How to use the Internet in a more eco-friendly way:

1. Use a search engine that helps the environment. Ecosia (Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees) helps by planting trees when you use is it as your search engine, and Panda (WWF Panda Search – Search to make the world a better place) does the same for wildlife via WWF. Others worth looking at are Ekoru (Ekoru - Every search helps remove plastic) for plastics and OceanHero (OceanHero - The search that saves the oceans) for oceans. and Use one of these instead of Google or Bing.

2. You can go one stage further and install a web browser that automatically uses one of the above searches - both Ecosia and Panda provide web browsers for PC and smartphone. Another one to consider is Lilo (Lilo, le moteur de recherche français et solidaire), a French-made browser which donates 50% of its generated revenues to social and environmental projects. 

3. The Green Web Browser Extension (Green Web Browser Extension - Green Web Foundation) shows you whether the web sites you are visiting are "green" or not. You can then choose (ideally) to avoid the non-green ones in the future.

 

Ethical money:

1. If you don't already bank ethically, consider switching to an ethical bank - the top three according to Ethical Consumer are Nationwide Building Society, Co-op and Cumberland Building Society The worst banks are Barclays (which includes Tesco) and HSBC (which includes First Direct).

2. The best banks for savings accounts are Charity Bank, Ecology Building Society and Triodos; the worst are, again, Barclays and HSBC.

3. For car insurance, there aren't any really ethical companies, but the best three (again according to Ethical Consumer) are: AXA, Covea and Swiftcover; the worst three are Zurich, LV and Tesco.

4. For home insurance, the best three are: Naturesave, Ecclesiastical and Methodist; the worst three are, again, Zurich, LV and Tesco.

 

Green energy:

1. There are now several good utility companies that offer green electricity, and a small number also offering green(ish) gas. 100Green is the only company that offers 100% green electricity and gas. Other good companies are Ecotricity, Octopus and Good Energy. Ones to avoid are E:ON (which includes Sainsbury's), EDF, Utility Warehouse and British Gas.

2. Be aware of "greenwashing" where companies pretend to be green by using - but this isn't really green at all and is like carbon-offsetting when flying! If you want to find out more about greenwashing, read this article from Good Energy: the-problem-of-greenwashing-october-2020.pdf

3. Batteries. We all use them! They are not green. But some are worse than others: here are the worst of the worst - Duracell, Amazon Basics, Energizer (which unfortunately includes Rayvac who make hearing aid batteries). Better (but still not good) are Philips and Varta. User rechargeable batteries if at all possible.

4. Lighting: When you need to replace a light bulb, replace it with an LED one. According to the Energy Saving Trust, lighting makes up 15% of the average UK household electricity consumption. If you replace all the bulbs in your home with LED lights, you could reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by up to 40kg a year. This is equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted by driving a petrol car around 140 miles.