On a warm and sunny day after work, I saw a man arrive in the car park of my local gym in his two litre Ford. I watched him carefully park as close as possible to enterance and make his way to the changing rooms. Inside the gym I saw him get on one of the treadmills. He started running at a fair pace, without any particular programme or hills set-up. He ran for nearly one hour and then got off and went straight back to the changing rooms. He didn’t use any of the equipment, the weights or anything else. He didn’t meet anyone there or socialise at all. It got me thinking, this man drove to the gym, basically just ran and it was a nice day. Surely it would make more sense to actually run outside, after all this time of the year it light until after nine o’clock. Its warm, but in the evening it is not too hot and in fact it is probably more unpleasant in the gym, than being outside. Sounds pretty stupid doesn’t it. Wasting fuel to go to the gym, running in a worse environment, not using equipment and basically doing something which could have been done outside.
That man was me. I think I keep going to the gym, instead of running outside purely because it is a habit. For some reason, it is easier to drive to the gym and run on a machine for an hour, than running along roads or even in the park. There’s somewhere to put my water and after all, I’ve paid to go. The government recently ran a campaign asking everyone to review the miles they drive each week and try to reduce this by a few miles, maybe even one mile per week. It’s about seven miles from home to the gym, but if I go straight from work, it is probably only one or two mile detour. Still, during my last visit to the gym, I counted eight similar people. I wonder how many miles not going to the gym might have saved?
Pottery
Well you might be thinking, what is he on about this time, this is blog about energy, water, the environment and all things eco. Yes, well whilst listening to the radio today, I heard an interview with Emma Bridgewater. She has built up a pottery business up to about 150 employees and stated that she is “expanding like mad”. Okay, so you still want to know why I’m going on about this?
Environmental policy
The interviewer asked Emma Bridgewater her pieces of pottery were expensive compared to similar items on the shelves. Instead of banging on about the usual quality, design and other “benefits” in a totally over-the-top selling manner, she spoke clearly from the heart with honesty. Her manufacturing costs are substantially higher than the competitor products. She continued to highlight how the energy usage, the water disposal and the packaging were all vastly more expensive than in say China. She also suggested that by employing 150 people from the local area provided a much needed boost to the traditional pottery area of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Other points she made was that it was not only impractical, but also anti-social to fly out to China to sort out a production problem or similar.
I found this brief interview especially refreshing, because clearly more money could be made from shipping in products from China or India. But it could also be argued that British made is a very strong unique selling point (USP) and that aligning the business as a social and environmentally responsible one gives this a definitive market edge.
Summary and conclusion
One thing is for sure from time to time, we all need to replace something or perhaps we want to buy something new. The question we need to ask ourselves each and every time we make that purchase is, can we buy better. But not in terms of the product or the price, but perhaps should we pay a little more to be responsible.
Emma Bridgewater Outlet
Interview source BBC Radio 4 26/5/10