Philippa Forrester

TV and radio presenter Philippa Forrester spills the beans on her impressive green credentials...

How green do you think you are?

How green are you?

I despise waste and love the natural world, so it is in my nature to be green. That said, I am not pompous or perfect, none of us are, but we can improve all the time and little changes every day make the big difference.

What's the greenest thing you've ever done?

I suppose it was doing a degree in ecology and conservation. The knowledge that it gave me has informed the decisions that I have made since and enabled me to campaign for green issues.

And what's your guilty green secret?

I don’t believe in feeling guilty about these issues that kind of attitude makes me want to scream! We should be positive when we face these big issues and acknowledge that none of us can be perfect. I would much rather people do what they can and felt good about it than have yet another thing to feel bad about.

What green thing do you always do?

Think, it affects most of my green actions.

What’s on your green to-do list?

We live beside a river and I would love to be able to power our house with this wonderful source of energy.

Proving it

Grow your own or ready meal?

Yes to both. I grow my own ready meals, with eggs from our chickens for omelettes and salad leaves and tomatoes from the garden. At this time of year, fresh sweet raspberries and blueberries are a favourite for pudding. I grow lots of veg and fruit and love it.

Leave on or switch off?

Switch off every time.

Drive, bus or walk?

Drive sadly, as we live in a very rural area.

Recycle or dustbin?

Recycling and composting can save a massive one third of waste from going to landfill. It never needs any transport as it the furthest it goes is to the back garden and you get free compost – the ultimate in recycling.

Wash or wear again?

Depends on how smelly!!  I check things to see if they are really dirty and don’t bother to send the kids out to play in clean clothes, it takes approximately five seconds for them to get filthy and that is just as it should be.

Just for you…

What green habit saves you money?

We spent last winter mainly heating the house with two new Firebelly log-burning stoves, it was more work in terms of chopping and lugging logs but saved us lots of money, kept us fit and was deeply satisfying.

What have you changed about your lifestyle to make it greener?

For me it’s about shifts in habit. Little things every day, such as washing on a 30-degree cycle all add up to big differences.

Chickens or pigs? Which would you choose to have if you lived the The Good Life?

Well we have chickens and ducks, plus one wild duck that we rescued and seems to like being a pet!

With pigs I think it would be very difficult to draw the line between pet and pork. I’d worry that if a pig was ill or needed hands-on help then I might not be up to a wrestling match with one. Chickens and ducks however are much easier to manage!