may day may day may day

How nice to see Gordon Ramsay turning into an environmentalist overnight. His call for local and seasonal produce (including the bizarre suggestion that chefs who do not serve seasonal produce should be fined – work out how even the most energetic red-tape bureaucrat would administer that) was hailed by sleepy journalists as a great call to action from the rent-a-quote culinary genius. Laced with an attack on Delia Smith, surely the timing of his publicity stunt (sorry, ‘call to action’) was purely coincidental given that his latest series is about to start on TV.

From what I read over the weekend, it was left to The Independent (pretty much the only trustworthy newspaper these days in my opinion) to do any actual journalistic research into Ramsay’s latest rant. They ran a brilliant piece on the fact that Gordon’s luxury restaurant in Dubai boasts of little else other than the fact that all the food (and even the milk) is flown in from the UK, some 3,000 miles away. In fact, if you visit his glitzy emporium (not that I would) in the UAE, even the fish is flown in from the North Sea, that icon of rampant pillaging. Whilst the Gulf yields plenty of fresh, local, and more exotic species of seafood, Gordon brings it in from the most laughed at attempt at marine conservation anywhere in the world. Here in Britain, the way to puff your product is to show how local and seasonal it is. But for those who, for reasons best known to themselves, opt to holiday in Dubai, the way to haul the punters in is to emphasise just how far the food has travelled. Odd world, silly man.

The F-word seems strangely apt as a response to this self-serving green grandstanding. 

Last week the Rainforest Alliance edged closer to stardom – and tea from sustainably farmed sources also hit the big time with the official premiere of A Tale of Two Continents at London’s Prince Charles Theatre in Leicester Square. So my girlfriend and I headed over to the red carpet with some friends and Rainforest Alliance colleagues to join in the fun.
The movie is a new 10 minute comedy from Unilever’s PG Tips, who are busy converting their tea to Rainforest Alliance certified, a first for them and indeed for the Alliance. There’s more plot in this film than any recent 2 hour romantic comedy. The sustainable tea project is a very large scale innovation, and another major milestone in the mainstreaming of sustainable produce. Just as Unilever pioneered the Marine Stewardship Council for seafood more than a decade ago, once again they lead the field with tea. The film features my friend and colleague Anita Neville, with whom I’ve worked on Rainforest Alliance issues for the past 3 years or so. She is now so grand she is no longer taking calls. I expect she’s house hunting in Bel Air…

Sadly, the other star of the show, iconic PG Tips front man Monkey couldnt join us in person as he was busy picking up awards in Hollywood but he did take a brief moment to speak to us live via satellite and introduce the movie. You can see a trailer clip here…
A 5 minute version of the film will appear before The Spiderwick Chronicles, Horton hears a Who, Hannah Montana and Gameplan for the next 3 weeks in cinemas around the UK. And then fans will be able to grab a DVD version (with added extras) and a tea towel from supermarkets during April. The film will then be available as an online download from May.
It’s hard to believe how far the Rainforest Alliance has come in the UK in recent years, but last Wednesday’s event was a timely reminder. If you want to see business-NGO collaboration at its best, then this is it.

Frightening piece by Owen Bowcott in today’s Guardian about the growing international race to snap up ownership rights to vast tracts of seabed in order to exploit its mineral, oil and gas deposits. Having ruined much of the world’s land, we now find ourselves in a dash to grab what lies beneath the surface, with all the environmental devastation that could entail. It’s reminiscent of how the European Union, having exhausted all its fishing resources through years of reckless practice, then turned to West Africa, snapping up the fishing rights of the world’s poorest people and depriving them of their main source of protein. Or how having pillaged supplies of fish that had provided for humanity for centuries, mankind turned to deep water species like the orange roughy, scooping them up before they had even had a chance to reproduce. Illegal fishing pushed this species, which can live to 100 years old, to the brink of destruction. This determination to drain every last drop of life from the earth continues to baffle and alarm in equal measure. I’ll be watching the seabed rights issue with interest, not least because it has all the ingredients campaigners dream of - beautiful nature, multinational corporations, governments, short-termism, and potential profit at the expense of developing nations. It’s a lethal cocktail all round.

Greenpeace is always scaling buildings with one message or another. But here’s a first - a positive message. The campaign whizzkids have today conquered a building (nothing new there), but this particular building is the all new singing and dancing St Pancras station in London. To welcome the new Eurostar route, the eco freaks have put up a huge banner on the station’s building. For once, it reads ‘YES!’, instead of ‘NO’. Very smart move. Of course, the subtext is to remind people of their campaign against airport expansion and promote rail travel. Hence the small(ish) print on the poster “P.S. Gordon, no need for that third runway”, a reference to enlarging the hideously crowded Heathrow Airport still further. Whatever your views on that, Greenpeace UK continues, in my view, to be the best NGO of all at eye-catching campaigns, always with the crucial ingredient of the unexpected thrown in. See Greenpeace.

To the launch party for the new ‘QI’ (Quite Interesting) Annual at the Groucho Club in Soho last night. Usual mix of the great and good of British comedy. QI, which makes the quiz show of the same name on BBC 2, is the brainchild of my old friend John Lloyd (who has won more BAFTAs for the likes of Spitting Image, Blackadder etc than I have bought carbon credits). Enjoyed mingling with old friends and marvelling at John’s capacity to bring a collective IQ of about 8 billion under one roof on a cold London evening. Fortunately I managed to avoid getting into a debate with Jeremy Clarkson, whose crusade against sustainable development continues to ravage the minds of unthinking people with not a care for the one home they have, our planet. The point of QI is that everything is interesting if looked at in the right way. The sustainable development movement could learn much from the approach. After all, how much fun can you have with a press release about sustainable packaging?

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Welcome to my blog, which will mainly focus on sustainable development issues and corporate responsibility in general. Having spent many years working in the NGO movement (with varying degrees of success, it must be said) before jumping ship to the business world, I’m struck both by the massive potential of the two communities working together, as well as the challenges such partnerships still face today. Recently I discussed this and other issues on Green.tv, a fantastic new initiative that is gaining real traction, as well as providing a great way for responsible businesses to showcase their sustainability work. Check out the interview and the rest of the green.tv site here.