We love this energy-saving lightbulb called Plumen 001. It picked up prize for Design of the Year at the Brit Insurance Awards 2011 last week, and since then we've been wanting to decorate our offices with it.

Created by designer Samuel Wilkinson and product design Hulger, the Plumen 001 uses 80% less energy and lasts eight times longer than an incandescent bulb. Not to mention it looks great!

The Design Museum in London, which organizes the award, said the Plumen is "imaginatively sculpted" and possesses a "beautiful silhouette and organic form".

We want!

Via designtaxi.com

Take a glimpse into a Coronation Street home as you've never seen it before. This year's Ideal Home Show has joined together with Corrie to transform a tradititional two-up-two down into a modern, eco-friendly home.

The 'Before' house, Number 1 Coronation Street, sponsored by Harveys, is a near replica of Ken & Deirdre's home from the nation's favourite TV soap and will - for the first time - include a glimpse into their bedroom.

"We spend time in the kitchen, sitting room and hall but I'd never been to the bedroom," confessed William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow, to The Sun recently.

A façade of the nation's most famous pub, the Rovers Return will also feature in the show house.

The 'After' home has been redesigned by Architect and TV personality George Clarke, with a little help from B&Q, to transform the old No.1 into a modern, eco home with simple adjustments that you can easily do in your own home.

George will demonstrate how simple and affordable improvements can alter not just the look and feel of the home but also unlock the potential of existing spaces if moving isn't an option. The new-look home also showcases dozens of green technologies that can help save money on your energy bills as well as the environment.

Adds William Roache who has been playing Ken Barlow for 50 years: "Nobody has a solar panel in the Street, maybe it's time Ken become more eco-friendly!"

The Ideal Home Show is at London's Earl's Court from March 11 to March 27th. For more information go to the Ideal Home Show website

Via Corrieblog.tv

The government will this week signal if it could support a proposed strategy to move the clocks forward by an hour, taking it to mainland Europe time.

Campaign group Lighter Later, which is lobbying for the move, claim that darker mornings and lighter evenings will cut energy consumption and save almost 500,000 tonnes of CO2 every winter. Apparently moving 60 minutes ahead will cut carbon emissions and boost UK economy, as the number of visitors to the British Isles could increase. Longer evenings would also increase the opportunity for post-work outdoor pursuits.

Now more overseas visitors would surely mean a surge in air traffic and more cars on UK roads, unless people swim across the channel to reach the British shores? And darker, longer mornings would only make us reach for heaters and indoor lamps to 'lighten up' our day a bit more?

I grew up in an area where summers equals perpetual daylight. Needless to say, we rarely use artificial light during the warmer months as the sky never darkens. But winters are long, cold and dark. What do people do? Reach for artificial light sources of course to ensure it doesn't get too gloomy.

I know it's only talk about one hour, but some voices have raised concern about what it would say for UK farmers. Unlike humans, it's not that easy (I imagine) to re-programme cows to be milked one hour later or for hens to lay eggs later to fit in with the new time.

Perhaps Britain and the rest of the countries adhering to summer- and wintertime should just agree to shift the clocks to permanent summertime?

Created to celebrate the beginning of a new millennium, the London Eye was only meant to be around for one year. Fast-forward ten years and four names later, the now iconic London landmark has secured a new sponsor and will be known as: EDF Energy London Eye.

The French electricity and gas giant has signed a three year deal with Merlin Entertainment's London Eye for the rights to the name and to light up the capital's night skyline. The announcement was made in the early hours of Tuesday 25th January, with Myleene Klass on site along with members of Team Green Britain. This also marked the start of a campaign to encourage Britons to live a lower carbon lifestyle and support EDF Energy's low carbon image for the capital. EDF Energy is also the first Sustainability Partner of London 2012, and will provide low carbon solutions to the Olympic Games.

Here at Hippyshopper we are all for reducing your carbon footprint and doing you bit to help the environment and community you live in. However, it is quite a paradox - regardless of its low carbon credentials - that an energy supplier is trying to make Britain become greener. After all, how can a company that relies on people using energy in order to be profitable be an eco-warrior? It's not like they would ever ask people to flip the switch on electricity...

With news that several energy providers going to increase their electricity prices, it's time to have a look at how you can save energy - and money - at home. It doesn't take much to save a little here and there, and in the long run all small energy savings can help you reduce outgoings - and it is greener too!

Take a good look around your house or flat and note down where energy might be wasted on a piece of paper - that's your to-do list. Now you can reduce your energy usage in workable steps, and not get overwhelmed by everything that needs to be taken care of. First do something about obvious energy wasters (no, that doesn't include the cat that does nothing else than sleep on the sofa and eat): leaving the light on; heat escaping through the windows; a flat as hot as a sauna. Then work your way through the to-do list towards a more energy efficient home life.

Top tips for saving energy

1. Is your home hot as a sauna? Turn your thermostat down. Reducing your room temperature with only 1°C could cut your heating bills by up to 10%. Put any saved money towards your next holiday or a girl's night out.

2. Wear slippers and add another layer of clothing before you turn up the heat.

3. If you can, set your heating on a timer to go on an hour before you have to get up in the morning and off when you actually get up. The flat will then slowly cool down, and you'll be out the door before it cools completely! Do the same in the evening. Heating on for a few hours, and let the flat start to cool down 30 mins before you go to bed.

4. Check all windows and doors for drafts and place draft excluders wherever possible. Make it more fun by making your own unique draft excluders! If you don't have double glazing, invest in thick curtains that you can close at dusk to stop heat escaping.

5. Always leaving your TV / Kinect on standby, or laptop and mobile phone charging unnecessarily? This actually draws more energy than you may think, and will add up over the months. Flip the switch and you could end up saving pretty pennies.

6. Turn off lights when you're not in the room, and use energy saving lightbulbs wherever possible.

7. Love a cup of tea? Only boil enough water to fill the cup or cups of tea you're making.
If you like feeling toasty once in bed, swap the electric blanket for a hot water bottle and wear socks to bed.

8. Set your fridge and freezer to the right temperature. Not too cold and not too warm, just right as Goldilocks would say. Defrost food in the fridge overnight instead of microwaving it.

9. Only wash clothes when you have enough for a full load. Two half-loads uses more energy than one full load. And line dry whenever possible.

10. Towel dry your hair as much as possible. This will cut down the time you need to use your hairdryer for.

Got any helpful energy saving tips for Hippyshopper? Get in touch!

Read on for tips on how to reduce your household waste.

Source: Energy Saving Trust

Image: Home Gas Services

Last week British Gas's announced that they will raise gas and electricity bills by 7% effective December 10th. While this wasn't the Christmas present that most of us were hoping for, there are a number of things you can do to make this increase hurt a little less.

We have put together our top 5 tips to help you improve your household energy efficiency and save you a few pounds this winter.

For additional tips go to the energy saving advice site Think Insulation

Everyone knows that getting on your bike is a great way to reduce CO2 emissions while keeping fit. Why not go the extra mile and make your cycling as green as possible.

Electricity monitors are a good way of seeing how much you are spending on energy and encouraging you to cut back whenever possible. It's amazing how much you can save just by switching a few lights off and not leaving the TV on when you walk out the room (apparently lights and appliances account for 23 per cent of a household's energy consumption).

Now available from B+Q is the OWL Wireless Electricity Monitor. Costing £19.98 it comes with a unit that clips easily onto your mains electricity supply and a base station where you can program in your electricity supplier's unit costs to monitor your total spending.

According to the Energy Saving Trust, the average home can save £37 every year by turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby. Which means that it will take you two years to get a return on your investment, but at least you will be doing your bit for the environment!

www.diy.com

Last month, Bolton Council swiftly rejected footballer Gary Neville's plans for an eco-friendly, multi-million pound home that we told you about in January (here).

Despite opposition from locals and planning committees, Neville's bid to build the floral shaped house seemed pretty admirable; you don't have to be good at maths to work out that a premiership footballer's motivation probably isn't saving pennies on gas and electricity.

Few details of Neville's not-quite-successful plans to go green have been released, but we have a look at some of the things his £8 million pad might have included to inspire your own building, renovating and redecorating efforts. See the gallery below.

Today (17th June 2010) is Green Britain Day. Curiously sponsored by EDF Energy (not particularly green and not British either!) the idea is to help people to do what they can to reduce their carbon footprint. Presumably use less EDF Energy for a start!

Throughout this week 'celebrities' including Olympic cycling champion Victoria Pendleton and designer Wayne Hemingway have been showing off their dream bikes at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden as part of a series of events taking place to highlight climate change. For further details of events go to Green Britain's Facebook page here.

Other events at the museum include unicycle performances and workshops, and an exhibition of new artworks by over 50 leading illustrators.

Says Victoria Pendleton: "If everyone were to swap one car journey a day for a bike trip, think of the collective benefit - to our planet, our pockets and our health! I hope people come along to see all the bicycles and dig deep to raise money for the social enterprises who created them."

Green Britain Day coincides with a new European-wide study which shows that high levels of scepticism and indifference among Britons hamper efforts to go green. Less than one third of Britons believe the issue is 'serious and urgent', requiring 'radical steps'. And just over half of Britons are 'quite' or 'very concerned' about climate change compared to Spain which topped the pool with over three quarters saying they were quite worried.

Climate change minister Greg Baker said: "I think the British are inherently quite sceptical about theoretical politics and science and maybe are a little more cautious than some countries in Europe."

Next week sees Team Green Britain Bike Week (19-27 June) which is challenging everyone to rethink their everyday journeys and switch to cycling as the most convenient way to get around. To find your nearest event, visit www.bikeweek.org.uk or find them on Twitter here.

For further information on Team Green Britain, visit www.teamgreenbritain.org.

Grannies Inc has teamed up with energy company npower to produce a range of cosies designed to encourage our great nation to make tea in a pot rather than mugs.

The idea - of course - is to reduce the number of times we boil our kettles and hence the amount of household energy we use.

Themed to some of our favourite TV shows, various designs are available. Just pop one of these over your pot and do a little something for the environment while enjoying a cup of the good stuff.

Pictured is the 'Lancashire Hot Pot' Coronation Street cosy which is available online at granniesinc.co.uk/cosies.htm for £45. Alternatively there's a Dalek tea cosy, called Dalekjeeling of course. You can also download patterns to knit it yourself.

Via Corrieblog

If you didn't know yet, today is the first ever Green Britain Day. Started to try and get Britain greener by the 2012 Olympics, there will be events around our fair country to raise awareness of environmental issues and to convince us to make a change.

It all kicks off with a concert at The Eden Project headlined by Paul Weller, and featuring Brit award winning Florence and the Machine. For more information on tickets visit the Eden Project website.

Visit the Team Britain website for tips and idea for getting greener, from throwing a clothes swapping party, to hosting a neighborhood lunch. For more information on the events happening today go here.

Emily Cummins is an inventor with a focus on helping the environment. This wouldn't be so unique if it wasn't for the fact that she is only 21, and has been inventing since the age of four when her grandad gave her a hammer.

Starting by taking things apart and rebuilding them with her grandad - who she describes as an 'inspiration' - in his shed, Emily progressed and won a barrage of awards and competitions at school for inventions such as a toothpaste dispenser that minimises waste, which she came up with at just 15 years old. She went on to become Cosmopolitan's Ultimate Save-The-Planet Pioneer in 2008.

Currently in her 3rd year of university at Leeds, she studies part time so she can work on her inventions, and dedicate time to inspiring young people.

Emily's best known invention is the sustainable fridge, (pictured with her) which she also produced at school, and is set to change lives in the third world, as it is used to hold medicines. Emily is currently working on a second generation version that is intended for commercial use.

Emily believes that all new inventions should be green. She says "This concept - to maintain the quality while neutralising the damage to the environment - must be extended to all the other appliances we can't seem to function without such as TVs, cookers, dishwashers, computers, even cars."

"Just like Trevor Baylis's wind-up radio, the key is to creating quality green alternatives to the items which people have come to rely on."

If you think you have a great idea for a green invention, she suggests you check out N powers 'Bright Ideas competition' on their website, where you can also check out some great tips for getting more energy efficient.

Paul Ridden writes: Following a successful trial at its depot in Northampton, a Sainsbury's store car park in Gloucester is getting ready to start producing enough energy to power the store's tills. The power will be generated by the action of cars rolling over kinetic plates, which have been positioned underneath road surfaces. The impressive 30kW per hour of energy produced by the plates should be more than enough to keep the tills running.

As a car rolls over the road surface, the plates produce a sort of pumping action (similar to that used by Formula 1 racing cars to turn braking energy into speed) which then drives a generator. The store in Gloucester also benefits from rainwater recycling to flush the lavs, solar panels and the cold air from the fridges is used to keep customers cool while they pay for their goods at the checkouts.

With Tesco about to install electric car charging ports at its stores in Kensington and Vauxhall, it looks like being eco-friendly will feature heavily in future trips to the supermarket!

After a few uncomfortable weeks of watching TV in a hat and scarf, I recently tracked down the epic draught in my living room to the fireplace. When it's not playing host to a roaring log fire, the hearth becomes a vast, gaping chasm that lets in huge amounts of cold air.

It's crazy that we let this happen when we spend so much time making sure windows and doors are sealed up, so I was pleased to find an answer to my Siberian sitting room in the form of one of these balloon thingies.