Here at giffgaff we're we're passionate about many things - one, which we don't shout about much, is our impact on the environment.

Since moving into our new (actually a very old and second hand) office we've been busying ourselves putting in recycling bins, installing smart electricity meters - we're even going to be installing smart heating so that office space that isn't being used won't be heated.

So it was indeed challenging to read the second to last chapter in Levitt and Dubner's sequal to their fantastically popular book on the freakier side of economics called Superfreakonomics.

Hear are some interesting (and very well researched) facts from the chapter on climate change....

• Human activity accounts for just 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions - the remainder is generated by natural processes like plant decay.

• The worlds ruminants are responsible for 50% more greenhouse gas than the entire global transportation sector.

• CO2 is not the major greenhouse gas - its water vapour instead. Current climate models don't know how to model this and various types of cloud.

• A doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere (of which remember humans only account for 2% of) traps less than 2% of outgoing heat from the planet.

• Atmospheric CO2's half life is roughly 100 years - so even if the world stopped producing CO2 it would be many hundreds of years before it returned to lower levels.

Although they don't deny that warming is actually happening or that it is likely that somehow humans are influencing what's going on the general thrust of the argument is that we really don't know much about why warming is happening and there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest CO2 may not be the main driver.

Indeed, it seems that the recent suggestion from one UK government dept that we could all do the climate a favour by stopping eating red meat and diary products could have hit the nail on the head. 

So where does that leave giffgaff and other companies that want to be good global citizens? Should we aim to reduce our CO2 footprint or not? I think the good news we can hedge our bets - if humans are generally thought to be negatively impacting the climate then minimising the impact of humans has to be a good thing - and aiming for a low CO2 footprint goes a long way in doing just that.

Fortunately, the mobile industry is a relatively benign one from a CO2 point of view - especially if you factor in the benefit of journeys replaced by calls. On top of that giffgaff has always tried to take a minimalist approach to how we operate our business - so we don't have shops, sell handsets, run huge data or call centres or have a large management team - and of course we piggy back on the back of O2's existing mobile network. 

So we'll continue to be frugal even if CO2 turns out not to be as evil as many people think - now,  where's my chicken dinner and soya milkshake gotten to......?

We have been listening to our members and received some feedback on the forum, through Twitter and e-mails.

giffgaff SIM cards have always been free but previously you had to top up when you ordered the SIM.  Through feedback it seems this didn’t suit everyone, so instead you can now order a SIM without having to top up first.

So from today you can order a SIM, here and you don’t have to part with any cash, till you have the SIM card and are ready to get started.  Sometimes little changes go a long way so if you have a friend who’s thinking about joining giffgaff, feel free to give them a nudge and get a free SIM.

Thanks

So, we're happily gaffing around in our new Beaconsfield offices for a couple of weeks now. And while we are as happy as little puppies with a new squeaky toy, it seems we've already managed to upset our neighbours a bit...

Whoops, I guess creating the hallway slip 'n slide was taking it one step too far (cardboard boxes from the move come in handy after all... great fun though!)

And so we've had a complaint come in that we make a lot of noise stomping around in our office and the downstairs neighbour would really like it if we could... well... not make so much noise while walking around!

Well, the person in question might just have a small point and here's why:

Aside from our fantastic slip ‘n slide, we had a coat rack assembling competition, after five flat pack assembly coat racks came in and ‘the men’ of the office had to pretend to actually understand the instructions. Seeing as they were made of metal, they made a satisfying clanging noise each time we dropped a piece on the ground… which was a lot.

Us stomping along with 'We will rock you' by Queen, while singing at the top of our voices probably didn't go down too well either. We just might have to adjust our fancy footwork with that one.

Talking about fancy footwork... you just have to see Robbie's impression of Beyonce! Man, he is gooood (perhaps aggravating the situation because he had tap-dancing shoes on...)

Hmmm, just writing this short list, and I haven't even gotten to the end of it by far, does give me an inkling of why we got the complaint in the first place.

Ah well…

As we’re incredibly compassionate, something obviously had to be done about this, as we’d hate to upset anyone! Oh yes, very unlike us, upsetting people ^^

So we came up with the idea of wearing slippers in the office. Sure why not, slippers will help when we finish setting up our American Wrestling ring for daily lunch break bouts! Okay, that last one might not be strictly true, but it would be great fun though Ewww, I just had a flash of my co-workers in those spandex wrestling outfits… maybe not such great fun after all…

Quick, back to slippers!

So, yes, slippers. Great idea, why not get some original slippers? Better yet, maybe the giffgaff community fancies designing some cool or silly footwear for us to wear while we’re in the office! So that’s what we decided to do. You lovely giffgaffers can decide what we wear around the office. Well, not completely, just our slippers, but that should be enough for now. You can decide how crazy, wacky or designer-ish our slippers will be. You design them and we will get them made and wear them here. Of course the winning designer will also get a pair of slippers made for them. So be aware of that when you design them. You have to walk around in them too!

I posted the competition up at the end of last week and already we’ve got the first designs in! So a big thank you to stephicino87, ukrides and ethani99! If you also want to get stuck in, please post your artwork here.

We can’t wait to see the results

Cheers,

Vincent

Some good news, from today you can spread the word about giffgaff by ordering multiple SIM’s to give to your friends.

Once logged in, just click on Spread the word and Order more SIM’s, here you can get up to three lovely SIM’s to be sent to you, so you can pass them onto mates.

What’s in it for you?  You'll earn 500 payback points when your friend activates and they will get £5 free credit to spend on UK calls and texts.  And of course you can call and text all your friends on giffgaff for free, when you top up every three months.

Don’t forget you can also send friends a single SIM in the post or send an e-mail to let them know about giffgaff.  Both will earn you payback points as a thank you for spreading the word about giffgaff.

Tom

We've had hundreds of films from giffgaffers wanting to get involved in our marketing thanks to our  Tool Hire promotion. Bearing mind that everyone who meets the criteria and successfully uploads a video will get free calls and texts to UK mobiles for a year, its not surprising really.

In case you haven't seen any of the tool hire films lately, here's just a flavour of the many great films to have been added recently.

For those LadyGaGa fans out there, the Film Noir outfit appears on a dimly lit and atmospheric street. What starts off as a moody-classic soon evolves into a dance-off and a little argument with an angry security guard! See it here

'Les the Pigeon' features a student from the Saint Martins School who took the initiative to produce their own outfit and add a character, who now even has his own Twitter page. We love it and it has given us a new-found respect for the winged-wonders.  See it here

Or are you out shopping and want a cuddle from these lot!?  See it here

Watch more of these great videos here...enjoy.