Today, I will be mostly staying at home...

...and, in so doing, I will help the environment a bit. Plus saving a fair wadge of wonga by not paying for travel. Now, while that is all very laudable, it is not perhaps the most relevant thing to any reader's day, nor indeed very interesting.

Hence, I am trying to figure out why ads like the one at the top, and all the press releases I still keep getting about banks now recycling their paper, are any different.

While super-dooper and all, the fact is that they are doing something that is only reasonable, and in the case of energy may even end up saving them money (will those eventual operational profits go back to the consumers?).

So, while I am happy to say 'good on ya!', I can't for the life of me see what is being served by blowing vast amounts of dosh on ads such as this, when they could be using the money to actually, oh, I don't know... DO something worth sharing, with the consumer in mind and not soem fuzzy green agenda.

Who gains? A box ticked on the CSR chart. The creative guys, ad agency and media are pretty chuffed (hey, I await the brief... or space booking). But am I going to hang a U-ee as we head for our weekly shop at the local supermarket and go to M&S because 'some' (the weasel of choice - as it's all down the same pipe, I can't also quite figure why it all can't be. You just switch tariff surely? Or is this another turbine on the roof job, as already advertised by a competitor?) of their expenditure on energy doesn't go to to npower any more?

I guess we'll be subjected to several months of these from competing sources - 'Buy your airflown spring water from ASDA because our loos are flushed with the grey variety!' - until they run out of ways to spout green, and /or all have parity with each other.

This is not just pointless advertising, it's... pretty... wasteful advertising.

So, speaking as a consumer, I'd be much more interested in ads like the one I mocked up a loooong while to show Tesco a potentially more valuable green communications route, and repeat the original and adapt here.