Listen up. We've got a competition to win a pair of tickets to The Headstock Festival. Taking place from the 9th -11th of September 2011 in Newstead and Annesley Country Park in Nottinghamshire, Headstock is a volunteer led, not for profit festival, run by the community for the community.

This year there's a brilliant line up with Echo & the Bunnymen and The Lightning Seeds headlining. Best known for their post-punk psychedlic albums like Porcupine and Ocean Rain, Echo & The Bunnymen scored a string of hits in the 1980s and more recently their music has featured in films like Donnie Darko.

Ian Broudie's Lightning Seeds have had a series of hit albums, including Jollification and are probably best known for football single Three Lions - which is resurrected every four years shortly before England are knocked out of the World Cup.

Broudie has also found time to produce music by modern indie bands like The Coral, The Zutons and I Am Kloot. 2010 saw them tour the UK with Squeeze, performing hits like Pure, Change and The Life of Riley.

To be in with a chance of winning a pair of tickets go to the Hippyshopper Facebook page and enter the competition there. Click here.

To find out more information about Headstock go to their Facebook page here
Headstock Festival website

We had so many good entries in our My Green City book giveaway that we felt had to delve a bit deeper and read up on all those excellent green city suggestions before deciding on the winning entry.

Considering the book is all about promoting a more environmentally friendly lifestyle and bringing nature back to our cities, we ultimately felt that there was one city that stood out from the rest: Singapore.

A city-state with over 5 million inhabitants, Singapore is highly urbanised with sadly very little primary rainforest remaining due to an increasing population and fast expansion. However, Singapore is a city of green because the government once decided that parks and public spaces needed to be included in the city planning despite how quickly it grew.

The result is a densely populated metropolis that still has numerous parks, tree lined roads and a level of pollution that even the World Health Organization is happy with.

In February this year, Singapore was deemed Asia's greenest metropolis by the Asian Green City Index*. The study examined the environmental performance across eight categories: energy and CO2, land use and buildings, transport, waste, water, sanitation, air quality and environmental governance. Singapore stood out for its ambitious environmental targets and its efficient approach to achieving them.

The city also runs a Clean & Green Singapore programme that aims to inspire Singaporeans to care and protect the living environment by adopting an environmentally-friendly lifestyle.

Singapore was suggested by John Aspey who wrote:

"I think Singapore has got to be by far the cleanest city in the world, as a country they have been thoroughly educated about the importance of protecting the environment and their beautiful country, littering is totally prohibited and from a young age people are taught to appreciate 'keeping things clean'."

Congratulations John, please could you get in touch and let us know your address by emailing info[AT]shinymedia[DOT]com and we'll send the book to you!

Thank you to everyone else who entered - we will have more giveaways soon!

*Study by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The last few decades have been dominated by urbanisation, digitalisation and an admiration for consumption. These days, you'll find a growing number of counter-movements springing up that advocating for a more sustainable and responsible way of dealing with our environment and bringing nature back to our cities.

My Green City - Back to Nature with Attitude and Style (Gestalten, £35.00) is a compilation of the ideas and projects from around the world that are promoting a more environmentally friendly lifestyle - from urban farming initiatives and architectural visions that are changing our cities, to furniture and other everyday objects that can make our streets and homes greener.

Among the many inspirational projects included in this book, some of our favourites are: Vacant Lot allotment garden by What if: projects (Shoreditch, London May 2007) which took use of vacant and unloved city spaces and turned them into temporary allotment gardens; the Ann Demeulemeester shop in Seoul, Korea by Mass Studies which is covered in grass on the exterior surfaces; the many varieties of seed bombs - the munitions of guerrilla gardeners in the fight against the neglect of public spaces. In fact, there are far too many great eco-friendly ideas to mention!

We liked the book so much that we have teamed up with Gestalten to give one lucky Hippyshopper reader the chance to add 'My Green City' to their book collection.

TO ENTER

To enter the competition simply Like Hippyshopper's Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/Hippyshopper and leave us a comment below telling us which city in the world you think is greenest and why. We'll pick the winner based on our favourite message, so don't be shy!

COMPETITION CONDITIONS

- Competition closes on Friday 27th May 2011 at 23:59.

- Only Hippyshopper Facebook page fans will be eligible to win the prize.

Got a good idea which re-uses or mashes-up existing technologies and products to tackle today's environmental challenges? Well Sony and the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) want to hear from you.

They are behind a new initiative called Open PlanetIdeas which has been formed to answer questions like how do we make better use of our scarce natural resources? And how can we actively change people’s behaviour to encourage more sustainable lifestyles?

A panel of experts has already sifted through an incredible 335 of inspiring ideas. And it has pulled them together into six themes to form this challenge. These themes include: changing behaviour, cleaner by design, more with less, make it real, waste not and recycling revisited.

So now it’s over to you. Take a look at Sony's technology showcase and start thinking about how you could re-use, combine or mash-up these and any other technologies to address the challenge. You can applaud other people’s concepts or refine them further. Best of all, why not contribute a concept of your own here.

The expert panel, along with the community, will select the concepts that most excite them. Once the winning concept is chosen, its contributors will work together with these experts to make the final concept real.

To help get you started, Hippyshopper has come up with its very own concept: Fly Tip Focus. This automatically alerts you if people are dumping rubbish in your local neighbourhood. You can see the full details here.

To view the challenge brief itself go here: http://bit.ly/aMPzEV.  You can also visit http://bit.ly/ccvdpd  for more details as well as watch the video below for more inspiration.

Open Planet Ideas

Join the challenge

Find Out More About Open Planet Ideas







Sponsored Post

Congratulations to the following five winners of our Bristol Organic Food Festival competition in conjunction with Yeo Valley. A pair of tickets will be winging their way to you in time for the festival this weekend. Have fun.

K J Mitchell
Bristol

Stephen Branley,
London NW9

Jackie Raggett
Rainham,
Essex

Julia Mealing
Keynsham
NE Somerset

Lisa Mcgreevy
Nailsea
Bristol

Got an idea to improve the health and well being of people living in cities? Then you might be interested to hear about Philips' Livable Cities award.

It's basically an initiative from the consumer electronics manufacturer to encourage people to come up with great, but practical ideas - sorry you can't have the bike hire scheme, that's already gone. Three awards are up for grabs, totalling 125,000 Euros between them so it's well worth entering.

One overall winning idea will receive a grant of €75,000, while the two additional ideas will receive grants of €25,000. There are three categories to choose from: Well Being Outdoors, Independent Living and Healthy Lifestyle at work and home. For more information go to Philips' website and watch video below.

Fancy a new 32 Gig iPod Touch? Well you could be in with a chance of winning one if you take our survey.

We just want to find out a little bit more about you. As well as giving you the chance to tell us what you think of us.

There are only a few multiple choice questions - so it will take you no time at all.

Survey closes on April 12th 2010.

Click here to take survey

For details on terms and conditions go here.

Reduce carbon emissions by ditching your tumble dryer and spring into cleaning the green way with eco-friendly scourers, sponges and cloths from EcoForce.

Manufacturers of practical, everyday, household products from recycled materials, EcoForce's range comprises a Recycled Clothes Line, Recycled Peg Basket and Recycled Clothes Pegs. Strong and durable, EcoForce's Clothes Pegs are made from 93% recycled plastic and contain no metal parts to rust or wood to stain clothes.

They're available from Sainsburys, Tesco and Morrisons,

Each tumble drier load can release up to 2.6kg of carbon into the atmosphere as well as increasing your energy bills by more than £70 per year. EcoForce's new Recycled Clothes Line is 20m long with a break strength of 30kg. Why not let the sun do the work instead?

Hippyshopper has 10 goody bags of EcoForce recycled household products, worth £15 each. Each one contains the following:

New EcoForce Recycled Peg Basket £2.99
New EcoForce Recycled Clothes Line £1.99
EcoForce Recycled Clothes Pegs £1.50
EcoForce Recycled Food Bag Grips £1.49
EcoForce Recycled Sponges (99p), Scourers (99p) and Cloths (£1.19)
Dishmatic Fillable Washing Up Brush £1.19
Dishmatic Fillable Steel Scourer £1.19
Dishmatic Refills(£1.49 pack of 3)

To be in with a chance of winning answer the following easy-peasy question. In which month does Spring begin?
A) May
B) March
C) June

Now send your answer marked Hippyshopper - EcoForce competition to comps@shinymedia.com. Closing date is March 21st.

For terms and conditions click here.

www.ecoforce.com

It's cold and miserable outside and the nights are still drawing in. What could be better than a lovely hamper from Cafédirect to cheer you up. A warming treat for the hot drink fanatic, the hamper - which would normally set you back £25 - includes a fantastic array of finest tea and hot chocolate; Gold Tea, English Breakfast Tea, Earl Grey Tea and award-winning San Cristobal Drinking Chocolate.

All this can be enjoyed in the classic Cafédirect mugs and comes complete with a rustic fair trade hamper basket, great for storage around the home. Alos, if you are looking for Christmas presents there are several gift ideas from http://www.cafedirect.co.uk/shop. Order now and you'll enjoy free delivery until the end of December!

TO BE IN WITH A CHANCE OF WINNING THE HAMPER SIMPLY ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION. WHERE ARE THE CLIMATE TALKS TAKING PLACE THIS WEEK:
A) COPENHAGEN
B) OSLO
C) STOCKHOLM

Method make some of Hippyshopper's favourite things, from the revolutionary O-Mop to the cleaning wipes that smell of yum.

If you're as much of Method junkie as I am - or haven't yet found out for yourself what all the fuss is about - then you might want to enter our latest competition, in association with Big Green Smile. You could win all the products shown here, which are enough to 'detox' your home from strong chemicals and bleaches while keeping it squeaky clean.

Read on after the jump for prize details and how to enter!

Having been vegetarian since I was in primary school, I've tried a lot of veggie burgers in my time. There's the good (juicy, satisfying, meaty) the mediocre and the downright ugly (mashed up vegetables with breadcrumbs) but I feel I've still yet to sample the perfect veggie burger.

Now, it seems that Redwood foods might just have created the holy-grail of meat free burgers...and they want to give you one free to try!

Read on to find out more...

Whether you're looking for an effective, non-toxic sun cream or a natural alternative to botox, the place to be right now is Puresha -- and we've teamed up with the site to offer you some fantastic prizes!

One lucky winner will get a personal consultation with a member of Puresha's team of natural beauty experts as well as a tailored skincare regime worth around £200. There's also a great discount for hippyshopper readers on the revolutionary new range by Marie Véronique Organics, pioneer of the Yoga Facelift. Sounds good so far? Read on to find out more.

Are you a budding fashion designer who likes to make amazing stuff out of all kinds of discarded things? If so, the Ethical Fashion Forum is the organisation that could help you get the funding and guidance you need to turn your dreams into fully-fledged catwalk creation.

They're running a competition called 'Innovation' to find new talent, which will allow one up and coming designer to exhibit their S/S 2010 collections at either Pure or Estethica and receive business support from an expert consultancy team.

Follow the jump for details on how to enter!

BT has been working on making its entire phone range more energy efficient, and to celebrare the launch of its new, more energy-efficient handsets, it's teamed up with Hippyshopper to give away 3 Graphite home phones.

These simple and stylish cordless phones are packed with features including an answer machine and 50 entry phone book - and most importantly they are more energy efficient - good for the environment and your pocket. All BT's phones now use new energy efficient power units, designed specifically to consume around half the power of previous units.

Read on after the jump for details on how to enter

As a proud owner of a pair of Beyond Skin 'Hazel' shoes (pictured left) I can personally attest to their comfort, quality and out-and-out stylishness that always gets an envious comment on a given outing, even from members of the well-heeled crowd at London Fashion Week. These are beautiful and ethical shoes that will change your life, and because no animals were harmed in their making, they're improving non-human lives, too.

Find out how to win a pair over the jump

Related: GALLERY: Best eco-chic footwear of 2008 | Beyond Skin: beautiful, stylish ethical footwear