Real Food Festival

[marian farrell]

Real Food Festival, local carbon budget campaign and more...

In this issue: > Good Energy at the Real Food Festival > Free festival tickets for Good Energy customers > Low-carbon swimming in Portishead > Good Energy wins ‘Environmental Excellence in Business’ Award > Get on board with Friends of the Earth’s local carbon budgets campaign > At last – an RHI for the UK > Solar Toys reduced to just £10 each until 31st May     Good Energy at the Real Food Festival The Real Food Festival is a treasure trove of the best small food producers plus hands-on activities for all the family, demonstrations from celebrity chefs and even a chance to meet some sheep! Good Energy is really pleased to be sponsoring the Festival, which takes place Thursday 5th – Sunday 8th May at Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. The Real Food Festival inspires visitors to enjoy food produced locally, seasonally and in a sustainable way.  Sponsorship from companies like Good Energy enables over 400 passionate food producers, to reach a new audience. As the organisers say, “Our simple idea is to re-connect people back to where their food comes from and to promote the idea of buying directly from the people who actually produce our food.”  This is bang in line with Good Energy’s own ambition to re-connect people with where their energy comes from, so they value it more and use it less. A Kids Taste Experience tent, in association with the Youth Food Movement, gives children the opportunity to get stuck in with bread and butter making and a game of ice cream football.  For those with more adult tastes there will be cheese-making workshops, a chance to pick your own tea from a working tea garden, and practical advice on ‘growing your own’. As you would expect there will be plenty to eat at the show which features some of the best street food vendors from around the country. The Festival promises to be a real celebration of local, seasonal food, and we hope to see you there.     Free festival tickets for Good Energy customers  We have ten pairs of tickets to the Real Food Festival, worth £27.00 a pair, to give away.  To enter the draw, please send us your top energy-saving cooking tip, by Wednesday 20th April. If you are visiting the festival, be sure to visit us in the Good Energy low-carbon kitchen (stand 99) for a warm welcome and to hear about our latest campaigns and projects.            Low-carbon swimming in Portishead Easter Monday sees the official launch of Portishead Community Trust’s open air pool, which has a new biomass boiler thanks to Good Energy’s customers. It’s the second community renewable heat project we’ve invested in under our commitment to the independent Green Energy Supply Certification Scheme. The boiler, which is fuelled by locally-sourced wood pellets, enables the pool’s fossil-fuel usage to be cut by 80%. David Coombes, Chairman of Portishead Community Trust, said, “This great development enables us to replace aging equipment, save on heating costs and significantly reduce our carbon footprint.” Good Energy CEO Juliet Davenport will be joining local MP Liam Fox and members of the Trust for the opening ceremony at 12.30 pm on Monday 25th April. If you’re going to be in the Bristol area, why not grab your swimming gear and test the water temperature yourself?          Good Energy wins ‘Environmental Excellence in Business’ Award We’re delighted to have been named winner of Wiltshire Life Magazine’s Award for Environmental Excellence in Business. This category recognises a Wiltshire-based business with “a strong sense of identity and financial success; sound staff motivation and growth and a sustainable and responsible ‘green‘business model.” Good Energy was up against some tough local opposition, including one of our customers, Wellington Barn. Environmental excellence is core to what we do and we’re committed to running our business responsibly too, ensuring it has a positive impact on our employees, our customers and our planet. It’s fantastic that this has been acknowledged in our local region. The photo above shows Good Energy’s Kate and Will Turner accepting the award on behalf of the team.     Get on board with Friends of the Earth’s local carbon budgets campaign Our partner Friends of the Earth is pushing hard to ensure that central Government does more to recognise some of the great work local councils are doing to reduce emissions in their area. Local carbon budgets have the potential to ensure that carbon reduction measures are locally based, tailor-made and community driven, rather than a Whitehal diktat. These budgets have the potential to deliver a real and lasting change to the way we tackle our carbon emissions. So if you want to make sure that your council is doing what it can by working with people as closely as possible to reduce emissions, and if you share our view that the best way to reduce our emissions is by working with people, then getting on board with the campaign is a great way of helping make this happen. Good Energy is backing the campaign and we hope that you will want to too, so we’ve provided some tools on our website to make it easy.       At last – an RHI for the UK After much delay, last month the government finally revealed its plans for a Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) for the UK. This is something Good Energy pioneered with our own < href="http://response.pure360.com/_act/link.php?mId=P886470650643234342002536194&tId=6213345" target=_blank mce_real_href="http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/what-we-are-doing/innovation/our-hotrocs-scheme-an-rhi">HotROCs scheme, the UK’s first RHI, linked to our Gas + product.  And to celebrate the launch of the RHI we’re offering existing* Good Energy electricity customers who sign up to Gas+ before 30th June a £50 discount. Quote 'e-news offer'. Having worked hard to convince Government of the difference an RHI would make to improving the takeup of renewable heat technology and cutting the UK’s carbon emissions, we’re pleased to see that the policy announced applies to a wide range of technologies. Eligible domestic generators who installed their renewable heat systems after 15th June 2009 will be supported under the scheme, although it won’t start until October 2012. In order to encourage households and communities to invest in renewable heat technologies, such as solar thermal panels and ground source heat pumps, they must be confident they’ll be able to depend on getting their payments easily and on time. At the moment, the plans propose for the scheme to be administered by industry regulator Ofgem. We are concerned that this could result in delays and confusion similar to those currently experienced by some Feed-in Tariff customers. Good Energy will be making sure we feed our views back to the government t ensure that the final details of the RHI are in the best interests of our customers. *Terms & Conditions: This offer is exclusive to Good Energy electricity customers who switched their supply before the 28/02/11 and subsequently signed up to our Gas+ product during the period of 01/03/11 – 30/06/11       Solar Toys reduced to just £10 each until 31st May British summertime is finally here and the sun is making ever more frequent appearances so these solar toys are great way to get your kids outside and learning about solar technology. The Windmill, Watermill and Chameleon are all available at the Good Energy Shop and we’re reducing the price to just £10 until 31st May. And with the weather not always reliable in the UK it’s good to know that both the Windmill and Watermill work indoors under a halogen desk lamp too.