Did you know that the 17th to the 21st May is the UK’s official Walk To School Week 2010, encouraging parents or teachers and children to walk from their homes to school, leaving the car behind. So why make the change from sitting in the car to a walk? We’ve come up with five good reasons below!

Cut congestion around the school: With so many less cars around the school, you won’t be sitting in a queue for a parking space or behind a lot of other cars. There’s nothing worse than cars with engines running, stuck around the school polluting the air – so the less cars you see the better! Less cars will also make it much easier for others to cross the road and get to school safetly.

Get fit!: Walking is great for you, keeping you fit and feeling great. It helps you become stronger and healthier, as it’s a good form of exercise for parents and children. No matter how long the walk to your school is, you’ll be improving your health and fitness.

Learn the area: If you always take the car to school, with walking there you can learn much more about the area where you live. Which direction do you travel in? What are the road names, and any geographical features along the route that you might see? Conversations about the area can also aid in learning and encouragement of the local community.

Make friends: Walk to school week is often done in groups. Parents and kids can make new friends as they walk, talking about anything on the way! Without the worry of driving or becoming stuck in queues, conversations can run wild. If your best friends already live close by, it’s even better!

Save money: If it only takes 20 minutes to walk to school along local streets then there really is no reason why you can’t walk! The money spent on petrol for the car can be saved and used to buy rewards for the walks, or even new walking shoes! An average cost saving is calculated below…

Say the average cost of petrol is £1.20 per litre. An average family car travels 10 km for every litre of fuel. Now, depending on how far it is to school, , Assume the school is 2km (1.2 miles) away from the house, which can be reached in half an hour (the average walking speed of parents and children is 4 km a hour). This means that each journey to and from school uses around 0.4 litres of petrol, although it may be  more if stuck in a jam! Therefore, in that situation you would save 50p in petrol for each time you travel.  Of course, the cost varies between diesel and petrol cars, and  the distance to school is always different – but the savings will definitely make a difference.

If you’re a parent walking your children to school, consider taking them by foot on Walk to school week and beyond. For more information, please visit the official Walk to school! website. Always be safe: Remember roads can be dangerous and cars can appear where you least expect. Always take care when walking and take extra care when crossing any road, following the  green cross code.

Photo by Scott Lidell

Christmas time can be a very wasteful time of year. So how can you try to be a little more eco-friendly without spoiling all the fun this festive season?

1. Buy local food produce for your Christmas dinner

This year try to buy as much of your Christmas dinner ingredients from local farms. If you can purchase a locally bred turkey, locally grown Brussel sprouts and potatoes you’ll be making a big step towards being more eco-friendly this Christmas. And you might find the food tastes better as locally produced food has a lower carbon footprint because it isn’t shipped in from abroad.

2. Go organic this Christmas

Imagine how delicious an organic Christmas dinner would be. Organic food is grown without the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides that harm the environment. The soil is healthier and the local wildlife benefits from a pesticide free environment. Organic food is healthier because organically grown crops absorb natural nutrients from the organic soil. So this Christmas see if you can go organic for a great tasting, healthier Christmas dinner.

3. Buy eco-friendly gifts for your friends and family

An eco-friendly Christmas gift is a great present. Eco-friendly gifts tend to be interesting and quirky, which is great at Christmas when people want a nice surprise to unwrap. But not only that’ eco-friendly gifts remind your friends about the importance of sustainable living.

4. Go for a walk down to your local pub

This Christmas leave the car at home, wrap up warmly and take a stroll with your family to the local pub for a Christmas drink. A walk after a hefty Christmas dinner is a good way to relieve that bloated feeling.

5. Recycle your wrapping paper

The temptation at Christmas, after opening the presents, can be to just chuck all the ripped up paper in the bin. This Christmas make an effort to remove the adhesive tape and recycle the used wrapping paper. It’s easier than you think and if everyone did it, it could make a big difference.

6. Got a lot of leftovers? Compost them

You’ll probably have a lot of leftover food that can’t be eaten at Christmas time. Did you know that most of it can be composted and used in the garden? With a discreet and self contained kitchen composter you don’t need to leave the kitchen to compost the leftovers you scrape off your dinner plates. It can be kept in the kitchen ready to access with ease.

Will you make an effort to be more eco-friendly this Christmas? Please let us know in the comments.

Once again employees at The Consortium have outdone themselves with whacky and fun ways of getting into work without using a car. This year the winners of our World Car Free Day competition were Phillipa and Nick, who came in to work in a trolley!!! It’s all above board though as it was one of own trolleys, not one pilfered from the local supermarket. Congratulations to Nick and Phillipa for helping reduce our impact on the environment, promoting a good cause and having a lot of fun along the way.

What can you do to spread sustainability awareness at your school or office? Why not try and come up some ideas for your classroom, year or even the whole school to help make your school and students or your business more environmentally friendly.

Until next time, be green!

We’ve had some whacky and inventive ways of getting to work today, making World Car Free Day a fun day for employees at The Consortium. We’ll post up some photo’s later this week.

Did you drive to work today or did you make an effort to go car free? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Monday 22nd September is World Car Free Day. To make it fun how about holding a competition at your work place — who can find the craziest way to get to work?

People are already formulating excuses as to why they won’t try going car free for one day. Have you heard any of these ones though?

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