Interview - Penney Poyzer - Friends of the Earth Scotland

Interview - Penney Poyzer

“I want to learn how to make a chair! I already know how to gut a fish and a bit about which foods you can forage for...”

Penney Poyzer is a Green lifestyle expert and BBC TV-presenter

If you weren’t an environmentalist what would you be?
I’ve absolutely no idea, because this is my life’s mission so I’d probably
be dead if I wasn’t doing this.

When you were eight you wanted to write a book. Did you always want to write
your book on green issues?
Well, as a child I knew that wanted to write – it was always a powerful
drive – but also at eight, and I know it sounds weird, I really developed a
very personal relationship with the planet.

How did this personal relationship begin?
Well, I had a bit of a dodgy childhood really - it didn’t feel safe
emotionally - so I used to go off on mad, random bike-rides and once I
fetched up in the most spectacular blue-bell wood. It was like being in a
cathedral and just lying on my back amongst these flowers made me feel that
I was home and completely safe. I’ve been addicted to smelling flowers ever
since… like some strange sniffy-dog.

What’s your most embarrassing moment?
Oh God! There are so many to choose from! I think probably completely
forgetting that I was giving a tour of my house to the Nottingham Green
Party and getting very merry with several of my friends before the doorbell
rang.

It didn’t go well then?
The funny thing was, that because I was so relaxed, I ended up ranting at
them about their policies and they then asked me to stand for them.

And did you accept?
No, I said no, I’m not interested in politics at all.

Is that because you think there is a better way?
I’m very interested in politics with a small ‘p’. I believe very much in
change at grassroots level - it’s absolutely fundamental to achieving a
sustainable community and a sustainable nation. I want people to wake up and
to use their voices because I find that people are very interested, but that
they tend to be very nice, and they don’t jump up and down. We want people
to jump up and down.

So you think that people care about the environment?
Absolutely. I believe that the critical mass is definitely moving in the
right direction, but I think there is an awful lot of confusion about what
is the right thing to do. People feel “if I’m going to put my effort into
being green I need to know that this stuff is going to work”, as it were. So
my job is to give people really simple stuff that I know works, because I’ve
lived it and done it for the last ten years.

Yes, ’cause you’ve been creating your own eco-home in Nottingham..?
Yes. When we were looking for somewhere to live the obvious thing would have
been to look for a spanking new environmentally-friendly house. But I really
like Victorian / Edwardian housing and the challenge was to make it work. In
the beginning my daughter said “not only are we freaks, but we’re cold
freaks”. We lived in a laboratory and learnt as we went along.

What's the eco-home experiment that went most well?
Probably the eco-bling in my bedroom - we mixed mother-of-pearl (a
by-product of the fishing industry) with plaster to coat our ceiling.

What single piece of advice would you give to someone creating their own
eco-home?
Look for the best way to conserve energy. Try and really change your
behaviour -switching lights off, switching the TV off at standby. Do all the
things that we know we should do, but don’t.

What is your worst environmental bad habit?
Not turning the coffee machine off.

What’s the future for Penney Poyzer?
I want to keep on increasing my skills base as much as possible. To keep on
learning and to keep finding out how to do things. I want to learn how to
make a chair! I already know how to gut a fish and a bit about which foods
you can forage for… I know what I want to be when I grow up… I want to be
Ray Mears!

Penney Poyzer is the no-nonsense eco-expert presenter of BBC2’s prime time show ‘No Waste Like Home’. She owns her own award-winning eco-home and her consultancy has guided hundreds of households and informed thousands of people about how to save money through living a greener lifestyle.

Interview by: Amanda Palmer

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