THE National Trust is a rather impressive outfit, and more so now that it has decided to embrace a number of important environmental policies.

I’ve only just realised it’s the largest charity in the country and is far more than just some old houses and the land around them.

How about the ownership of 1,000 square miles of the UK, larger than Luxembourg, and 750 miles of coast for a start. Then 2,000 tenant farmers, 61 pubs, 59 villages, 49 churches and nine monasteries.

Impressively they have now decided to encourage the development and use of renewable, CO2 free energy, partly because it’s the right course of action, but particularly so they can reduce their substantial electricity bill.

They will develop 44 renewable energy schemes by 2020, investing £35 million to cut the use of electricity, so saving £4 million each year, by halving the current fossil fuel use and leading to less CO2 by almost a quarter initially.

A new separate National Trust trading company can sell surplus power into the Grid, and if we get our electricity from renewable suppliers, such as Good Energy, some might be from the National Trust.

The techniques will suit the local area, with hydro-electric schemes in North Wales and the Lake District, marine source heat pumps on the coast, and solar and biomass elsewhere. Already five pilot projects are up and running. Nunnington Hall in Ryedale in North Yorkshire uses solar panels, and Gibson Mill at Hardcastle Crags, near Hebden Bridge, has biomass boilers.

Other sustainable approaches taken by the National Trust, include the recent one of ensuring that all the take away cups sold at their centres are completely compostable – a policy that the coffee shop chains would do well to follow.

Elsewhere they are replanting woodlands that were cut down during the second World War, stabilizing the peat on some of their upland estates, and extending cycle routes where possible.

On the downside they support fracking, and oppose wind turbines, as it's all about the visible landscape.

It’s just a pity that CO2 isn't a vivid, glowing orange !