The green room

Craig Sams, founder, Green and Black's

Do you know your carbon footprint?

Just under eight tonnes of CO2 a year. Low, but it could be lower. But I'm uneasy about most carbon calculators because they allot only 0.6 tonne of your usage to food. Eating non-organic food and lots of meat will generate much more CO2 than that. We have a 13-acre chestnut coppice that converts 70 tonnes of CO2 a year into wood, so if that all went into building and we didn't burn it then we could claim to be very carbon negative and sell some credits on the European Climate Exchange.

What was the last nice green thing you did?

We recently had a charity organic cream tea in our sunny walled garden. We raised £900 for St Michael's Hospice, the Soil Association and the Lower Torfield Allotments Association.


If I had £500,000 to play with I'd buy a flash carbonisation unit. It turns biomass into charcoal that doesn't turn back into CO2. Biofuels just borrow the CO2 and put it back months later, which is useless and a waste of land and energy. One unit will lock 10,000 tonnes of carbon away each year, generate biogas and act as a great soil conditioner.

What wakes you up in a sweat at night?

Dungeness nuclear power station. Everything that we do to make our local environment better can be ruined by one nuclear accident. It's just five miles away and built on a shifting shingle beach so I won't really sleep easy until it's decommissioned - along with all the others around the world.

What skill do you have for a post-oil world?

I can cook meals based on grains and vegetables that are really delicious and nourishing. When the real price of meat kicks in I could open a restaurant that would pack them in.

What would you save come the floods, apart from your family and friends?

My stash of dark chocolate and some Assam tea bags.

· Craig Sams is the president of Green & Black's and chairs the Soil Association.

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