Ben & Jerry's Summer Sundae on the Common
The sun made a very welcome appearance across the UK this weekend, which was especially good news for Ben & Jerry's. The environmentally-concerned ice-cream experts staged their climate neutral Sundae on the Common festival on Saturday and Sunday, and boy was it a great day out. Like many, I vowed afterwards to never touch another scoop of ice-cream again, but I suspect this will soon pass.
So what did this little jolly on the common do for the environment you might well ask? Well, in keeping with Ben & Jerry's green agenda, the event was made carbon neutral, with ticket sales supporting a solar panel project in India. On the day, the Climate Ambassadors were out in force, teaching the hungry revelers important nuggets of information as they earned their free ice cream.
Each attraction had a message, and the Ambassadors (graduates of Climate Change College) were constantly finding fun ways to get it through to the punters. They included a mini golf course with mobile phone obstacles, to draw people's attention to the importance of unplugging your phone once it's charged. There were green-themed quizzes, with prizes for those who knew their stuff, and a trip to the 'confession box' for those who didn't.
During my visit on Saturday, I was having so much fun browsing stalls, stroking farm animals and shoveling down gallons of Bohemian Raspberry that I almost forgot about the main reason many people had rocked up: the music. This was of a very high standard, particularly for such a cheap ticket (£12) and included Kate Nash, the Feeling, Brakes and the fantastic Lucky Jim.
The event also supported some very worthwhile local charities, including Vauxhall City Farm, who had brought along some incredibly cute pygmy goats. The animals seemed very well treated and happy, as they munched on generous bales of hay. Some familiar green faces from Abel & Cole, Trees for Cities, the Fairtrade Foundation and many other good causes made an appearance too, in what all made for a fantastic day out.
