thought. Then I remembered what George Herbert said ‘Every path hath a puddle.’ He was right and I didn’t have to fall into it; I would side step it.

Gathering my packets around me I began a fight back. Here within the words had to be a ‘something’ that would convince Nyree Ambarchian that I wasn’t a one mistake wonder.

It was three thirty in the morning, outside my window an owl giggled and inside the floor was covered with rejected cartons and boxes. In front of me was a pitifully small collection left to be read. I stood, brushed aside a Coco Pops packet, filled the kettle for tea and, waiting for it to boil, juggled the sugar bag. Out of habit I began to read what they had to say about their product. Instantly steam came out of my ears beating the kettle by seconds. I’d found what I’d been searching all night for. Never in the past had I wanted to have a split personality I could share the good news with as much as I wanted it now.

Tea forgotten I sat back down after rescuing my Netbook from its cardboard shroud. I typed in Silver Spoon and spontaneously applauded. This was a company that sets the standards that all manufacturers should look to and implement yesterday.

As I read; the adrenalin of discovery dissipated and, coming to the end of the site, my eyes closed and I slept. In my dreams the key to PECT paradise was reissued and I was about to become a facilitator for the Greeniversity. Nyree Ambarchian was writing the citation for the ‘Green Medal Award for Environmental Excellence’ with British Sugar’s name written large and the George Herbert puddle had dried up.

Sweet ending, eh?



(I'd just like to say that I love Chris' contributions to our blog and would never call anyone a 'docile, patronising, mutant candidate'! Poetic licence and all that! - Nyree) 

Tags: food | Groovy and green | Chris Lawrence

Hello! I'm Chris (otherwise known as Bluefish), one of PECT's volunteers. I've been tasked with a blogging challenge - to explore food, packaging and our obsession with buying things! Check out the rest of my posts here...

It had been nearly a week since I e-mailed Nyree Ambarchian at PECT and I’d almost forgotten about the plight of our postmen at the hands of Pedigree. I had read several very interesting packagings since then and my enthusiasm for finding ‘green’ manufacturers was growing.

I realised I didn’t really know what ‘green’ was. If I was ever going to impress the perceptive people at PECT, the creators of the Greeniversity I would need to know.

There is an old saying that my great grandfather never used primarily because there was no internet and that is simply ‘Google it.’ I’m sure that he would have if he’d known because he was a ‘bit-of-a-lad’ and ‘googling it’ would have cheered him up no end. Bless. In his day the concept of ‘green’ didn’t exist; everything was green mostly by default but sometimes from decay.

I typed into Google ‘What is Green?’ and the feeling of superiority over my great granddad engulfed me. I was faced with options and selected Ecostiletto.com. It was a stab in the dark but fortuitous. Here were answers.

‘Green isn’t a label; it’s the encapsulation in a word of a product that is created through environmentally and socially conscious means.’ O.K, got that, whilst not exactly the way they put it I’m sure it’s near enough.

They cited the 2002 book by William McDonough and Michael Braungart; Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. I found the book on Amazon and the review said that the authors illustrate how we can mimic nature's model to our commercial and environmental advantage, demonstrating how products can be designed as biological and technical nutrients that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials, eradicating the need to 'recycle'.

Ecostiletto summed it up as ‘this concept highlights that when you throw something away there really is no “away.” Because the Earth is a contained system, nothing that we create can really, truly be disposed of; it just becomes waste if it can’t be reused.’
Suitably armed with internet wisdom my fingers hovered over the keyboard like scissors about to cut the ribbon on the re-launch of my Blogging potential. As they arced down to pound out my new plausibility I paused but they didn’t; their momentum sent them skidding into the keys producing a pattern of letters I tried to make sense of. I thought it might be fate, a message from the universal consciousness to help propel my credibility into the heart of PECT. It wasn’t, it was just rubbish.

At the back of my mind was something that had made me hold back. What was it? I knew it was something I’d read but what? I flicked through my library of packets and found it – the word - sustainability. In the world of ‘The Aware’ green and sustainable are welded together far closer than Romeo and Juliet and I needed the connection.

My mind joined with Wikipedia who whispered that the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations defined it so ‘sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ Adding ‘development’ to ‘sustainable’ was fine by me.

Tags: food | Groovy and green | Chris Lawrence

Hello! I'm Chris, one of PECT's volunteers. I've been tasked with a blogging challenge - to explore food, packaging and our obsession with buying things! Check out the rest of my posts here...

On the day of the lightning flash that illuminated my spider I e-mailed Nyree Ambarchian in response to information received that she and PECT needed a ‘quirky something’ for a Blog of interest.

I had offered them the reading of packaging; the Harold Pinteresque comments of the twenty first century; the ever changing literature of anti-cultural consumerism. Yum.

I waited for a reply. Hours passed. Still no response. I read the entire outside packaging of ‘Pedigree – Better by Nature’ while I waited and had come to a good bit where the author reveals that Pedigree is ‘Guaranteed to taste significantly better than slippers, socks, pot-plants and the postman,’ when my Netbook pinged.
I couldn’t respond; there were questions here that demanded an answer.

These were amazing claims. I wanted to see the research methods and the reports. I needed to know if any postmen were injured in the experiments. Who taste-tested the slippers? Was there any taste cross-over when sampling pot-plant and sock? What were the medical dangers associated with taste analysis of post-persons? A world of bizarre laboratory experiments was opening in front of me. Was this a postman sustainability issue? Had this been the real underlying factor that sparked the postal strikes?

My Netbook pinged again; it was Nyree. Darn, I hadn’t even tried to establish whether animals did the testing and if they had how did they communicate that the taste was significantly better. Reluctantly I put the mysteries to one side wondering why, when you get a good packet to read that leads to fundamentally important questions, something always interrupts.

Nervously I opened the ‘e’.
It read excitingly, ‘What are you twittering about. Are you a village idiot?’

Obviously I wasn’t on Twitter but was Blogging. A simple slip of the typing finger, no doubt, but it was the ‘what’ that had significance. She/they wanted to know more; the concept had fired an unstoppable curiosity. The request to know my status in the village was one I’d asked of myself, frequently. It had no answer; how do you quantify such things? A thought struck me. They mean I have been stupid in not voicing my packaging discoveries sooner. The people at PECT are perceptive. I knew this would be a success.

They wanted to know what I had found now. With a shaking hand I e-mailed, ‘pedgree are subjecting postmen to torture,’ then altered it to ‘Pedigree’, added ‘thank you and it will be good working with you’, counted to three then pressed send.

I haven’t had a reply yet.

Tags: food | Groovy and green | Chris Lawrence

Hello! I'm Chris, one of PECT's volunteers. I've been tasked with a blogging challenge - to explore food, packaging and our obsession with buying things!

We must start at the beginning (this has been dramatised in an attempt to be interesting.)

It was a day like any other day. The clouds over Peterborough were busily painting themselves into black, intent on storm, when the only ray of sunlight seen for days shone down on Cowgate illuminating the windows of the PECT office renowned for its occupant’s dedication to a sustainable future in a city committed to becoming the Environmental Capital of the U.K.

Inside the office Nyree Ambarchian, head of Marketing and Communications, stepped out of the Marketing cupboard into the light of inspiration. In a soft voice that carried authority she said ‘Find me someone for a new venture. Send out the word that PECT has a need. We want the quirky.’

Shock; quirky is not a term used, ever, in the hallowed corridors of Peterborough Environmental City Trust. ‘Solid sustainability’ are the key words at PECT.

Undeterred by the gasps of disbelief Nyree expanded. ‘By ‘quirky’ I mean an angle on sustainability that has hasn’t been explored, a view of our society’s underbelly of consumption, a look at the everyday things we devour, an awareness of the ‘green’ and the ‘un-green’. Here she paused, the sunlight shining on her determination. ‘We need .... a ‘Something’.

‘This is not a whim; today the Peterborough Evening Telegraph has just agreed to put content from our Blog up on their website through an RSS feed so it has to be good. The readers of the ET demand nothing less than good. We need that ‘Something’ and we need it now’. From above the Cathedral a single, massive, blinding flash of lightning accentuated her seriousness.

Five miles from the City Centre the flash lit the waving legs of the Orb spider busily crocheting its web outside my window. Startled I looked up throwing down the Weetabix box I was reading and spilling my tea almost ruining my Netbook that was crunching out e-mail.

I shrugged not realising that the flash was to herald the arrival of an ‘e’ from my associate at PECT that would make my reading of packaging a valid enterprise and not literary deviance. My passion for the seemingly trivial, maybe, would find a voice.

Packaging is the God of marketing; you buy with your eyes and the packet tells a story. Sometimes the story is not one hundred percent the actual truth, sometimes it is unintentionally funny and sometimes its vaunted ‘green’ credentials are green-by-seen and not by reality but all the time it has interest.

I’m going to e-mail Nyree Ambarchian now and with any luck the often unread messages of the packet will grace the blogsphere of ET and PECT..
 

Tags: food | Groovy and green | Chris Lawrence