Close the Door Blog

Three Counties Radio

2008-11-16T12:45:00.001Z

Three Counties Radio (covering Beds, Herts and Bucks) did a long phone interview on their breakfast show on the 11th. Listen to it below...

National publicity on Radio 5 Live

2008-11-16T12:38:00.002Z

On Monday 10th, Jeannie was interviewed on Radio 5 Live's breakfast show, which you can listen to by clicking play below...

The campaign starts in Westminster 6/11/08

2008-11-09T18:44:00.002Z

Margaret and Jeannie joined Julia Boyd in Westminster to start work on the campaign on Thursday 6th November.

Daily Telegraph letters to the editor Nov 5th

2008-11-09T18:12:00.005Z

We were in the Daily Telegraph Letters to the Editor on November 5th, of all days! In the words of the President Elect 'change is coming'.

Read it here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/05/nosplit/dt0501.xml#head7

Country Casuals are closing their doors!

2008-10-29T19:48:00.003Z

Country Casuals stores are now to close store doors when using heating or air con. Please support them! The Cambridge store used to be unpleasantly cold and drafty with an overhead heating inside the store working overtime in winter - the clothes near the door were clammy! Not any more.

private members bill for CtD

2008-10-29T19:44:00.002Z

David Howarth MP is putting forward a private members bill for CtD at the end of the year to raise the profile further. This follows new legislation by Mayor Bloomberg in New York on closing doors in the retail sector to save energy - we hope to go one step more.

Northallerton joins up

2008-10-29T19:24:00.003Z

Really fantastic news that Peter Hale of Climate Concern, www.climateconcern.com, and Northallerton Climate Action has taken on Northallerton for Close the Door - he's a great contributor of ideas to the main campaign and big help with an impressive long term involvement in sustainability issues. The Northallerton page will be up soon, along with Norwich, St Albans, Chelmsford and Exeter.

2008-10-29T19:06:00.005Z

Hi everybody, despite the long misleading silence a lot has gone on over the summer. Prof Sir David King has endorsed the campaign with:

I fully support Close the Door as there is an urgent need to do everything we can to reduce carbon emissions. UK business is in many ways prepared to lead the way and in asking retailers to close their door while using heating or air conditioning, this campaign addresses an area of waste that we often overlook. It is an easy and effective way to cut energy waste and I encourage both retailers and customers to support it.

and cross party support has continued - see these:

"I am delighted that this initiative represents one of many good and innovative ideas coming out of the region I represent. It is absolutely critical that we all pay attention to reducing energy use
and emissions. Retailers who keep their doors open while heating or cooling the store are wasting significant amounts of energy. Whether retailers or customers, we can stop this by simply closing the shop door. It is that easy. Excuses based on tempting customers into shops through open doors are not acceptable or sensible in this time of global warming and fuel crisis. The campaign started in Cambridge which now has over 250 stores of all sizes keeping the door closed, and other cities are following. Keeping the door closed against energy waste clearly need
not cause retail hardship.
Please join me in supporting the Close the Door campaign "
Andrew Lansley MP

" It is crucial that we all act to prevent energy waste wherever possible. No one heats their home and leaves the doors and windows wide open and yet we tend to overlook what happens in shops. Keeping the door closed while energy is being used to heat or cool a shop is
easy, effective and common sense. Not doing so is wholly irresponsible. We all have a part to play in this whether working in the retail sector or as customers. I encourage everyone to join me in lending support to the Close the Door Campaign "
Charles Clarke MP

"I fully support the Close the Door Campaign, and am very pleased to see Exeter at the forefront of another good campaign. I hope this will encourage the retail sector and customers alike to act responsibly in keeping doors closed while energy is being used to heat/cool a store. Preventing energy waste is critical to us all, and this is an easy and effective step at very little inconvenience. Please support those shops which close their doors to conserve energy"
Ben Bradshaw MP

Statement from David Howarth MP

2008-04-23T09:28:00.003Z

And more support! David Howarth MP for Cambridge states:

I thoroughly support the aims and objectives of the Close the Door campaign and their work to persuade retailers to keep their doors closed when using energy to heat or cool shops.

"We now live in a situation where energy waste is simply not acceptable. Climate change is no longer in question, and with major aid agencies and the UN predicting wide scale human suffering and food shortages from global warming, we have to pay urgent attention to avoiding energy waste.

"By closing doors while using energy, retailers will also reduce their bills. Many shops already do this. Concerns about enticing customers in should be met by means other than leaving the door open in all conditions. Close the Door is a simple idea that makes a very real difference.

"The Close the Door campaign started in Cambridge and is now rolling out to other cities. This is a good example of the many exciting new ideas of vision that come out of this region. Please follow me in supporting the campaign whether you use shops as a consumer, or work in the retail industry. It makes sense for all of us."

More coverage from the north of England

2008-04-18T08:41:00.001Z

Another article about close the door! Once again with thanks to the efforts of Chris Davies MEP:
<http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/community/8377/euromp-in-appeal-to-shops-to-%E2%80%98shut-that-door%E2%80%99>

Manchester Evening News coverage

2008-04-17T08:29:00.000Z

The word is travelling north - take a look at this
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1045408_shops_urged_to_shut_that_door

support at MEP level

2008-04-16T08:25:00.001Z

"I wholeheartedly support the Close the Door campaign and the work it is doing to persuade retailers to close their doors against energy waste.

Estimates suggest that shops waste around £300 million each year because their doors are left open. Many could slash their energy bills by 20-25% if they closed them. The excess use of energy is also contributing to climate change but could be solved by simply shutting the door and keeping the heat or air conditioning in. I have heard both shop staff and customers complaining on windy days about icy air whistling in through open doors. The policy is madness and I hope retailers will wake up to the waste.

Open doors are intended to entice customers to step inside. But with the United Nations predicting that billions will suffer from the effects of global warming it is morally indefensible to waste energy in this way."

Euro-MP Chris Davies, Liberal Democrat environment spokesman in the European Parliament.

Website goodness

2008-04-14T20:56:00.007Z

The positive side of the unfortunate downtime yesterday is that there have been several changes to the website which should improve the experience for all visitors. I thought I'd walk you through them.

Firstly, our new Participating Retailers pages are now live. The old ones had to be updated via a completely manual process. At the rate we've been adding retailers recently, even updating the Cambridge list was becoming arduous - and with local campaigns now starting up in several cities, the process was clearly not going to scale. Instead, the new ones are directly generated from our master campaign database with the touch of a button. As a side effect, this also allows us to do useful things like add maps showing the progress of the campaign - check out the Cambridge pages for an example. It's just one example of some serious prep we've been doing behind the scenes to gear up for a major national campaign.

Secondly, our old website did the job, but it generated pages in quite a technically inefficient way. We were worried that if we attracted major publicity it might overload our web host and not hold up to a sudden rush of traffic. We've made some changes to the way it works which should completely resolve this. As a visitor, you might have noticed the site could be a little sluggish before - this should now be gone completely.

Some of you may be wondering why we're worrying about the effects of major publicity. Well might you ask. Watch this space...

Website badness

2008-04-14T19:52:00.007Z

I made a small change to our website yesterday. Just a tiny one. And then tested it, but only in Firefox, which is the browser I use, and Safari, just in case (I'm a Mac user). But I didn't also test in Internet Explorer, like I normally do. Because that requires I reboot my machine, which takes time, and beer was waiting. And this was such a tiny change, it couldn't possibly cause problems.

Oops.

For anyone who's been trying to visit over the last day with Internet Explorer, many apologies for the hideously broken site. And many thanks to those who let us know.

Borders Cambridge Statement

2008-04-10T20:19:00.009Z

Today Andy Danson, manager of Borders Cambridge store gave us this statement:

"We at Borders are proud to participate in the Close The Door campaign. This is a simple and effective first step in helping us to cut our energy waste. We have three entrances / exits in our store and working with the campaign has helped us lower our fuel bills and increase customer comfort. It's that easy..! Every retailer should join. Everybody will benefit."

What more do you need to hear?
The guys at Cambridge Borders have been supporting this campaign for over a year - they know the closed door policy works well for their business, and they really do walk the walk. Today they are way ahead of the other large bookstores in Cambridge in our ratings so, please support Borders and show them your appreciation.

Head Offices

2008-03-31T19:27:00.002Z

does anyone have contacts at retail head offices? we would love to have names at Laura Ashley, Vodafone, Neal's Yard and Austin Reed as well as the National Trust.

Bath Friends of the Earth

2008-03-30T18:24:00.003Z

We're flattered by the attention, guys. But would just like to make it clear that the campaign that they're running isn't linked in any way with Close the Door. Enough said.

2008-03-30T17:20:00.003Z

Having had a brief Easter break after a frantic month, the campaign team is back. There seems to have been a massive increase in campaign momentum recently - so many people have been emailing recently and we're doing our best to catch up.

Jaeger reception

2008-03-30T16:14:00.003Z

Jaeger held a fabulous private reception on March 12th in support of our campaign in their Trinity Street Cambridge store. Christine Lockhart of Jaeger organised a fantastically stylish opportunity for guests to view their new Spring collection over bubbly and some great canapes (created by the shop's own Jo Clarke!).

It's due to be covered in the next issue of Style magazine, but in the meantime here are some photos:

http://photo.closethedoor.org.uk/jaeger-reception/

Guardian coverage

2008-03-21T18:16:00.001Z

The Guardian's Dominic Murphy has written an in-depth piece featuring the Close the Door campaign - a double spread in the G2 section. Read it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/20/energyefficiency.carbonemissions

BBC video

2008-03-15T16:18:00.000Z

Chris Osborne at the BBC has produced a video feature on the campaign in Cambridge which is featured on the BBC local website. You can view it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cambridgeshire/content/articles/2008/03/14/close_the_door_video_feature.shtml