To celebrate and mark the launch of The Sustainable(ish) Guide to Green Parenting, my new book, coming out this week, there's a little flurry of five parenting(ish) podcasts coming your way this week!

Check out episode 93 for some more info about the book,  Monday's episode with Ellie Jackson from Wild Tribe Heroes, and Tuesday's episode with Rachel Boyett from Little Veggie Eats, Wednesday's episode with Charlotte from thelittleloop explaining how clothes rental for kids works, and yesterday's episode on all things reusable nappies with Laura Tweedale!


So here we are them day 5! It’s been a real blast, and we haven’t even skimmed the surface of a LOT of sustainable(ish) parenting, bit I hope you’ve enjoyed the episodes this week – parent or not, these women are all hugely inspiring and so brilliantly demonstrate the power we all have to create positive change.

To round off the week we’re heading back to school!
Unless you homeschool (and the last year has demonstrated to me that I am really not cut out of homeschooling and I take my hat off to those of you who choose to do that) our kids will (Covid permitting) spend a lot of their time at school. Schools can have a huge impact, not only in teaching our kids about the planet and the climate crisis, but in connecting with the wider school community and making wider change happen as well.

I LOVED this chat with Lee Wray Davies, who is the Eco Schools Manager for England, about the Eco Schools programme, what it is, how it works, the impact it has, and how we can get our own schools involved.

Enjoy!

To celebrate and mark the launch of The Sustainable(ish) Guide to Green Parenting, my new book, coming out this week, there's a little flurry of five parenting(ish) podcasts coming your way this week!

Check out episode 93 for some more info about the book,  Monday's episode with Ellie Jackson from Wild Tribe Heroes, and Tuesday's episode with Rachel Boyett from Little Veggie Eats, and yesterday's episode about renting our kids clothes with Charlotte from thelittleloop.

I can't quite believe we've got this far into a week of sustainable(ish) parenting podcasts without mentioning nappies! So I'm correcting that today with a 'reusable nappies 101' from the brilliant Laura Tweedale, author of The Joy of Reusable Nappies.

This episode is very much NOT to bash anyone over the head with the big green bashy stick if you use disposable nappies - we did at the start with our eldest, and continued to do so at night and on holiday with both of them. As with all things Sustainable(ish) this is about finding what works for YOU and your family. 
The reason I wanted to do this episode (and the reason there's a big section on nappies in the book) is that I know from my own experience that there are probably people out there who might want to give reusable nappies a go, but who feel overwhelmed and a bit daunted when they start looking into it. 

Hopefully this episode, and Laura's great book, might help to overcome some of that overwhelm and make it all feel that little bit more do-able.

Enjoy!

To celebrate and mark the launch of The Sustainable(ish) Guide to Green Parenting, my new book, coming out this week, there's a little flurry of five parenting(ish) podcasts coming your way this week!

Check out episode 93 for some more info about the book,  Monday's episode with Ellie Jackson from Wild Tribe Heroes, and yesterday's episode with Rachel Boyett from Little Veggie Eats.

Today we're onto clothes!
Despite a tendency amongst some kids to want to run around starkers, kids need to wear clothes and given how quickly they grow, our kids will get through a startling amount of clothes. Wouldn't it be great if we could rent our kids clothes for them to wear, and then send them back for the next size up once they've grown out of them?
Well now we can!

Today I’m excited to be chatting to Charlotte Morley, founder of thelittleloop – the UK’s first rental marketplace for kids clothes.

DID YOU KNOW..?

• Renting your children's clothes reduces their water and carbon footprint by around 3/4
• Research has shown that if we extend the life of clothes by just 3 months it could reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by around 10.
• Renting smashes this out of the park. Children's clothes have the potential to be rented out 4 or 5 times. That's another 9-12 months of wear than they'd normally get and it reduces their production footprint by 75%, and their overall carbon footprint (including washing, shipping and disposal) by 63%.
• AND it can save us time, money and all that storage space that our kids clothes take up!

We chat about the impact that our kids clothes are having on the planet, how renting them works, AND charlotte shares some great tips for stain removal and repair!

Enjoy!

To celebrate and mark the launch of The Sustainable(ish) Guide to Green Parenting, my new book, coming out this week, there's a little flurry of five parenting(ish) podcasts coming your way this week!

Check out episode 93 for some more info about the book, and yesterday's episode with Ellie Jackson from Wild Tribe Heroes.

Today I’m delighted to be chatting to Rachel Boyett aka @littleveggieeats of IG.
Rachel is a mum of 3, lifelong vegetarian and author of the book Little Veggie Eats – which is pitched as a baby weaning book, but I’ve got a copy and there are SO many brilliant veggie meals and snack ideas in there for the  whole family, I would 100% recommend it.
 
We’re all used now to the message that we need to be eating less meat, and whilst we might be keen to do that ourselves, getting the rest of the family on board can sometimes feels a little erm... challenging!

We chat about:

- what it was like growing up vegetarian in the 1980s
- how her kids react to being bought up vegetarian
- how we can get our kids eating more veggies meals
- and lots more!

Enjoy!

To celebrate and mark the launch of The Sustainable(ish) Guide to Green Parenting, my new book, coming out this week, there's a little flurry of five parenting(ish) podcasts coming your way this week!

Kicking off with this chat with Ellie Jackson, who is the author of The Wild Tribe Heroes series of children’s books. I’ve been a huge admirer of Ellie and her books for a long time, but hadn’t realised just how much amazing stuff Ellie is doing, and how her books aren’t just gorgeously illustrated and nice stories, they’re actually being used as a tool for real action on the ground, and that children around the world are being inspired to make positive changes because of them.

We chat about:

• Ellie’s home life and the challenges of home schooling 4 kids whilst running a business and writing a new book
• What inspired her to get get started
• Where she gets her story ideas from
• How we can talk to our kids about the climate crisis and the state of the planet without overwhelming and scaring them
• The impact that Ellie's books have had
• How schools and parents can use the books to start these gentle conversations with our kids, and empower them to take action.

Enjoy!

GAH! I think this episode might actually be one of the most terrifying ones (for me!) yet...

What could be so terrifying?
Am I interviewing Greta? Or Sir David Attenborough?
Sadly no. I'm actually interviewing myself. About book number two - The Sustainable(ish) Guide to Green Parenting - which is out on March 18th. I was going to say that I'm equal parts terrified and excited, but that would be a lie. I'm 100% terrified..!

Putting your heart and soul into something and then letting the whole world 'mark your homework' feels pretty uncomfortable. And to add to that, I decided that in this episode I wanted to answer your questions about the book, and I am now feeling horribly self-indulgent and  narcissistic making this episode all about me and my book.

These are all genuine questions sent in on social media, here goes...

• Is it aimed at parents with kids of a certain age, or is it applicable from birth? (Gina)
  Parents of what age kids? (Sylvia)
  Is the guide aimed at new parents or can parents with kids of any age find good point to dive in and get some tips and ideas? (Claire)
• Can I ask who is it aimed at, parents who currently don't do any kind of green parenting, or those who already walk/bike, reuse, use cloth nappies etc. (Fran)
• Is is a similar format to your first book? (Suz)
  How much overlap is there with your first book - will those who've read that still find more in this book? (Mareli)
  What's the difference between this book and your last? (Rachel)
• How on earth did you manage to write a book in the middle of lockdown whilst homeshooling and providing 574 sustainable(ish) snacks a day? (Ida)
  How on earth did you write a book during lockdown with 2 kids at home??? (Tamasin)
• I'd love to know the basic things like the topics of the chapters ad how easy it is to pick actions that work for the age of our child? Also does it include ideas or tips for how to give appropriate messaging to different ages, as well as the people that help you raise your child such as a partner, grandparent, teacher etc.? (Sarah)
• What has this book got that others haven't? (Debs)

Tune in for the answers...!

After last week's solo episode, I've got something a little different for you again this week! Because more change and uncertainty is what we all need right now yes..?!!

This week’s episode is a live recording done from the virtual podcast stage at Future Fest, an amazing online event from Pebble Magazine that happened at the beginning of November about the solutions and the people who are going to drive the change to net zero.

It took me a while to work out what I wanted to talk about, and who I wanted to chat too, but then in an actual (low carbon LED) lightbulb moment, I realised it was you guys.
It can be all too easy to feel like the solutions and the people who are going to drive the change to net zero are somehow super human people – those who are setting up amazing circular fashion businesses, or pioneering new technology. It’s very easy to over-look the fact that you and me, ordinary knackered people, juggling ordinary jobs, and kids and laundry and cooking endless meals, that we also play a huge role in creating a different future.

So I put a post in the Knackered Mums Eco Clubhouse (my annual membership) asking for volunteers to come and chat with me about their experiences of getting started with Sustainable(ish) changes, their successes and their failures. I wanted it to feel like we were sitting around my kitchen table (albeit via Zoom and with people watching!) with a cuppa and sharing our stories, our challenges, having a laugh, and hopefully inspiring some other people to get started too.
Because it’s so important that we recognise that we are part of the solution. That people making changes are ordinary people like us. There’s no secret superhero breed that are secretly wearing special green pants that give them extraordinary powers. There’s just normal people, who’ve dared to care, who are bumbling along like the rest of us, making one change at a time. And that we can learn from each other, and we can inspire each other. And that that matters.

Enjoy.

Carbon footprints - we've probably all heard the term, but what exactly is a carbon footprint? And why does it matter?
Do I have a carbon footprint?
How do I know what it is?
How do I reduce it?
What do I need to reduce it to?

ALL the questions about carbon footprints!

Luckily in this episode I'm chatting to Jo Hand, co-founder of Giki Zero, an app and website that allows you to easily measure and track your individual carbon footprint.
Because I'm a bit of an eco geek, I've tried out a few different carbon footprint calculators, and whilst they're great for giving a ballpark figure, they don't allow for much nuance, and the only way to really see it come down is to do something really drastic, like go car-free, or move to a smaller house - neither of which are hugely practical right now.
So when I tried out Giki Zero I was geekily excited to see that this is a calculator that does allow us to factor in many of the smaller changes we're making day to day, and to see our footprint shrink!

Jo answers all of the questions above, and many many more, including sharing her top tips for the big impact things we can do to reduce our footprints.

Listen in, then go and check out Giki Zero! Let me know what your score and your footprint are!