Going one Step Further at Timpsons

Instead of throwing away your favourite pair of shoes when they wear out, why not give them a new lease of life at Timpsons? The old-fashioned practice of ‘make do and mend’ is coming back into fashion as recycling – and every time you repair rather than replace, you’re using up less of our planet’s precious resources.

At Timpsons you can go one step further and make your shoes last forever! Get a worn-out sole repaired with Timpsons’ Lifetime Guarantee Sole, and if it ever needs to be replaced again, Timpsons will do so free of charge. Available on men and ladies’ shoes, from around £20 - £30 a pair.

Timpson’s care for the environment doesn’t stop there. All its plastic bags are made from recycled material, and if you take your watch in to have its battery replaced, the old one will be recycled as a matter of course.

Flying High with Thomson

We all know now that airplanes are a major source of carbon emissions, the ‘greenhouse gases’ that are contributing to climate change. If nothing is done, and we keep flying as much as we do today, airplanes could be responsible for 20% of this country’s carbon footprint by the year 2020. But few of us want to give up our annual holiday in the sun, and often flying is the only practical way of getting there.

Thomson is the first holiday company to offer flights on the new 787 Dreamliner eco-friendly aircraft, which will take to the air early next year. Developed by the world’s leading aerospace company, Boeing, the Dreamliner uses cutting-edge engine technology to cut fuel consumption by a fifth - meaning fewer harmful gases released into the environment.

And every time you book a holiday flying from May 2009, you can make a donation to the World Care Fund which Thomson will match pound for pound. Every penny goes to Climate Care and The Travel Foundation, independent charities which build carbon-offsetting projects and help care for the environment and local communities in our favourite holiday destinations. Water-powered electricity in Zambia and new village schools in Kenya are just some of the benefits that your joint donations can help to bring about.

Feel Good Food at Julian Graves

The UK’s largest independent natural food and ingredients retailer has a delicious choice of wholesome foods and snacks to make healthy living a temptation, not a chore. As well as keeping packaging to a minimum on all its foodstuffs, Julian Graves offers organic sunflowers seeds, figs, whole brazil nuts, dried apricots and crystallised ginger, from £1.69.

Time for Change at H Samuel

Safely disposing of the batteries that power our electronic gadgets is becoming a major challenge. They might be small, but with the average household getting through 21 every year, it all adds up – to an annual 30,000 tonnes of waste batteries, most of them containing chemicals which can harm the environment.

A revolutionary new kind of watch at H Samuels could mean you’ll never have to throw away a watch battery again. Although it looks like an ordinary timepiece, the Citizen Eco-Drive takes light from any source – natural or artificial – and turns it into power using a special solar cell. Once fully charged, the watch can keep running even in total darkness for at least six months. If it’s exposed to light on a regular basis, it will never run out of power.

Choose from a wide selection of top-quality men and ladies’ models from £139 to £350.