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Barclays recently brought out a new environmentally-friendly credit card called ‘Barclaycard Breathe’. 50% of net profits after tax (independently reviewed) are donated to registered charity ‘Pure, the Clean Planet Trust’. ‘Pure’ funds government-approved environmental projects in countries like China and Brazil to generate renewable energy and minimise carbon emissions. Pure also offers UK companies the opportunity to make a donation to offset some of their day to day carbon emissions. In my opinion Barclays have been a bit naughty with the Breathe card repayment options, ensuring that they maximise profits… and offset the carbon offsetting! (more…)

One of the problems with today’s multi-employer career path is that it’s easy to acquire multiple pension funds and lose track of them, recently I’ve been looking into consolidating my own pension investments into a personal stakeholder pension scheme. Pensions are of course still getting a bad write-up after years of over-estimated benefits forecasting and the problem of an ever-aging population. However, with many employers still offering to match employee contributions, plus the associated tax benefits, I still believe it’s worth investing in a pension as part of an overall investment portfolio. Ethical investing is important to me; from a karmic perspective I don’t want to be funding animal testing, worker exploitation or weapons development. However, finding an ethical pension fund wasn’t so easy, it took a fair bit of time to identify a good performer with suitable online tools for my needs. (more…)

On Friday Suzie_Q and I travelled back from our short overnight stay at Lulworth Cove in Dorset, but not before popping into world reknowned Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre in Wareham. Jim Cronin - the founder of Monkey World, sadly passed away in March this year (Liver Cancer) after creating Dorset’s refuge for monkeys rescued from the illegal pet trade, laboratories and other cruel circumstances. Hopefully Jim’s demise won’t see the closure of this wonderful centre though - it’s one of the only ‘zoos’ I can think of where the inhabitants are given lots of space and as close to natural habitat as possible following their previously traumatic lives. (more…)

Having spent more than seven years working with Nature - one of the world’s most prestigious science publishers, I’ve been aware for some time of the potential use of stem cells for the development of new medical treatments. With ‘Baby Peskett’ due in early July, my wife and I have been looking at some of the commercial services offering to store cord blood (the source of stem cells) for up to 25 years. The stumbling block is that the umbilical cord blood collection is not something many NHS hospitals will support; in our case East Surrey Hospital has just rejected our request. East Surrey will only collect blood if it is needed ‘for therapeutic reasons’ i.e. the treatment of an existing sibling. (more…)

April 1st saw the launch of the new website for the African Child Trust - a UK charity supporting the education of widows and orphaned children in Africa. Frequent readers may remember the ACT open day I attended in October 2006; I’ve been working with ACT for a number of years to support their web activities free of charge (we all need a bit of karma don’t we!). After two years of planning and development at my end (Suzie_Q included), and with the kind donation of free build services by Atto New Media, ACT have a shiny new website. On the back end is a Content Management System built with TYPO3 - giving the staff at ACT free reign to edit their content without waiting on developers. Should you be feeling particularly generous please visit the new site and test out the online donation options… there are plenty of children who need sponsoring so that they can go to school. (more…)

I popped into Marks and Spencer on Saturday and whilst paying for my goods spotted a leafet on the M&S Ethical Fund. On closer inspection of the leaflet I discovered that Ethical Funds are about as Ethical as unlimited broadband is ‘unlimited’ from many suppliers. On the face of it M&S is offering a rebranded Jupiter Asset Management service which sees investments avoided in companies with a poor environmental record or involved in the arms trade, gambling, animal testing / fur, tobacco and pornography. However, the small print says ‘A company that derives over 10% of its turnover from any one of these activities will not be invested in’. So it should really be called the M&S Almost Ethical Fund - as part of your money could go into those industries. (more…)

Last Thursday I watched a documentary on Channel Four which I found to be the most enlightening programme I’ve seen in quite some time. Controversial in it’s topic for even suggesting that global warming might NOT be manmade, ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ covered just why there is no correlation between CO2 increases in the atmosphere and rises in global temperature, apparently quite the opposite is true (albeit with a lag of a few hundred years due to delayed changes in sea temperatures). (more…)

I read on the Google blog this week that they plan to begin installation of 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels (PV panels) at their Head Office in Mountain View, California. They reckon it will be ‘the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S., and we think it’s one of the largest on any corporate site in the world’. But something puzzled me – do they have enough room for all those panels? (more…)

On Saturday morning Suzie_Q and I were up early for the Biennial African Child Trust supporters’ meeting, this year taking place at Croydon’s Whitgift School. It’s not often you find pink flamingos on school grounds, but rather apt for a meeting to discuss child poverty and education in Africa. Held in one of the school’s many fine meeting rooms (kindly paid for by Christian Aid) there were perhaps some seventy five ACT supporters in attendance; an array of cultural backgrounds on show - from me in my shirt and trousers to those in traditional African dress - including one aid worker ’Constantin Ouedraogo’ flown in all the way from Burkina Faso. (more…)

One of the web development projects I’ve been working on since 2004 is for UK charity - African Child Trust (ACT). Whilst working this morning on their ’soon to be launched’ website, one of the trustees brought to my attention a relatively new search engine called ’Everyclick’. Everyclick does exactly what I’ve been planning to build for years - it takes affiliate revenue and splits it 50/50 with member charities. By using Everyclick and clicking on the pay per click adverts, you or I can generate affiliate revenue for Everyclick - 50% of which goes to our nominated charity! In addition, by using the Amazon search option instead of buying directly from Amazon, we generate even more commission. (more…)