I am currently volunteering at Birmingham’s Friends of the Earth for a few weeks because I thought volunteering here would be a great opportunity to develop my interests for sustainable development on a local, national and international level. This interest has come from campaigning for renewable energy in my local area, to carrying out Green Impact audits for the University as well as studying an environmental assessment and management module which tackled global issues.
I am mainly involved with the Clean British Energy campaign which Friends of the Earth is launching ahead of the Governments Electricity Reform which will heavily influence how we power the country. Therefore if we are going to convince the Government that Clean British Energy needs of be at the top of their agenda we need to show them that we are switching suppliers.
Both recommended energy providers, Good Energy and Ecotricity are competitive in price but more importantly have ethical business strategies towards the environment. Good Energy uses 100% renewable sources and ecotricity 60% , however, this is increasing and their promise is to price match the Big Six for their standard ‘brown’ electricity in your region. Both suppliers are better for the environment due to them reinvesting in green and sustainable energy and in turn creating a sustainable green Britain.
The next stage of the campaign is to promote it to everyone and contact organisations and businesses to highlight the issue and encourage them to change suppliers. In the meantime we need to collaborate together, to express that you want Clean British Energy, come and sign the post cards at the Birmingham Friends of the Earth reception energy so we can show MPs people want to move away from the Nations reliance on fossil fuels. In turn, you can be nominated for CBE.
I am both positive and excited about the public’s response to the campaign as I see investing in renewable energy will aid Britain’s economical situation in the long run, decrease our reliance on dirty, imported fossil fuels and create a greener and sustainable country. The switch to renewable energy has to happen sooner rather than later so let it be now!
