Trump bought the 1,400-acre stretch of land in 2005 and was given the go-ahead to build the £750m resort by the Scottish government in 2008.

In an amazing display of hypocrisy Trump’s gripe is that the wind farm would be “visually destructive” to the area, spoiling the viewing pleasure of his resort’s wealthy patrons.

The proposed wind farm has already been cut back from 33 turbines to just 11. However this is still too much for Donald who, describing himself as “an environmentalist” has decided to build his development on the 4000 year-old dunes which are home to a variety of wildlife including, skylarks, kittiwakes, badgers and otters and have been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

In MB’s opinion it would seem that an eight story tall hotel rising above the ancient dunes and noticeable from over 10 miles away is far more visually destructive than a few gently rotating wind turbines out at sea. In fact, if anything Donald could possibly turn the turbines to his advantage as in Atlantic City where the Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm has become a tourist attraction with hotel guests requesting rooms with a turbine view - You can have that one for free Donald.

Sadly it appears that Trump’s solution to the energy crisis is not to be found in low carbon alternatives but to steal oil from Iraq, or as he put it in a recent interview with Good Morning America’s anchorman George Stephanopoulos, to “reimburse” America for the $1.5 trillion it has spent on military actions in the Middle East.  Oh dear.

With a remarkable, but unsurprising, lack of modesty Trump appears to think that he can improve on Mother Nature and the splendor of this unique stretch of Scottish coastline. In an interview on the Letterman show he said, “It’s beautiful, but when I finish it’ll be far more beautiful.”

There’ll be no more roaming in the gloaming once Trump gets his way. Currently under Scottish law, anyone has the freedom to roam, provided they behave responsibly. The Scots have always exercised their right to the ancient tradition of universal access to the land and, until now, the local people of Balmedie have enjoyed the dunes and grasslands of the Sands of Forvie, which has the fifth largest sand dune system in Britain.

Golf courses, on the other hand, are treated differently - although people have a right of access they do not have the freedom to roam. Trump has made it clear that this will apply to the development and access will be restricted.

It is with a sense of shame that this blogger, as a Scot, has to share an ethnic connection with the Trump. His mother emigrated from Scotland at the age of 20, making him half Scottish and Donald has trumpeted (pun intended) his Scots heritage on the Trump International Golf Links website. Maybe someone should check his birth certificate just to make sure?

For a more in-depth look at the man and his plan you can check out Anthony Baxter’s documentary You’ve Been Trumped where the Aberdeenshire locals and Trump come face-to-face in a fascinating showdown between a rural community and big business.

It’s all go for cyclists in London at the moment, what with the first two cycle superhighways opened for business, and a total of 12 intended to be fully operational by the end of 2015 and the London Bike hire scheme due to open next week.

It seems that Boris Johnson is pulling out all the stops to make London a more cycle friendly place, hopeful that “London will acquire an ever greater reputation as the best big city on earth to live in.”

Both schemes have been funded by Barclays at a reported cost of £25m, and the idea with the superhighways is that it provides a designated cycle route that connects various boroughs in London, without battling for the road with cars, buses and lorries. However, not everyone sees it quite like that. Cyclist Rob Ainsley felt that nothing had particularly changed saying “It’s just blue paint on the road.”

It’ll be interesting to see how the cycle hire scheme will pan out. It’s been a ravenous success in Paris, which Parisians effectionately refer to as ‘Velib’, a catchy conglomeration of velo (bike) and liberte (freedom). With each of the 6,000 proposed bikes in London, plastered with the Barclays logo, it’s difficult to see that the slightly less snappy ’Barclays Cycle Hire scheme’ will be quite so taken to people’s hearts. Never-the-less, we feel quite confident, that before long some kind of snazzy moniker will be universally adopted.

The first month will see the bikes only available to pre-registered members, with every other Tom, Dick and Harry being able to get their hands on them at the end of August. It would seem that this drip feed introductory period is to allow the organisers of the scheme to spot and iron out any problems before getting in too deep. The pricing structure also encourages shorter journeys with the first half hour being free, £1 for an hour, £6 for two hours and £35 for 6 hours. It would seem that the idea is that the bikes are intended to replace shortish cab journeys and tube journeys of 2 or 3 stops, although, unlike the Velib scheme, the London bikes don’t come with either a basket or a lock. The basket isn’t quite so necessary, but the lack of lock (unless you get your own) will mean that you’re limited to cycling from one docking station to another. If you do however risk nipping into a shop and the bike disappears, then you’ll find that Boris will take £300 out of your bank account (bank details are provided as a deposit) by way of compensation.

Anyway, these are exciting cycling times and MB looks forward to seeing how integrated and accepted into daily London life both of these schemes become.

Guy Watson used to be a management consultant. Although his job took him all over the world, he never really felt like office life quite suited him, or the suit for that matter. Watson grew up on a farm in Devon and one Christmas returned home from his office based life in New York and never went back. He leased some land from his father and set about growing vegetables organically without using harmful pesticides, which had been the cause of a hospital visit for his brother. That was 1987 and Watson began delivering boxes of vegetables to about 30 friends. He’s still delivering them today, although only figuratively speaking, because what is now Riverford Organic delivers organically grown vegetables to about 47,000 people a week across the whole of the U.K.

It’s an impressive feat, and Watson has been able to achieve this by a lot of hard work, and forming alliances with a number of other farms dotted around the country that has allowed his empire to literally grow, organically. He’s had numerous set backs along the way with vegetables overcome by disease, pests or weeds, but he said of the experience “The more you understand the eco system of the soil and your crops and how they fit together the easier it becomes”.

Riverford Organic came to MB’s attention after a traveling field kitchen landed at a city farm not far from our HQ. It would seem that not content with employing close to 300 staff and having a business empire worth millions, Watson is taking the Riverford way of doing things on tour in a yurt made by hand in Devon and pedaling mouth watering recipes made from his organically grown veg.

Another impressive feature of Watson and Riverford Organic is his overwhelming desire to make every aspect of his business as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible. So much so, that a few years back the company entered in to a 2 year long collaborative project with the University of Exeter and the department of Trade and Industry to investigate Riverford’s environmental impact and how they could improve. They then set up a website to detail the findings, to let everyone know why the decisions they make regarding various issues have been made.

It’s pretty comprehensive and includes such things as trying to reduce landfill waste, the type of fuel their vans and lorries use, ingenious ways to keep the boxes of veg fresh while its waiting for the customer to return home from work, putting solar panels on their farm, improving insulation, changing the type of packaging they use, finding more efficient ways of using fridges and lots of other things. They’ve called it their ‘Sustainable Development Project’ and was largely started because they realized that sometimes good intentions aren’t always the best, and a bit of (or a great deal of in their case) research was needed to justify the decisions taken. One example of this was their decision to stop using degradable plastic bags, after research shoed that the best option in terms of energy, resource conservation and climate change is to recycle them into new bags. They also seem quite keen to instigate debate in the areas where their own practice goes against popular held views.

It’s all quite mind-blowing, the dedication Guy Watson and his team at Riverford have to not only providing a quality service and top notch produce, but doing it in a way that has the smallest amount of environmental impact as possible. The same can’t be said for many companies.

We recently discovered that a church just round the corner from MB HQ has kitted its roof out with solar panels.

St. Silas has been serving the community in the Pentonville area since 1863. In recent years the roof tiles made from Welsh slate began to show the strain of close to 150 years exposed to the elements. Several times a year the church would get flooded by heavy rain, and an almighty downpour in the summer of 2008 meant the church needed extensive repair.

Not only were the creaking, broken tiles letting the rain in, but letting heat out and adding to the already gigantic heating bills that are standard for a building of St. Silas’ size. At about the same time, church members and community hall users embarked on an educational project to try and reduce their carbon footprints, not just at home but in the church building itself.  Through this initiative, the church discovered that they could upgrade their heating and lighting requirements by incorporating solar-voltaic tiles within the roof structure, and therefore kill two birds with one stone … so to speak.

Through a large number of donations and loans, including a significant amount from Islington Council’s climate change fund the church officially began generating their own solar power last month. As well as being able to sell back energy to the National Grid, it is estimated that the church will generate 47% of their yearly energy needs, as well as making savings of 7,027kg of CO2 emissions per year.

The appearance of the roof has barely changed, as the pioneering project integrated solar panels that were designed to be a similar size and shape as the existing tiles.

Father Shaun Richards, who is Parish Priest and Vicar at St. Silas said “the church community and local people have pulled out  all  the  stops,  The  Big  Solar  Roof  project   would  have  been  a non starter without  their commitment  and  pioneering  spirit.”

So, St. Silas is the first church in London to see the light and go solar powered. Who’s next?

So, if you’re sitting languishing at home thinking there’s no way you can possibly help protect rainforests, cut CO2 emissions or support the WWF then you’re wrong … you’re only a click away, which incidentally could alone protect two square metres of rainforest.