Local David is a match for the Goliaths at the Guardian’s Sustainable Business Awards

Independent furniture retailer Chest of Drawers scooped a Guardian Sustainable Business Awards last night. Beating fellow finalists and multi-nationals Unilever and Lend Lease, the London-based business scored a shock victory in the supply chain category. Other category winners were Tesco, Levi, British Land and Marks & Spencer, but Chest of Drawers showed that you don’t need to be big to be innovative and make a difference.

The award particularly recognised Chest of Drawers’ Environmental Grading Scheme, which gives customers information on wood sources, workshop practices and transportation issues for individual furniture pieces.

The Environmental Grading Scheme is the only initiative of its type helping consumers make informed decision about the manufacture, sourcing and environmental impact of furniture. While food and clothing retailers have become more transparent about the origin of their products, furniture is still shrouded in secrecy. Yet nobody wants to find out that the chair they love comes from a protected hard wood or was built in a workshop with illegal employee practices.

Director Kim Corbett said “This means so much to us and all our staff, and of course credit belongs to our loyal customers too. We have always concentrated on long lasting, well-designed furniture from sustainable sources, but we never thought we could win an award in such salubrious company. We see this as simply another step in a long process of showing that businesses, large and small, can be run with a responsible attitude to the environment. This is a challenging time for small businesses so any recognition is hugely appreciated.”

There has been extensive coverage recently of “the death of the high street” and independents being squeezed out by larger chains, but Chest of Drawers tries to show that you do not need to be large to innovate. Small businesses may be perfectly placed to move quickly in response to changing customer priorities, as this award helps to demonstrate.

Chest of Drawers sells solid wood domestic furniture, lighting and accessories from three London stores and online. Its furniture includes its best-selling Caspian bedroom range made from reclaimed wood and bespoke solid oak dining tables. The emphasis is always on distinctive designs but made from traditional methods, often hand crafted. In many cases lifetime guarantees emphasise the confidence provided by the use of premium solid woods, no veneers and no flat pack self-assembled pieces.

Chest of Drawers has operated from its branch in Upper Street for over 25 years, with other branches now in Chiswick and Kingston.

www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/gsb-awards

www.chestofdrawers.co.uk

That's Gardening: Research shows that our gardens are vital

That's Gardening: Research shows that our gardens are vital: "A report, released today -Sunday- by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), confirms the vital role that gardens play in reducing city warmi..."

Turkish Hotel has its own organic farm

The five-star SENTIDO Perissia hotel, in the Turkish holiday region of Side, will be offering products from its own organic farm. Guests visiting any of the hotel's six restaurants will enjoy home-grown olives, tomatoes, grapes and figs, plus freshly-harvested pistachios and peanuts and other fresh produce.

Ahmet Turgan, General Manager of the hotel said: "On our 500 hectare farm we harvest organic apples and organic vegetables, we press our own olive oil and we produce wine from our organic grapes. All this effort is worth it because good catering is an important holiday decision-factor for many guests. 37 per cent of our guests are regular visitors.

"Fruit, vegetables, olives, olive oil, bread, jam and nuts are served with organic quality and without additives directly from the farm. Our cooks prepare many of the dishes directly in front of the guests."

The hotel's farm benefits from its location on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. The Turkish Riviera is known as the Garden of Turkey.

The slopes of the Taurus mountains ensure there is an ideal climate. Fruit, vegetables and cereals grow especially well on the fertile plains of the Mediterranean region. The farm of the hotelier's family is worked by 60 staff. Olive trees and grapevines grow on an area of 250 hectares, while the fruit trees and vegetable gardens cover the rest of thje 250 hectares. The olive oil and the wine is pressed and produced on the farm. Some 60 per cent of the wine offered in the hotel comes from its own vineyard.

The five-star SENTIDO Perissia is on a long, sandy beach and located some 3km away from the historic centre of Side.

Guests are able to choose from a buffet restaurant and five à-la-carte restaurants specialising in fish dishes, barbecue food, Turkish, Italian and Chinese dishes. Five bars, a Turkish café and three pools ensure a perfect holiday.

You'll be able to relax in the newly-renovated wellness centre, with sauna and Turkish bath. Sports enthusiasts are well-catered for, with water sports, tennis, volleyball and basketball plus aerobics and pool gymnastics.

Families with children are well-provided for as the hotel offers a children’s club with an outdoor play area, activities, cinema and a separate swimming pool for children.

The SENTIDO Perissia has 352 rooms with marble floors, satellite TV, coffee and tea-making facilities, mini-bar and air conditioning.

SENTIDO Hotels & Resorts can be booked on the internet portal sentidohotels.com or through tour operators such as Thomas Cook and Neckermann Reisen.

FACTFILE:
SENTIDO Hotels & Resorts is an international hotel brand founded in 2009. It unites 30 hotels & resorts in Egypt, Greece, Kenya, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and Cyprus, plus two Nile-based cruise ships.

The hotels have a minimum of 4 Star status, are strategically positioned near beaches and operated under the terms of direct or regional master franchise contracts.

The concept is aimed toward discerning singles, couples and small families, who, besides quality and service, value a health-conscious cuisine and wellness facilities along with a wide-ranging sports and entertainment programme.

Book the hotels directly online through the internet portal www.sentidohotels.com. The company is part of the Thomas Cook tourism group.

Eco-Yards - Simple Steps to Earth-Friendly Landscapes

Many urban yards are essentially unproductive patches of grass, requiring constant attention for no return. Through sustainable, organic landscaping, these small or large plots of land can become part of the solution to today's environmental challenges. This book supports the vision of a healthy, abundant planet in which beautiful, richly varied urban yards contribute to restoring the natural ecosystem.

This inspiring and practical, well-illustrated manual includes clear, easy-to-follow instructions for: designing and maintaining an eco-yard; making your yard water-wise; understanding basic soil science; replacing your lawn with tree, shrub and flower beds or hardy, low-maintenance grass; growing vegetables in the eco-yard.

Visionary, hopeful and encouraging, this is a must-read for anyone who wants to use environmentally sound practices when they garden, whether in a residential yard or on the balcony of a condo or high-rise apartment. If you're sick of the backyard battle, this book will show you how to work with nature instead of fighting it, using simple steps that apply practically anywhere to turn your yard into an eco-friendly sanctuary.

Paperback £13.50

ISBN10-13: 086571682X : 9780865716827

Bring your recipes and remedies from days gone by to ‘culinary Antiques Roadshow’

A visit to the Garden isn’t normally the place to go to unearth rare recipes and remedies or to get free digital media training. But the West Wales Food Festival and Culturenet Cymru’s Hertitage in the Community project have linked up to invite people to digitally chronicle old family recipes and remedies to ensure they are not lost for all time. 

 

The West Wales Food Festival, taking place at the National Botanic Garden of Wales in Llanarthne on the weekend of 14-15 May, has teamed up with Culturenet Cymru to work with festival visitors to develop a unique digital record of culinary history in Wales.

And an added bonus for those attending the event is that they could receive free digital training as part of the Digital Heritage in the Community project which is supported by Communities 2.0 through the Welsh Assembly Government and European ERDF scheme.
Hazel Thomas, who is the Senior Field Officer for the Digital Heritage in the Community Project and who has worked on the committee which organises the West Wales Food Festival is delighted at being able to link the two groups together to bring about this unique opportunity to chronicle the nation’s culinary past.

She said: “I’m a chef by trade and it’s always been one of my goals to collect all these old recipes and remedies before they are lost. The West Wales Food Festival provides such a brilliant and unique opportunity for people to bring along their family recipes and ensure they are documented and not lost for all time.

“People may be surprised at what they can unearth. Bryn Williams, who is one of the celebrity chef attractions at the festival, and who has just released a cookery book was recently featured on S4C's Wedi 3 magazine program, cooking a dish which includes his grandmother s recipe for Bara brith.

“So people may find their recipes and remedies could find a much wider audience than they think.”

Head of marketing at the Garden David Hardy added: “We think this is a brilliant initiative. It’s a bit like the culinary equivalent of the Antiques Roadshow and, with the hook up to digital training, we are sure there will be many happy visitors that weekend.”

The National Trust announces MyFarm experiment

The National Trust is looking for 10,000 people to take part in a mass on-line public farming experiment where they will make key decisions at one of the Trust's working farms at Wimpole in Cambridgeshire.

The MyFarm experiment aims to connect thousands of people with how food is produced by giving them a greater say in how a real working farm is run.

The Wimpole Farm Manager, Richard Morris, will set monthly options for the 10,000 Farmers, who will debate and vote on issues including whether to grow wheat, barley or oats as part of the autumn sowing, through to which animals to buy and rear.

For a small subscription fee, farmers will get a daily behind-the-scenes insight into how the 1,200 acre organic farm operates, the right to make decisions on the farm by voting regularly and a family ticket to visit the farm for a day.

The MyFarm website will include video updates, webcams, live webchats, debates and comment and opinion from both well-known farming experts and National Trust tenant farmers.

Results from a new survey published to mark the MyFarm launch reveal that people in Great Britain rate their knowledge of food and farming at an average of only 4.5 out of 10, with 75 per cent of respondents hungry to know more about how food is produced.

Mothers, in particular, show there is a need for a new way of learning - rating the importance of their children understanding where their food comes from at 7.5 out of 10, yet only 8 per cent felt confident that they knew enough to teach their children all about it.

Fiona Reynolds, Director-General of the National Trust said: "MyFarm is an exciting new project that will give thousands of families and classrooms across the country the opportunity to experience the highs and lows and often complex decisions that farmers face on a daily basis.

"As the country's biggest farmer - more than 80 per cent of the 250,000 hectares of land under our care is farmed in some way - it's our role to re-connect people with farming to promote better understanding and greater protection for the land on which we all depend."

Richard Morris, the National Trust’s Farm Manager at Wimpole said: "MyFarm is Farmville for real - real farming decisions with real farming consequences. By influencing the work at Wimpole our Farmers will start to understand the effects and implications of their own decisions. They will also witness first hand how unplanned events can turn a profitable year on its head.

"This winter hundreds of sugar beet growers have had to plough in their crops because of intense frost damage, resulting in a whole year of costs with no return. What surprises the weather holds for Wimpole this year only time will tell; but it will affect the farm’s success and the choices the Farmers can make."

With only 10,000 Farmer places available, interested parties should sign up now. More information can be found at www.my-farm.org.uk.

New Wildlife-Friendly Landscape Product is Ready to Despatch

 

The growers of Q Lawns turf and Enviromat sedum matting have stocks of their new wildlife-friendly landscaping product known as MeadowMat ready for despatch.

MeadowMat contains 34 species of native perennial wild flowers and grasses actively growing on a matting system so that they are easy to establish into gardens, paddocks, orchards and amenity areas.

Over 90% of Britain's wild flower meadows have disappeared in the last 60 years, leaving our butterflies, moths, bees and insects with fewer sources of nectar.

Establishing wild flowers from seed is notoriously difficult. Germination is erratic and unwanted vegetation can often out-compete the delicate seedlings. MeadowMat makes bringing wild flowers back into our ecosystems a whole lot easier by introducing strongly growing flora onto weed-free soil.

Learn more about Meadowmat by visiting the MeadowMat blog, emailing angelal@qlawns.co.uk or telephoning Q Lawns/Enviromat on 01842 828266. 

(EDITOR: This looks like a truly exciting product that will help bring our wild flowers back!)