Over her 70 years on the British throne, Queen Elizabeth also won the affection of the public through certain choices that showed a surprisingly environmentalist attitude.
It is October 2021, the Cop26 in Glasgow is drawing near and a certain tension is in the air. "I still don't know who will be coming. I have no idea. We only know who won't be there. It's really irritating when they talk, but don't do anything." The speaker could be Greta Thunberg or some other activist, but it is in fact Queen Elizabeth II of England, host of the event, whom she will address with a video message reiterating the same concept: "It's no longer the time for words, it's the time for action." As the United Kingdom is in the midst of the Platinum Jubilee, the great celebration of her seventy years on the throne, with the help of British newspaper The Independent we trace her relationship with the environmental cause. There are a few surprises along the way.
Every day thousands of tourists from around the world crowd in front of the gates of Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guard. Behind those gates lies a green oasis spread over 17 hectares, which once a year is opened to the public, by invitation, for the Queen's famous garden parties. It is the largest private garden in London, home to 325 species of wild plants, more than a thousand trees (including 98 plane trees and 85 different species of oak) and around thirty nesting bird species.
In the middle of the gardens there is a large lake, and it is on the island within it that four beehives are arranged. It is thanks to the bees' tireless work that Buckingham Palace's chefs always have a supply of zero-kilometre honey at their disposal with which to make desserts for the royal family and its guests; production amounts to around two hundred jars a year.
Looking at the splendour of Buckingham Palace you would not think so, but "the Queen has always appreciated a rather simple lifestyle." So says Ian Lloyd, a photographer and writer who spent two decades capturing various members of the British royal family, speaking to The Independent. It is an attitude that Queen Elizabeth is said to have carried with her since the years of the Second World War. It is impossible to know whether, as rumour has it, she really does go around Buckingham Palace every evening to switch off the lights in empty rooms. Her court biographers do attest, however, that at Christmas she has the wrapping paper collected so it can be reused.
Her residence draws 40 per cent of its electricity from two hydroelectric turbines on the Thames. In recent years, old incandescent light bulbs have been replaced with LEDs and consumption is monitored by smart meters. For travel, the royal family has a fleet of hybrid cars. There remains, of course, the elephant in the room: the 3,344 tonnes of CO2 that the royal family generates each year through its official trips, often aboard private jets (the estimates are from the BBC and date back to 2018). Queen Elizabeth has already publicly pledged to "change the way we do things".
Anecdotes aside, it goes without saying that these choices make a minuscule, indeed infinitesimal, contribution to the mitigation of climate change. Their value is purely symbolic. As is another choice by Queen Elizabeth that caused a great stir: the decision to give up fur. "If Her Majesty is attending an engagement in particularly cold weather, from 2019 onwards fake fur will be used to make sure she stays warm," wrote Angela Kelly, her friend and stylist for a quarter of a century.
The decision won the approval of animal rights organisations, which seized the opportunity to urge the British government to be more courageous on the matter. Having banned fur farming on ethical grounds as far back as 2000, the promoters of the Fur free Britain campaign argue, the time has come to ban, once and for all, the import and sale of fur.
