How and why Ideal supported 10:10:10

Yesterday was 10 October 2010 (10:10:10) – a day for global action on cutting carbon, masterminded by 10:10.

We did our bit by leaving the car at home and walking the dog on her walkies – she normally gets chauffeured to her fave places! I reset the Owl energy monitor and kept a close eye on it all day.

We had a mega low carbon lunch - raw veggies grown organically in our garden dipped in a lovely sauce (thanks Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for the recipe!) We abandoned ideas of doing the hedges with our huge electric shears. The washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer remained silent all day.

Sunday dinner was a slow cooked home grown veg bake. When I tested the energy use on the Owl, it showed that the slow cooker used just one tenth the energy of the fan oven. OK, it was on longer, but I reckon we cut energy use by 60% on that meal alone. And the real fun bit was eating it all by candlelight. It felt really special – will definitely do that again!

We supported the Global Day of Doing because we wanted to join in an event dedicated to some positive action on the environment. As it fell on a Sunday, it was also mega easy, and fun.

Ideal signed up to 10:10 over a year ago. It promotes a simple idea: to cut carbon emissions by 10% each year. As a business supporter, they ask you to focus on gas and electricity use and car and air travel. As we’d been increasing our emissions, we wanted to sign up to something to help motivate us in reducing our impact. We’ve just completed our first year of data and we’re chuffed to bits to learn we’d managed an overall 15% reduction.

We’ve always been impressed with 10:10, we’ve promoted the organisation to others and made a couple of donations as part of our 2010 cause related marketing initiative. We were impressed to be called and have a chat about our plans for 10:10:10 - great to have a volunteer pick up the phone.

Then last week we were absolutely appalled by 10:10 and their ill-conceived video nasty to promote 10:10:10 - the one by Richard Curtis where people, including schoolchildren, got blown up if they wouldn’t join in with attempts to cut carbon. We were also very disappointed by their initial response to the furore surrounding the video.

Instead of blogging publicly about the issue last week, we wrote directly to 10:10 and expressed our disgust of the violence. We said we would continue doing our bit to cut carbon, but would wait and see how things developed before making a decision on withdrawing our support for 10:10.

We were very heartened to see the full and sincere apology posted by Eugenie Harvey. We’re still waiting for an individual response, but we’re glad that our email was one of many that caused them to rethink and retract their earlier statements.

We enjoyed taking part in 10:10:10 and we’re keen to try and reduce our gas and electricity use by 10% this year. So, we’re sticking with 10:10. Yes, they made a big mistake, but they’ve said sorry and it’s time for them and us to get back to focusing positively on the things we can do to cut carbon.


Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk