bemoreeco

So this is it. Less than a month after we began our search to find the UK’s greenest low-fares airline we’re down to the final two, Flybe and EasyJet. Flybe reached the finals after defeating Aer Lingus (3 - 2) and Ryanair (3 - 2). EasyJet reached the finals with stellar victories over Thomson Fly (4 - 1) and Monarch (4 - 1). Now it’s time to decide, once and for all, who’s the UK’s greenest low-fares airline.

The Basics:

Flybe

Flybe, formerly Jersey European Airways, has not grown as quickly as other airlines. It’s only in the past 6 years that company has come onto the scene. First it was renamed British European in 2000, and then Flybe in 2002 with a repositioning as a low-fares aline. In 2007 Flybe took over BA Connect, British Airway’s’ regional service. BA currently owns 15% of the company.

EasyJet

Wasn’t Airline a great program? It’s probably annoying that it did so much to promote EasyJet at the time. EasyJet is Ryanair’s biggest competitor and has remained at the forefront of the low-cost airline movement. Most Recently EasyJet has purchased GO, expanded into Gatwick Airport and plans to move in to Manchester too.

Head to Head

Easyjet is the greenest low-fares airline in the UK. Generally speaking, it’s been an interesting investigation. There is a major split in the low-fares airline community at the moment about how to tackle climate change. Three airlines, EasyJet, Flybe and Monarch are actively taking steps to tackle the problem. Thomson Fly gets caught saying they want to but not making any actions to support it. The rest, Ryanair, Aer Lingus and BMI Baby either ignore the problem or often deliberately provoke environmentalists.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, it’s been fun to write.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Semi-Final: Monarch 1 - 4 EasyJet

BLFA Semi-Final: Ryanair 2 - 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Thomson 1 - 4 Easyjet

BLFA Round One: BMI Baby 1 - 4 Monarch

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus 2 - 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair 3 - 2 Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

The battle of the low-fares airlines green credentials is really heating up now. Today we have the first of the semi-finals between Ryanair and Flybe. Which is the greener low-fares airline? Lets find out.

The Basics:

Ryanair

Following the deregulation of the European air industry, Ryanair attacked the market with colossal speed. They pioneered the low-fares airline concept in Europe and have witnessed an ever increasing number of passengers. Ryanair is now the 3rd largest airline in Europe.

Flybe

Flybe, formerly Jersey European Airways, has not grown as quickly as other airlines. It’s only in the past 6 years that company has come onto the scene. First it was renamed British European in 2000, and then Flybe in 2002 with a repositioning as a low-fares aline. In 2007 Flybe took over BA Connect, British Airway’s’ regional service. BA currently owns 15% of the company.

Head to Head

So, we’ve had a big upset here, as Flybe skips past Ryanair to reach the finals of the Battle of the Low-Fares Airlines. Flybe will be up against either Monarch or Easyjet. Who will be the UK’s greenest low-fares airline? Time will tell.

The second semi-final will take place on Thursday.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Round One: Thomson 1 - 4 Easyjet

BLFA Round One: BMI Baby 1 - 4 Monarch

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus 2 - 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair 3 - 2 Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

With green on the mind and kids in the brain, buying all your back to school clothing ranks highly on the agenda at the moment. The back-to-school posts have been coming in thick and fast on the blogosphere, so fast it’s been difficult to keep up. So here is a useful round-up of some of the best green back-to-school posts on the internet.

Eco-Street: Your Green "Back To School" Guide - Eco-Street gets us going with some great ideas of where and how to purchase green uniforms, lunch boxes, bags and stationary. They’ve even added a few PTA fundraising ideas.

Budget-Ecoist: Web Round-Up - Back to School Edition: Budget-Ecoist has a great round-up of some of the best back-to-school posts on the web.

Ethical Pulse: Think Green For Back To School - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - Some good ideas from Ethical Pulse about reusing your existing items, recycling and reducing waste associated with items like food packaging in lunch boxes.

The Guardian: The green route back to school - Matt Gribble wrote this last year, but it applies even more today. Matt explains where you can find recycled stationary, secondhand uniforms and even recycled paper.

Eco-Fabulous: Back to School in College Green - Bamboo fiber sheets, LED Desk Lamps and 100% recycled rubber bulletin boards, Eco-fabulous shares where to buy your college-vanishing child eco-friendly products.

Eco Child’s Play: Low Impact Living: Back to School Green Style! - Cassie Walker tackles the fashion-problem with greener uniforms, how to green school supplies and the green options for getting your kids to school.

Sustainablog: Back to School Shopping Madness: From Kindergarten through College, It’s Time to Curb the Stuff - Robin Shreeves explains how and why you should stop buying your kids so much back-to-school stuff.

Green SAHM: Keeping Back to School Sane - Stephanie talks from her experience of keeping your back-to-school experience on the right side of sane.

Kellibestoliver: Think Green For Back to School - Kelli’s small post packs a hell of a resource-fuelled punch. Plenty of links here to keep you in the green.

UK Energy Saving Blog: How Can Going Back To School Be Green - The UK Energy Saving blog chimes in with some quick advice about saving energy

Moms In A Blog: Back To School - The Green Way - Crystal Unrau explains how to green your school supplies, lunch boxes, wardrobes and even your childrens’ homework.

Planet Green: Back to School Thrift Store Shopping - Take the eco option and buy back to school clothes from thrift stores.

Great Green Goods: Back to School: Recycled Lunch Bags - Will your children like recycled lunch bags? They sure look ok.

Living from More Than: Back-to-school goes green - Charlie Peverett debates some of the top tips about making back-to-school even greener.

My Yoga Online: Earth Friendly Back To School Shopping: Some more American-based back to school advice, how to buy green uniforms for your young tots.

Green & Clean Mom: Win a Green Back to School Kit - Win a green back to school kit.

Can you add any more links? Or do you have some great advice or experience to share?

It’s the final day of round one, and it’s about to get serious. We’ve got Thomson Fly up against low-fare giants EasyJet. What happened to Air-Southwest you ask? Simple, they’re just not in the same league. Air Southwest has an airline of just 5 aircraft, Thomson Fly is many times more popular. So we’ve decided to use Thomson Fly instead. Who has the greenest credentials? Lets find out.

The Basics:

Thomson Fly

You might better remember Thomson Fly as Britannia Airways. Thomson Fly traces it’s foundations back to 1962, and was known as Britannia until 2004. Then, like other airlines it repositioned itself into the low-fares market and has been competing there ever since. It’s not the fastest growing airline, but it is popular for being on-time and has expanded significantly in the past few years.

EasyJet

Wasn’t Airline a great program? It’s probably annoying that it did so much to promote EasyJet at the time. EasyJet is Ryanair’s biggest competitor and has remained at the forefront of the low-cost airline movement. Most Recently EasyJet has purchased GO, expanded into Gatwick Airport and plans to move in to Manchester too.

Head to Head

So, perhaps it isn’t a great surprise that EasyJet have come through here. Becoming the more environmentally-aware airline of the two big ones is a natural step for EasyJet to take. It will now be interesting to see just how far the airline can go in this competition.

They will be next up against Monarch this coming Thursday.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Round One: BMI Baby 1 - 4 Monarch

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus 2 - 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair 3 - 2 Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

It’s Friday again, thanks heavens. That means it must be time for another roundup of this weeks dumbest green ideas. So without delay…

Dumb Green Idea: Solar-powered neck-tie

This got a lot of attention thos week, mainly because it’s an incredibly dumb green idea. No doubt it’ll spread amongst the celebs needing the green cred. It’s a Solar Powered neckie. It’s ambitious, but extremely foolhardy. First, ties are going out of fashion these days. Second, it looks awful. Really, really, awful. The artists impressions don’t help at all. Third, do people really spend much time in the sun?

Ah, yes, and there is a jacket.

Why not a solar powered umbrella?

How Dumb? 6/10

Dumb Green Idea: Gwyneth Paltrow Stars in Fur Ad

Gwyneth Paltrow has been commended by environmentalists of late. She’s encouraged supports to eat an organic vegetarian diet and recently hosted a charity benefit to save horses from slaughter. So it’s extraordinary that her agent would let her star in an ads for fur-lined boots and bags. PETA elegantly stated "Paltrow’s beauty is only skin deep".

Not to mention reports on Sprig that she refused to mingle with the common folk at her horse-slaughter fundraiser.

How Dumb? 7/10

Dumb Green Idea: PETA to buy Sea World?

That’s right. Shamu and co might soon be set free into the big bad ocean. Where, apparently, they’ll last about five seconds before wondering where the guy with the bucket of fish has gone, or why that big toothy creature is starting to swim mighty close.

PETA apparently wants to buy Sea World and setup a virtual reality theme park on the site, release some of the animals and put the rest in a marine life centre.

Ambitious, certainly. Dumb, most definitely. The animals at the Sea World resort are entirely reliant upon humans and they offer visitors a rare chance to admire brilliant creatures. In comparison with zoos in Beijing and India, the conditions for the animals are far better.

How Dumb? 8/10 - Some things just aren’t meant to be.

Dumb Green Idea: Bush’s Stealth Attack on Endangered Species

Talk about sneaky, at the moment when half the country is on vacation and the other half are watching the Olympics, George Bush is try to sneak through some legislation that will prevent biologists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service from advising federal agencies evaluating projects that could impact endangered species.

Those that would make the decisions, if this act is passed, would be agencies including the forest Service, the Minerals Management Service and the Department of Transportation. Mostly for projects in which approval would benefit them (e.g. timber allotments and mining roads).

Luckily the Press Association spotted it, and others got wind. Obama has pledged to nullify the act.

How Dumb? 7/10 - Surely they knew someone would spot the advert?

It’s day 3 in our great battle of the low-fares airline. Each day we put the green credentials of two airlines head to head, with one emerging victories. So far we’ve seen Ryanair defeat Jet2 and Flybe defeat Aer Lingus. Today we’re going to pit BMI Baby against Monarch to see who will be third airline to advance into the semi-finals.

BMI Baby (The airline with tiny fares)

BMI Baby is another newcomer to the scene, and a subsidiary of East Midlands Airways. BMI Baby began flights from East Midlands airport and quickly found a profitable niche across the midlands and up to Manchester. Today it primarily focuses on flights to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast and Ireland, and is proving popular with both casual holidays and business travellers.

Monarch (The low fares airline that cares)

Monarch Airlines has grown steadily since it’s inception 41 years ago. From it’s original base in Luton the airline expanded to include Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester within the UK, and several destinations abroad. It was not until 2004 that Monarch repositioned itself as a low-fares airline going head-to-head with Easjet and Ryanair. Monarch currently has it’s sight site on launching a low-fares service to destinations in North America.

Head to Head

Monarch advance into the semi-finals with a comprehensive thumping of BMI Baby’s absent green credentials. Will they face a sterner test in the next round? Most probably. They will be up against the greenest airline between Air SouthWest and EasyJet.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus -vs- Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair -vs- Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

So yesterday Ryanair took down Jet2, but only just. Now it’s time to see who Ryanair will be up against in the next round. Will it be their Irish compatriots, Aer Lingus, or will Flybe’s green credentials reign supreme.

Lets take a look at the basics:

Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus is one of the world’s oldest airlines. The company has largely been under control of the Irish government and up to the 1990s offered services primarily to Irish passengers. However, since surviving the airline troubles of 2001, Aer Lingus has repositioned itself to compete with low-fares airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet. Most recently it was the subject of a takeover bid from Ryanair. The bid was blocked by the European Commission in 2007, buy Ryanair still owns a significant 29% stake in the company.

Flybe

Flybe, formerly Jersey European Airways, has not grown as quickly as other airlines. It’s only in the past 6 years that company has come onto the scene. First it was renamed British European in 2000, and then Flybe in 2002 with a repositioning as a low-fares aline. In 2007 Flybe took over BA Connect, British Airway’s’ regional service. BA currently owns 15% of the company.

Head to Head

So Flybe’s green initiatives and carbon offsetting seal the victory against Aer Lingus. This means we have Flybe against Ryanair in the first semi-final next week.

On Friday we will see BMI Baby against Fly Monarch to see who will become the third team to advance to the semi-finals.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus 2 - 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair 3 - 2 Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

Mattel’s Earth Day Barbie doll range has been recognised as the worst culprit of greenwashing.

Last week Nigel’s Eco Store’s announced the results of its eco-awards. Mattel took unwanted prize for worse greenwashing offender for launching a Barbie doll made from excess fabric, whilst failing to take any measures to curb it’s use of plastic and non-recyclable packaging.

Oil giants Shell and ExxonMobil romped to second and third places. Shell for it’s advert depicting its oil refineries emitting flowers rather than smoke (seriously?), and ExxonMobil for arguing against the very existence of climate change.

(Via BrandRepublic)

Yesterday Sainsbury’s joined the great supermarket battle for the environmental initiative by opening the UK’s greenest ever superstore. The new store in Dartmouth, Devon, is built entirely from timber (not steel), collects rainwater to flush the toilets and uses wind turbines to power it’s checkouts. Better still, Sainbury’s have begun powering delivery lorries with methane-gas produced from rotting rubbish.

Sainsbury’s have really pulled out the stops on this one. The company has planted 400 trees to replace the 200 needed in construction, and engaged in no less than 38 energy-saving tactics. These include burning wood-chips in the biomass boiler, installing LED lights and solar-powered fans. Even in construction, Sainsbury’sclaim 90% of waste was recycled.

This very much seems to be the blueprint store for all of the supermarket’s new stores. Sainsbury’s anticipate that this store will use over 50% less electricity from the grid and produce 40% less CO2 than their normal stores. Sainsbury’s also hope to use 60% less rainwater than the typical supermarket store.

(Via: Brand Republic)

The Battle of the Low-Fares Airlines (BLFA) begins today with Ryanair against Jet2. On paper this is a no-brainer. Ryanair is many times the size of Jet2, has been operating much longer and should easily have the resources to offer the greener airline. But is that the case? Jet2 is a smaller and potentially more nubile competitor. It’s the sort of company that might be pioneering many great strategies under Ryanair’s radar. Lets look at the basics:

Ryanair

Following the deregulation of the European air industry, Ryanair attacked the market with collosal speed. They pioneered the low-fares airline concept in Europe and have witnessed an ever increasing number of passengers. Ryanair is now the 3rd largest airline in Europe.

Jet2

Jet2 is a Leeds-based British low-fares airline. Despite being a late-entrant into the low-fares airline industry, Jet2 has grown quickly from 600,000 passengers in 2003 to 3.2m in 2007. This has coincided with a steady expansion of destinations.

Head to Head

RyanAir’s modern aircraft fleet, passenger load and better regional reward the airline with a narrow victory over Jet2. It was a closer competition than some might expect, RyanAir’s flaws in carbon-offsetting and lack of green initiatives might well cost them the next round.

RyanAir will be up against the winner of home-rivals Aer Lingus and newcomers, FlyBe.