Personal Blog of Ellen MacArthur

Ellen in library at Anthony Gell School where she read about sailing as a child

I went back to school recently…literally!…with an impromptu visit to my old school, Anthony Gell in Wirksworth. It is now a specialist sports college and it was great to reminisce about the old days with Headteacher David Baker. I also went back to the school library to have a look at the books that I borrowed while I was there and which inspired me to sail! (see photo)

I also had the opportunity to go to another really interesting school in the area, Herbert Strutt Primary School in Belper.

18 months ago, the school moved from an old building in the centre of Belper to a new build on a brand site. Everyone, from Headteacher John Murday to the teachers and pupils alike, appears to have a real sense of pride in what is a very nice-looking building which has been designed to be as energy efficient as possible. In talking with the Head John, some of the key sustainable elements that have worked well are rain-water harvesting for loos, PV cells for lighting, bore holes for heating and hot water and effective double glazing.

However, the final element of the jigsaw needed to get the school to a carbon neutral position is a 25m wind turbine – and the school has had difficulties getting planning permission for this for the last two years. 

I have to say I really enjoyed these visits and it was really heartwarming to see two schools with inspirational heads who are working hard to motivate and to look after their pupils.

Ellen

Eh oui, mes amis…last week I spent a really interesting few days in Paris. Rather unusually, we took our Extreme 40 catamaran to the world-renowned Mondial Motor Show to help raise awareness of Renault’s eco2 range of more economical and environmentally-friendly cars.

On Saturday, I joined members of the public for a fun and educational eco-driving awareness event organised by Renault in the Bercy Village quarter of Paris. Visitors to the event could practise on a driving simulator and take lessons with instructors from France’s national institute for road safety and research. It’s amazing but just by following a few simple rules, drivers can reduce their fuel consumption by around 20%. It was a real family-focused event with loads of great games for the kids - and for adults there was a competition to find the best eco-drivers - I was quite relieved to find out that I only had a 5% margin for improvement!

Everyone I spoke to said they had found the event really helpful and they left with some useful tips on how to drive in a more responsible way. If you’d like to find out more about eco driving, visit the following link:

http://www.renault.com/renault_com/en/main/30_DEVELOPPEMENT_DURABLE/40_Performances/40_Societal/25_Eco-conduite/index.aspx

Ellen 

Coming back to the Isle of Wight the other day after a trip on the ‘mainland’to sail with the Ellen MacArthur Trust, I was getting off the car ferry and a thought process begun in my mind… 
We have a small chain ferry which runs from East Cowes to West Cowes. The journey takes about 2 minutes (depending on the height of the tide!) but saves a 10 mile trip. 
Queuing for the chain ferry, I was wondering whether it was better to drive round or wait. I chose to wait as I felt that it would waste less fuel and with loading and unloading the time difference is negligible compared to driving round.
Whilst waiting though, I did a little calculation…
The journey if I drove it in my Renault would have been driven at an averageof about 45mpg. As a 10 mile trip that would have used about 1.01 litres offuel (I always think of a whole 1L carton of orange juice!)
That diesel would have cost me about £1.37 to buy. The cost of the chainferry is £1.50. For my car that works out cheaper to drive round (thoughonly just). If your car did around 35 mpg (which I would guess is a fairly average mpg), then that drive would cost you £1.62 and be more expensive!
I never imagined the two would be so comparable!
If you are a local however, you can go one step further and buy a book of 20tickets which work out at 88 pence per ticket. Therefore I was making asaving of fuel, AND of money (49p!) by taking the chain ferry! 
Fantastic stuff….

I had an amazing day in Birmingham yesterday at the Climate Change Festival sponsored by E.ON. It was fantastic to speak to so many different groups of people – schools, community leaders, the University, the Housing Association amongst others - who were so passionate about doing their bit to reduce their carbon footprint and it was really good to see how Birmingham City Council were proactively supporting this.

What I saw was a real collection of tangible, visible projects that were actually making a difference in terms of the City’s footprint and should stand them in good stead to help them with their target to reduce their CO₂ emissions by 60% by 2026. That means that this year, each person in Birmngham needs to reduce their own CO₂ emissions by 100kg.

Go for it, Birmingham!

Ellen

The sun shone for the opening of E.ON’s new building up in Coventry on the 8th May. E.ON are one of our sponsors with whom I am doing work on sustainability within their own company, and with their business customers. 

It was great to see such a wide range of people from the B2B part of the business with a very positive outlook on driving change forward. There were several speeches made for the thousands of staff who work in the building, and as I went round the foyer afterwards visiting stands representing the various business units, it was great to hear the enthusiastic feedback and find out about the practical things - like sharing cars to get to work - that they are doing in order to really make a difference.  

As Jim McDonald, Commercial Director, said in his speech, now that everyone involved in dealing with clients is based in the same building, it is going to be much easier not only to deliver a better service to the client, but to do so in a more sustainable way too. I really believe that simply ‘being joined up’ is important in dealing with sustainability issues, and being able to offer advice to businesses.

Ellen