Nigel’s Eco Store is proud to today announce the winners of the Nigel’s Green Web Awards 2008.  Given the rapid rise in the number of green websites and the amount of coverage of green issues and climate change this year, we felt it was time to draw attention to the best websites involved in the effort to create a greener future.

The Judges

Over the past few weeks we have collected the opinions from leading Green bloggers and experts – people like Bonnie Alter from treehugger.com, Adam Vaughan from Smart Planet, Ed Gillespie from Futerra and Tracy Stokes of EcoStreet – all people with great green credentials who also know what makes the web tick.

A full list of judges on the awards page can be found at: http://www.nigelsecostore.com/green-web-awards/#judges

The judges voted on their favourite Green and Eco sites, in a number of different categories. Our mission in creating the  Green Web Awards was to find the people and organisations who are in the vanguard of creating a greener future online and not just to reward the sites with the biggest budgets, but to find websites that are hidden gems, community-based sites and ones that make use of the power of the internet.

"The web is now a central part of our lives. We expect the sites we visit to be authoritative, dynamic and talking to us in ways that we understand. I hope we’ve been able to shine a light on some of the very best green web sites there are. I was pleased to see some of my favourites come up," said Nigel Berman, MD of Nigel’s Eco Store.

More than any medium today, the web has the power to create communities that can change the world, to inform, and to shape opinion. We believe that what we can achieve online today will have a massive influence on what the world becomes tomorrow.

And the Winners are…

The judges voted for sites in 12 categories, with winners and runners up in each. The  winners in each include:

Green Travel                          Responsible Travel

Green Site for Kids                  Recycle Zone

Ethical Health and Beauty         Green People

Eco Blogs and News                  Tree Hugger

Online Campaigns                   Green Thing

Online Communities                Freecycle

Green Energy                          Good Energy

Ethical Clothing                       People Tree

Greenest companies                Method

and

Worst Greenwash                     Barbie B-Cause

For a full list of winners, see http://www.nigelsecostore.com/green-web-awards/

The majority (83%) of the general public would be less likely or unwilling to give to a charity if they found out it was not investing ethically, according to new research released today by the EIRIS Foundation.

The GFK NOP poll of 2,000 UK adults found that 52% of the general public would be unwilling to give to charities that are investing in a way that is against their objectives, and a further 31% would be less likely to give.  

Almost all (91%) of those surveyed agreed that charities should be investing their money in an ethically or socially responsible way. This highlights a mis-match between public expectations and the number of charities actually investing ethically – a 2006 study by ACCA found that just 55% of large UK charities had an ethical investment policy.

The survey illustrates the growing public interest in the finances of charities, and the risks to both reputation and income that charities face by not investing in line with their mission. As the credit crunch bites, many charities are worried about the potential drop in their income from donations. It is therefore crucial that charities maintain the trust of the public and don’t alienate donors through their investment policies.

Of those surveyed, 81% said that if they discovered a charity was not investing in this way it would negatively affect their view of the charity and 83% indicated that it would make them less likely or unwilling to give to the charity.

The survey also reveals that the public wish to know what charities do with their money. When asked how important it is to know where and how a charity invests its money, 41% of adults rated this as very important on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 equals very important). Just 11% rated this as 4 or below.

Public support for ethical investment has increased significantly since a NOP survey for the Charities Aid Foundation. In 2001 over 40% of the public said that they would prefer to support charities which invest ethically and a further 14% said that they were only prepared to support charities investing in this way.

Peter Webster, Executive Director of EIRIS, said “Ethical investment is something which each of the UK’s 25,000 charities that have investments should be taking very seriously. It provides charities with real opportunities to further rather than counter their aims.  If all the £56 billion of UK charity investments was invested ethically this would send a powerful message to companies in terms of social, environmental and ethical corporate behaviour.”

Sam Collin, EIRIS Charity Project Co-ordinator said “These findings come at a time when charities are coming under additional scrutiny from their supporters and face increased pressure from the Charity Commission to be more accountable and transparent. Charities should be responding to the concerns of supporters by demonstrating that they are using their finances in an ethical way.”

A full copy of the survey is available on request.