What’s the best energy efficiency measure you’ve taken at home. It may be the one that saved you the most off your heating bills, or the easy, quick fix that blocks off the draught that used to howl around your ankles while you watched TV. Or maybe it’s the ingenious bodge job, that didn’t cost you a penny.

Whatever you’ve done we want to hear about it, so that other people can copy it, and stay warm for less this winter too.

To encourage you to share your triumphs with us we’re giving away two fabulous Geo Minim energy monitors. They make it easy to see how much energy you’re using at a glance, by using a visual representation as well as numbers.

Entering the competition is easy, just add a photo or text onto our facebook page YouGenUK. There will be prizes for the best idea and for the best photo.

But you’ll need to do it soon. The competition closes on 30 November.

First published on YouGen blog. For more information on  energy effieciency or renewables visit the YouGen website.

YouGen is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

WIN A FAMILY TICKET

Win a family ticket worth £56 to visit Marwell Wildlife park.

In support and to highlight Marwell’s fantastic animal conservation work, in particular the Grevy’s zebra, we have a family ticket worth £56 up for grabs.

Marwell Wildlife is a magnificent 140 acre home to over 250 exotic and endangered species. Marwell are at the forefront in the UK with pioneering animal conservation projects both here in the UK and in other parts of the world.

For a chance to win this excellent family prize all you have to do is tell us who your favourite animal is. Is it a bird, fish, mammal or even an insect? It’s as simple as that!

What’s Your Favourite Animal?

There are two ways to enter:

1. Visit Competition Corner and enter your answer on the link.
2. Visit our Facebook page and add your answer to the wall thread currently running.

We Wish You The Best of Luck Everyone!

Terms and Conditions Apply

Competition Closes Friday 26th November 2010

Animal Days Out is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

To mark 10:10:10 wewow will be printing 10 eco-friendly CD WowWallets in 10 minutes for 10 bands, who are the lucky winners of wewow’s one-off competition.  The aim is to demonstrate the benefits, and in particular the potential carbon-savings of eco-friendly, card based packaging over traditional plastic packaging solutions.

With research earlier this year demonstrating that wewow’s WowWallet product reduces the carbon emissions of a CD release by over 13% (when compared with the jewel case), the increased uptake of eco-friendly CD packaging by record labels and recording artists would put the industry well on its way to reducing their collective carbon emissions by 10% this year alone.

The life cycle assessment, carried out on behalf of wewow, demonstrated that a huge 2803KG of CO2e would be saved if just 10% of the CDs sold annually in the UK were packaged in the WowWallet.  It will be difficult for the industry to ignore such significant findings and with wewow now offering cost-effective, eco-friendly packaging on short-runs, low-carbon packaging solutions are now available for limited-edition releases right through to popular, worldwide releases.

Independent bands and musicians are being given the chance to participate in wewow’s 10:10:10 event by submitting their artwork via wewow’s packaging website, weEco.co.uk.  10 bands will be selected and will have their 100% recycled CD wallets printed in the space of just 10 minutes on 10^th October!

wewow Ltd is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

To mark Organic Fortnight, fou furnishings, specialist luxury organic bedding company, is running a competition to win a set of our beautifully textured ‘Boutis’ organic cotton cushion covers. Ends 30th of September. So simple to enter. Just follow these two steps for your chance to win a pair of luxurious organic cushion covers to grace your organic bed or sofa.

1. Tick the “like” box at the top of our Facebook page.
2. Email us at info@foufurnishings.com with the answer to this question:

Fou furnishings Boutis is certfied by a) The UK Soil Association b) Oeko-Tex c) Neither
Check out Boutis in our bedspreads and cushions section and email your answer to info@foufurnishings.com.

fou furnishings is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

To mark Organic Fortnight, fou furnishings is running a competition to win a set of our beautifully textured ‘Boutis’ organic cotton cushion covers. Ends 30th of September. So simple to enter. Just follow these two steps for your chance to win a pair of luxurious organic cushion covers to grace your bed or sofa.

1. Tick the “like” box at the top of our Facebook page.
Email us at info@foufurnishings.com with the answer to this question:

Fou furnishings Boutis is certfied by a) The UK Soil Association b) Oeko-Tex c) Neither
Visit http://www.foufurnishings.com/ to check out Boutis
in our bedspreads and cushions section and email your answer to info@foufurnishings.com

fou furnishings is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

Urban Africa has climbed aboard the Facebook ‘band’ wagon and we plan to communicate all our company news, competitions and so on from Facebook in future. We don’t want you to miss out so click www.facebook.com/UrbanAfrica  and become a UA Fan, you might like this. And suggest Urban Africa to your friends!

We’ll be entering all our UA Fans (new and old) into a draw at the end of August and you could be the lucky one to scoop a first edition of African Salad, a contemporary cookbook filled with traditional (and wacky) African recipes some handed down through generations. The photos alone awakening this cookbook and it’s likely to spend more time on your coffee table than in your kitchen cupboard!

Good Luck!

Competition closes 31 August 2010.

Urban Africa is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

We’re proud to announce the third annual National Zero Waste Week.

The week commences 6th September and the theme is ‘Cooking for Victory!’ We chose this in response to WRAP’s household food waste report which shows the average householder throws away 1/3 of the food they buy. National Zero Waste Week is an opportunity for you to focus on your food waste, make a pledge to reduce it and win some prizes.

We have celebrity chef Brian Turner CBE supporting us and are sponsored by Tetra Pak. There is the opportunity for 2 people to win vouchers – 1 x £50 voucher for LUSH and 1 x £50 voucher for Natural Collection.

Click here to pledge your support then come back during National Zero Waste Week to tell us how you’re getting on. Remember, two lucky people will win some great prizes!

My Zero Waste is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

Book of Green, the free eco living directory full of green and ethical businesses, confirms the strength and prosperity of the green sector. Despite the recession Book of Green has launched a larger edition of the paperback eco-directory, doubled its print run, and gone digital, launching an iPhone app.

“In less than a week since the launch advertisers in the book are already seeing results showing that consumers are spending.  Innovative companies that can help save money, energy and show social responsibility by putting both people and planet first, are those that will thrive in this difficult climate.” says Sue Jueno – co-founder of Book of Green.

Book of Green provides readers with hundreds of eco-friendly companies in this year’s paperback. From architects, body & skincare and cleaning products to homeware, microgeneration and sustainable tourism as well as offers, articles and new this year a fabulous competition.

The competition will enable one lucky reader to win an entire Christmas shopping list.  Winning 26 presents for friends and family, including goodies from Green People, Jo Wood Organics, Balm Balm, Weleda, a case of wine from Vintage Roots, a signed copy of ‘The Woodland Year’ by Ben Law, and many more.   Plus there are 50 runner-up prizes, for a little pre-xmas treat.  Sign up here for your chance to win!

Book of Green is available for free across the country while stocks last, in stores such as Planet Organic, The Eden Project, health food shops, WHSmith (free with Permaculture magazine July). To find your nearest copy visit the distribution page. An online version is also available.

iPhone users can download the app for FREE direct from the App Store (search Book of Green) or via iTunes – http://bit.ly/btNx13. Users cans search categories from the home page, and will be able to view the closest green business to their location, plus any relevant web-only companies. It also features social media integration to post information to Twitter and Facebook.

Explaining the inspiration behind Book of Green, co-founder Katie Keegan explains. “We wanted to create ways of making green living really convenient and practical for people. By having a directory that is freely available, in paperback, online and on the iPhone, it is now easier than ever to find many of the great green businesses that exist today.”

Book of Green is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

First, Our Facebook Competition

Our first Facebook competition  has launched. Win a set of pillow cases in 100% organic cotton from our Elsa organic bed linen range. To see more details and enter, simply visit our Facebook competition page or read on to find out how to enter.  Answer a simple question and email the answer to info@foufurnishings.com. Let us know that you like our Facebook organic bed linen page and that you are attending the competition. All answers are strictly confidential. The closing date for the competition is the 21st of June. The lucky winner will be drawn out of an ‘organic’ hat and informed by email by the 22nd of June.   If you don’t want to enter the competition but would like to be the first to hear the latest updates from us at Fou Furnishings and much more besides then you can follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group anytime.

fou furnishings is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

In September 2009, wewow launched a unique design competition with the aim of promoting practices of sustainable design to students, graduates and product designers.  The Bradford-based company have today announced the winner of the design contest; Sun Park, a  student from Central St Martins College, London.

Sun Park sucessfully combined design flair with an environmental conscience to produce an innovative packaging solution for CD and DVD media.  Although the details of her unique design concept are being kept under wraps until the official launch of the CD/DVD packaging solution later this year, wewow have commented on the high calibre of this year’s entries;

“The designs we received this year have been outstanding and truly innovative.  Selecting the winning design was a tough decision as the five short-listed entries in paticular were truly exceptional,” commented Managing Director, Stuart Jones.

Entries were received from across the globe with a whole range of sustainable materials being utilized by the designers to produce eco-friendly packaging concepts.  Commendations go to Florin Alexa-Morcov from Romania for her design, ‘DisPlay.’  DisPlay transforms CD storage into a unique interior design feature whilst utilizing sustainable paperboard and water-based glues.  The outstanding finalists also included Andrew Rennie’s eye-catching CD packaging solution, Thomas Horwood-Luscombe’s CD/DVD mailer [pictured below] concept which provided a unique packaging solution for the rental industry and Sarah Young, the designer of an eco-friendly USB packaging concept.

The winning entry will be developed by Sun Young and wewow with the aim of launching the product at the end of 2010.

wewow Ltd is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more