Change Your World - 30th June to 5th July

Imagine a world with cleaner air, quieter streets and more space for kids (and big kids) to play.

It's easier to achieve than you think. Amazingly, if we all drove just one less journey a week we'd reduce car traffic by 10%. Fancy giving it a go?

Change Your World is a campaign from Sustrans which runs from 30th June to 5th July. During the week, everyone is encouraged to swap any car trip and walk, cycle, use public transport or car-share instead. Or even better, don't make the trip at all.

If you pledge to make the swap during the Change your World week, you'll be in with a chance of winning a Center Parcs family break and other great prizes.

Make your pledge to swap now at www.changeyourworld.org.uk.

For more tips and ideas on how you can reduce your transport emissions, visit the Big Green Switch.

Get on your bike for the UK's Bike Week!

It's the UK's national Bike Week from 14th to 22nd June and everyone is urged to get out and about on their bikes.

Bike Week is the UK's biggest annual promotion of cycling and all things bike-related and provides a national umbrella for locally organised events and activities up and down the UK and this year.

Its simple main aim is to get people out and about on bikes and to get ‘more people cycling, more often'. Bike Week provides an opportunity to promote cycling as a great way to ‘have fun, get fit, and feel free'.

Whether you're new to cycling or an old hand, there's something for everyone during Bike Week. The official Bike Week website includes details of special events happening across the country plus hints, tips and links to more great cycling resources onlines.

Why not use the week as inspiration to give cycling to work a try? Sustrans estimate that 20 minutes of gentle cycling burns up to 100 calories and that regular cycling can make you as fit as an average person ten years younger than you!

The Sustrans website also offers lots more information about cycling around the UK including searchable and downloadable cycle network maps to help you plan out routes, either for commutting or for pure pleasure.

So dig out your cycle and give pedal power a go this coming week!

Great cycling prizes up for grabs!
We've teamed up with competition website InstantWin4Now to give you the chance to win a selection of great cycles. Click on the links below to visit the InstantWin4Now website for your chance to win!

	Instantly WIN an Apollo Men's Town & Trail Bike Available in 21" or 18" frames, this Men's Town and Trail Bike has an Aluminium frame, 21 speed gears, powerful aluminium V-brakes and Gel saddle for added comfort.
	Instantly WIN a Raleigh Pioneer Ladies Bicycle Perfect for city riding and leisurely cruises along country lanes, this ladies Raleigh cycle is designed to be functional, solid and reliable.
	Instantly WIN an Apollo folding bicycle With a lightweight aluminium frame, this Folding Bicycle has an easy folding mechanism allowing you to go from cyclist to pedestrian in seconds - perfect for green commuting!
	Instantly WIN a super cool Trikke bike! The Trikke is an excellent eco friendly alternative for nipping around town and it even folds up so you can easily carry it through shops, university or on the tube!

National Work from Home Day - Thursday 15th May

This Thursday (May 15) is National Work from Home Day when up to five million workers are expected to work from home across the UK.

The environmental benefits of working from home more regularly can be considerable as you reduce your commuting emissions with each day you do from home. Read more about the green benefits of working from home by clicking here.

Nearly 3.5 million people already work from home in the UK - 12.2 per cent or one-in-eight of the population - an increase of 600,000 since 1997.

The highest proportion of home workers is in the South West with 15.7 per cent, followed by Eastern England with 14.4 per cent. The lowest is in the North East with 9.3 per cent, followed by Scotland with 9.4 per cent.

National Work from Home Day kicks off the start of Work Wise Week, a series of events from Work Wise UK, a not-for-profit organisation which encourages UK businesses to adopt smarter working practices with the aim of turning the country into one of the most progressive economies in the world.

Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK, is keen to extoll the many positives of working from home. Phil said: "Not only does it reduce the amount of commuting people have to do, enhancing their work-life balance, but many are actually more productive.

"Although many organisations practise the age-old philosophy of 'presenteeism', they should open their eyes to the new work ethic spreading across the UK and try out home working: they may well be surprised."

Home working is one of the smarter working practises being promoted through the Work Wise UK campaign, which is entering its third year. Others include flexible working, including condensed hours and nine-day fortnights, mobile and remote working. Work Wise partners include the TUC, CBI, British Chambers of Commerce, BT and Transport for London. It aims to encourage half the working population, some 14 million people, to be offered smarter working by 2011.

Find out more about National Work from Home Day and Work Wise Week at http://www.workwiseuk.org/.

For more tips and ideas for ways to go green in the workplace, visit http://www.biggreenswitch.co.uk/workplace?ito=1714&itc=0.

Stretch your legs for Walk in the Woods month

Today sees the start of Walk in the Woods month, the Tree Council's annual festival to encourage everyone to enjoy trees and woods in spring.

Across the UK, walks, talks and other events take place in town and countryside throughout May - a great month to go down to the woods or to a local park or just enjoy tree-lined streets.

Walk in the Woods month is a great time to organise an event and get new people interested in trees - especially in their local patch. A particular aim of Walk in the Woods is to attract people who rarely, if ever, visit woods - even those on their doorstep.

To find out more and get involved in either organising or participating in events, visit the Walk in the Woods website.

And you can click here for more ideas for green recreational activities.

Switch off for Earth Hour - March 29th

Created to take a stand against climate chnage, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.

Originating in Sydney in 2007, the Earth Hour campaign has now gained global attention. This simple act has captured the hearts and minds of people all over the world. As a result, at 8pm on 29 March 2008 millions of people in some of the world’s major capital cities, including Copenhagen, Toronto, Chicago, Melbourne, Brisbane and Tel Aviv will unite and switch off for Earth Hour.

Cities around the world, including many in the UK, will be taking part in this amazing international event so why not make sure that you, your friends and family and everyone else you know are aware of the event and take part.

Find out more at the official website - http://www.earthhour.org/ - and remember to switch off on March 29th at 8pm.

National Trust offer day off for Great Green Leap Day

The National Trust is giving all its staff and volunteers a day off on February 29th to encourage them to take action to reduce their carbon footprints.

All Trust staff are being given the opportunity to spend the day at home or in their local community on Leap Day, making changes to improve their environmental footprint - from switching to energy saving lightbulbs to establishing a compost heap.

National Trust director general, Dame Fiona Reynolds, said: "Climate change is one of the biggest challenges we are facing today.

"At the National Trust, we are looking at the impact of all our activities and how we can reduce this impact. Now we want our staff to do the same."

The Trust also helps to encourage other businesses and organisations to follow suit in encouraging their employees to live greener lifestyles.

Fiona Reynolds added: "There are over 29 million employees in the UK; if just one million changed one light bulb and turned their thermostat down by one degree, it would save 351,000 tons of carbon."

For great energy saving tips and ideas that you can have a go out on February 29th, or any other time of the year, visit the Big Green Switch website.

E-Day (Energy Saving Day) 2008 - Feb 27th

The UK's first ever Energy Saving Day (E-Day) will run on 27 February 2008.

E-Day will run from 6pm on 27 February to 6pm the following day and during those 24 hours, everyone in the UK will be asked to try and cut energy use in their home, school or office.

The National Grid will be monitoring the demand for power on a minute-by-minute basis throughout the day to provide feedback on how the UK has performed during the day and hopefully demonstrate the potential long-term impact that we could all have if we made every day an E-Day.

Find out more about E-Day and how you can get involved at the official website - http://www.e-day.org.uk/.