Personally, I’m not too sure about this McDonald’s related news. There was a guide that came out the other day (I’m still trying to locate it) that places them firmly in the bottom half of the enviromentally friendly food suppliers table.

Add in the methane that all those cows add to the atmosphere*, and the only way McDonalds could really make much of a difference would be to switch over to 100% tofu burgers…

*Fascinating fact: It’s a common myth that cows produce methane via the mechanism of flatulance. 95% of the methane cows produce is actually emitted via belching.

Anyway, let’s move right along to the latest comic from xkcd which is all about the joys of biofuel.

EDIT: Couple of interesting links about what McDonalds could do to reduce the amount of packaging waste they generate, how they’ll soon be the biggest retailer of Rainforest Alliance Certified Coffee, and a mystery case study that talks about their eco credentials.

You can also make your own mind up about McDonalds, but it still doesn’t provide a satisfactory answer to the age old question why you can’t have a Sausage and Egg McMuffin at 4.00pm…

I should probably take this opportunity to draw readers to the terms and conditions of this site, and the fact that some of the views expressed on this website are the opinions of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of PointOV Ltd. Thank you very much.

Yesterday morning saw Europe’s first biodiesel powered train set off on a journey from London to Llandudno.

The Virgin Voyager train has been modified to run on a slightly more eco-friendly fuel - a blend of regular diesel and 20% rapeseed, soya bean and palm oil. This should reduce CO2 emissions by about 14%. If the trial is successful, the company aims to convert more of it’s fleet in the future.

Virgin’s boss, Richard Branson, said that the company hopes to use 100% biodiesel in the future, which would be equivalent to removing 100,000 vehicles from the road. Virgin Atlantic have already ordered 15 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, which are 27 percent more fuel efficient than its current fleet, and if you read Virgin’s press release they state that…

One hundred percent of any profits made by Virgin Group through its train and plane companies for the next 10 years will be invested into developing clean fuels.

…which sounds pretty impressive.

We’ll be watching Sir Richard more closely from now on, and we’ll be awarding him his How Ethical! rating once we’ve done some more research.

No word on whether or not the train actually made it to Llandudno on time…