Green just got cool

Ten-year campaign to bring street cred to environmentalism

Global Cool, it’s called. “The cleverness of the campaign is in the name,” as singer KT Tunstall said at the January launch: this multi-media, celeb-filled initiative is designed to tackle global warming. Borrowing the street cred of the world of film and music, it aims to mobilise a billion people worldwide to change their lifestyles - and reduce their carbon emissions by one tonne each.

Start to ‘be cool’ by doing little things, says campaign founder Dan Morrell. Unplug your phone charger when it’s not in use. Fit energy-efficient light bulbs. Turn the heating down a notch. Then (and only then), the campaign suggests, buy a “tonne of cool” for £20. Your money will go towards carbon offsets and to charity activities run by the Global Cool Foundation in the developing world. Offsetting alone is not enough, says Morrell, the original founder of one of the first offsets businesses (Future Forests, now the CarbonNeutral Company). He instead stresses the potential of individual behaviour change. “Lifestyle,” he says, “is the one thing you have control over.”

Global Cool is putting the word out through webcasts, via its own website and those of its media partners NME and MySpace. KT Tunstall says she wants to help “make being anti-green very uncool”, while fresh-faced Hollywood actor Josh Hartnett reassures us that “low-energy lightbulbs don’t make life any worse - it’s just as bright!”

You might doubt whether the celebrity world is in it for the long haul -  after all, it’s a ten-year project. But Global Cool does seem to be getting involved in some hip projects for the moment - like working with DJ Prydz and the Ministry of Sound to help produce a video for a remix of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall Part II. Currently doing the rounds on the likes of MTV, with a backdrop of “We don’t need no education” and a house beat, it shows teenagers getting involved in edgy environmental activism. They break into office blocks to turn off the lights at night. They get caught inside a flat trying to put a brick in a cistern. They creep into a bedroom, where a couple are making love, to replace a lightbulb [above]. Being good in a way that’s badly cool.- Hannah Bullock

11 March 2007

Hannah Bullock