I Will If You Will

The Sustainable Consumption Roundtable (part of the Sustainable Development Commission) has released an interesting report called, "I Will If You Will." How we travel, what kind of electricity provider we have, where we holiday, and what we eat matter.

Consumers need to be able to buy green products and services as second nature. It’s time to start a new British love affair with sustainable fish and chips, to offer air travellers automatic carbon offset from their flights, and to make schools and hospitals carbon neutral. Consumers are ready & willing to act on climate change and the environment, but can’t see the point, because they feel their efforts would be isolated and in vain.

The report specifies that Government should:

- Unite with business to get the most damaging products out of the shops, and replace them with environmental products, e.g.
- TV and set-top boxes which use massively less power when on standby
- Affordable hybrid cars
- Alternative fish species to Britain’s much-loved, but hugely over-fished, cod
- Take the lead and make all schools and hospitals carbon-neutral by 2015
- Automatically give travellers the option to carbon offset their flights, to demonstrate the environmental impact of flying
- Develop a working economic model to track the links between national income, consumption growth and resources, by 2008