pie-man.com - tread lightly

tread lightly

Sure, we all have to move about in the course of our lives, but it's nice to do it with a minimum of impact on everyone else. And the lightest footfall you can make is when you're not carrying any weight besides your own. Which is why you'll see pie-man staff walking from place to place quite a lot of the time. We walk to work, to the supermarket, to the pie shop, to the pub. A walk is an enjoyable thing that keeps you fit and gives you some thinking time. (Of course, we have pastry calories to burn too, so the choice is a simple one.)

But much as we might like to do all our longer journeys by bike or canoe like those inestimable folks at howies seem to, in the final analysis we really do need a car.

Now, we reckon a car is where you can make your single biggest contribution to global harmony and general tree-hugging niceness. And you can do it quite easily by just looking carefully at the car you're thinking of buying. The Toyota Prius, as every tree-hugger knows, recovers kinetic energy when you hit the brakes and uses it to power the car. Nifty. As if the Smart ForTwo wasn't clever enough already, the Smart factory uses heat from welding bodyshells to dry paint, which cuts its energy consumption and emissions. Also pretty nifty. There's a slightly battered Audi A2 amongst the pie-man staff - it does 60mpg, takes up very little space on the road, weighs next to nowt and is jammed full of clever ideas. Look into it, think about it, and then ask yourself why anyone drives an SUV. (And then write and tell us, cos we honestly have no idea.)

[the former pie-van - life looks better from the slow lane] But above all else, up to 80% of the energy consumed by a car over its lifetime is used during its manufacture and eventual destruction. So the most effective environmental measures you can take concerning your car are firstly to buy the smallest, lightest, most economical car that will do what you need it to do, and secondly to maintain it, keep it going efficiently, and don't buy a new one unless you really need to. Buying a new car wipes out a huge chunk of resources before you even drive it anywhere, and can easily outweigh all the good work in a lifetime of recycling bottles. Or several lifetimes, in fact.

And pie-man's transport of choice? We deliver our t-shirts in an old Triumph Dolomite. It's a big chunk of metal that has done its job well for 25 years, without needing to be recycled or replaced. With care and attention it'll do 25 more. And in that lies honour.