10 degrees outside . . .

. . . but it’s 23 inside with out any heating thanks to sunlight, insulation and double glazing.

Why have New Zea;anders been so slow to build warm houses?

Prince’s woolly thinking good idea

Prince Charles has been criticised in the past for some woolly thinking, but this time he’s got a good idea and has launched the Wool Project –  a scheme to help sheep farmers around the world boost the price of wool.

Devised by the Prince and the director of the Pastoral Alliance, John Thorley, the scheme was billed as a comeback for wool at the launch on a Cambridgeshire sheep farm on Tuesday (26 January).

The scheme aims to turn around the wool market’s fortunes, which has seen prices slump from 93p/kg in 1997 to 66p/kg last year.

It will promote the green credentials of wool to consumers as well as urging shops to promote it as a fashionable material for clothes, carpets and rugs.

The Prince intends to create a green label to adorn woollen products across the UK and Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

Federated Farmers is supporting the move. Meat & Fibre chair, Bruce Willis, points to wool’s green credentials – it’s a fashionable eco-friendly alternative to synthetics.

It also helps you stay warm when it’s wet and it can be worn for longer in sweaty conditions without getting smelly which makes it ideal for work and tramping clothes.

Icebreaker has shown the way with casual clothing. Christina Perriam, is doing the same for fashion clothing. She features in the current NZ Life & Leisure, in which she says she’s:

. . . focused on relaunching her fashion label, creating key, affordable but beautiful pieces that New Zealand women will treasure and keep in their wardrobes for many years. And then there’s the New Zealand merino sleepwear range which caters for the growing need for organic, healthy, sustainable fibres to be worn next to the skin.

Both Icebreaker and the Christina Perriam range use merino. Finding uses and markets for crossbred wool is more problematic.

Wool carpet is great, but a lot of the world uses tiles rather than carpet.

Wool insulation has been round for a while but it isn’t making much headway against synthetic alternatives, although if my experience is anything to go by that’s not surprising.

Recently I asked about wool insulation at Wanaka’s Mitre 10. Once we’d got past a couple of minutes of crossed wires and established I was talking about wool not wall insulation, the shop assistant rummaged through the brochures on display, all of which were for synthetic materials. She then went in to an office and spoke with someone else who came out with a brochure and a couple of pages printed from a website about wool insulation.

I asked the price and how it compared with the cost of synthetic alternatives. The assistant consulted the woman in the office again and returned to tell me she’d never worked it out but thought wool would be a little bit more expensive, though it wouldn’t cost twice as much.

The producers of wool insulation are being very poorly served if the brochures for their products aren’t with the others and the sales people – or at least the two who were trying to help me – don’t know how the price compares with its synthetic competitors.

The idea of selling wool as an eco-friendly, natural, sustainable fibre pushes a lot of marketing buttons. But the Prince and his project have a lot of work to do if the products already available are marketed this poorly.

Hat Tip: Phil Clarke’s Business Blog.

Wool natural option for insulation

Federated Farmers saw an opportunity for wool  in the Budget funding for home insulation and Wool Partners has followed up with a fact sheet on its benefits.

Among them are:

* Wool is a natural insulator.

* It’s healthy because it’s bio-degradable and non-toxic.

* Wool is a natural air conditioner, moderates humidity and act as a natural filter.

* It’s safer than synthetic insulation because it’s fire retardant.

*It’s environmentallyf reindly because it’s a natural, renewable and sustainable resource.

* Wool insulation gives value for money.

Wool insulation has been around for some years but is still a very small player in the market.

However, a growing demand for natural products combined with the government’s insulation scheme might provide a boost for companies like Terra Lana.