.Contact us.
.We're friendly: ...... ....... ..
.t: 020 7274 8725
.info[at]green-oil.net.

Here is our basic contact info.
Green Oil UK Limited
Unit S7
Shakespeare Business Centre
245 Coldharbour Lane
London
SW9 8RR
United Kingdom .
020 7274 8725
VAT number: 980 6213 19
Company number: 6470586
If calling from outside the UK dial +44 (0)20 7274 8725. We're happy to hear from overseas distributors

Email info@ Green-Oil.net

Green Oil UK is rider owned and run. It's a young upstart company that started in Kent, which now has an office near Clapham, London and a factory in Wales where most of the Green Oil range is produced.

Green Oil was created, because nothing similar was available. Simon Nash, the company founder was riding his bike through the river Quaggy, near Elmstead Woods in Bromley. He realized his chain was in the water, and lots of rides involve a river crossing at some point. Looking for an alternative to a petrochemical polluting lube, nothing was available.

Most brands available at the time were imported, and didn't even bother to have recycling information on. Many had the 'Dangerous for the Environment' dead fish and tree logo on. 'No one should make lube like this' he thought. Of course, every fluid used on your bike ends up in the environment. PTFE accumulates in the food chain, and petrochemicals pollute rivers and wildlife, so what's in your chain lube is important.

In his last year at University, Green Oil was developed. It utilized only plant based, and sustainably sourced ingredients rather than petrochemicals. Recycling information was clear, and sustainability incorporated from the beginning. The first bottle sold to the public was to a man in Trafalgar Square, London as cyclists gathered to watch the Tour de France, which that year started in London.

Green Oil chain lube was then recommended by the Ecologist Magazine. This publication, owned by the famous Right Honerable Zac Goldsmith gave Green Oil its first boost, and sales, plus credibility. Important for a small company run from a shed! Around the same time, a big advert was placed in MBUK and the first stockist came on board, the famous Hayle Cycles in Cornwall.

Soon after, What Mountain Bike gave Green Oil chain lube their Gold Award. This helped a lot with getting the product into bike shops. The same month 'Green Oil UK Limited' was incorporated on the kitchen table of a family friend, and the business started to grow.

Bottles were still hand filled and capped by the now 'company director', Simon Nash. They say when a company starts, everyone is 'chief cook and bottle washer'. Well at Green Oil, it was a case of 'chief executive, bottle filler, packer, bottle labeler and marketing guy'! The company grew, as did its ambitions...

Green Oil was made with second hand processing equipment, and filled through an adapted beer tap. Labels were originally made of recycled 'gum' paper. They were printed on an old Epsom printer (later upgraded to a Brother as the cartridges are easier to refill!), cut with a guillotine and hand applied. Simon Nash claims to have hand labeled more than 20,000 bottles.

Numerous bike shops took on the lube. Awards for product performance continued to come, and the first scale up came about. A small bottling machine which filled the bottles to the right level consistently was purchased. Before this, it had to be judged by eye with the beer tap!

The range then grew, with Green Clean, Clean Chain degreaser and Ecogrease. With distributors taking an interest in lifing Green Oil to the next level, Simon decided to scale the company up - in order to actually get some sleep rather than hand labelling bottles until the early hours. A bank loan from the London Rebuilding Society was granted, and manufacturing started in Wales.

'Closing the loop' . The film 'The Corporation' mentions this. So for packaging, you use a bottle, it gets recycled into a new bottle, filled, used, then recycled again. This can be a closed loop, independent of nature - so with no oil drilling necessary for new virgin plastic. This principle is built into Green Oil's ethos.

Upgrade Bikes loved the Green Oil products, and went ahead to distribute the range. Upgrade was started by the founders of DMR, a brand loved world wide. DMR was one of the very first off-road bike brands, starting back in 1995 by Damian Mason and Matt Ryley. With similar entrepreneurial ambitions as Simon, Matt and Damian gave great advice on how the Green Oil products should look and other business aspects, and have helped the company grow ever since. Since then, distributors have been appointed over seas, as far as Hong Kong.

The Green Oil range has continued to grow . Highlights include the launch of the EcoSponge - the world's first fair trade bike product, a sponge for frame cleaning. Another is the Bicycle Brush 'The Finest Brush in the Industry' according to one critic. Importantly, its made from FSC certified wood, rather than deforestation wood. Winning the 2010 Bike Biz Rising Star Award was a great achievement, and sign of acceptance into the industry.

Green Oil UK Limited won Bromley Best Business for Sustainability in 2011. This South London Business Award was a great achievement, and nicely complemented the Bromley Environment Award won in 2008. However, the business award ceremony then went on, and Green Oil UK won the prestigious Bromley Business of the Year Award! They liked the fact we are green, we actually make stuff, and the fact we sell to China!

For 2012, the range has been rebranded to reflect our values. UK manufactured, environmentally friendly, performance driven and fun.

Many of the images used are from World War Two. The war itself was of course a bad thing, but some of the things that came about were good. People coming together, growing your own food, fixing things and community spirit. This reflects the green revolution we all need to be a part of today. That why our slogan is 'join the revolution'.

The green revolution isn't about overthrowing the government, its about changing the way we live and purchase. Choose green products, use public transport and bikes rather than cars. Playing our part, we put green living tips on every bottle.

'Join the revolution' also refers to the the revolution of cogs- we need more bikes to make the world greener, and riding is fun, the best way to relax and refresh your mind!

"I started Green Oil, and thought I'd write this as 'the man behind the brand'. So I really did think of the Green Oil concept after riding through a river. It was the concrete part of the river Quaggy, which has half natural, half just a flood overflow for the local buildings - so no fish were destroyed during this ride.

Anyway, I've always liked bikes from a young age. At school, my GCSE DT project was for a bike trailer for off-road use - as shown below. Family bike rides were fun, and apparently my great grandfather owned a bike hire shop in London 'back in the day'. This was long before the Blue Bike cycle hire scheme (aka Boris/Ken Bikes). My great grandfather on the other side of the family is in the picture at the top of this page, having won a cup, in some kind of bike race. I don't know if the two met, but perhaps the cycling theme is genetic, and here I am as CEO of Green Oil, hopefully making them proud.

I was entrepreneurial from a young age. Perhaps the first business was at the age of 12. Most of the lockers at school didn't have shelves in. So, I made my own from wood in the CDT workshop. I then sold them to class mates at £1 each. However, when Mr. Smith realized what was going on, and that the school was of course paying for the wood, - well that put an end to that! A later venture at university involved taking bikes from the huge skips they used to use, renovating and selling them. Very time consuming and short lived, but a little money made. (Southampton University following complaints by me, and since employing an environment manager has stopped putting bikes in skips - they now get sent to Africa or recycled thankfully).

I've always cared about the environment. A combination of studying some of the issues at University, a Christian upbringing, and seeing the problems in the news made me ambitious to solve them. Captain Planet on Saturday morning TV as a child also perhaps played a part. I personally beleive that if you understand environmental issues and political problems of today, you have an obligation to go into business or politics if you can. I've therefore always had ambitiouns to do this. If nothing else to make up for the bunsiness people keeping us dependent on fossil fuels, landfill sites the consequences of climate change and environmental damage.

If the millionaires of the world spent their wealth on contraception in Africa, buying up rainforest to protect it, sanitation and renewable energy - well the world would be a lot better. If good people become those millionaires and politicians of the future, things will be good. Solar power, electric cars, rather than 1st class flights and 4x4s.

Its great running Green Oil UK. For example, using reclaimed fizzy drinks caps for Green Clean. Old fashioned company directors would never do that - 'well every bottle will look different, we need consistency!' you could imagine them saying. Similarly, our new recycled bottles - we're using white recycled HDPE less, and more multi coloured plastic that other people don't want - so our 100ml bottles literally come out in random colours. Being a company executive, you can make these things happen. Green Oil UK has diverted more than 90,000 bottles worth of plastic from landfill in affect. That's a big difference, especially when some companies still don't even bother to turn their lights off at night time.

Other interesting stuff; Friends of the Earth was founded following a drinks company ending its use of deposit bottles in the UK (we are now one of their commercial partners I'm proud to say!). A simliar thing happened with me in Southampton. When I was at University, a man who somehow worked his way into facilities management, decided recycling bins 'didn't fit in with the new decor' in the library - so got rid of them, with no where left to recycle paper. As a result of this, and getting them put back after campaigning, I set up Green Action society, to make sure this kind of thing wouldn't happen again. The society is still going today at Southampton University.

I posed in a bath tub full of fizzy drinks caps for the launch of the rebranded Green Clean - which uses reclaimed or rather 'cross cycled' bottle caps. Some were wet at the time, it was worth it for the picture though!

My name is on the deeds of land near Heathrow Airport. Airport expansion damages the economy by damaging British tourism. Heathrow's expansion would make air quality in London even worse - harming children and those with breathing problems, and making air quality illegally bad. Climate change kills already, and further climate change could harm our way of life. So, I went to Climate Camp to protect our future, and along with many celebrities, supported Greenpeace's campaign to buy land near Heathrow, to stop its mindless expansion. (Heathrow's third most popular destination is Manchester - crazy!). I also took a 'no flight pledge' and didn't fly in a plane for 3 years. I still avoid flying where possible. If you'd like to do the same check out Seat61.com

Here I am in a Japanese magazine called Bicycle Navi! It shows the second generation packaging with paper labels. Its actually photographed in London. Apparently I'm saying something in Japanese!

I was an associate member of the Institute of Directors (a well posh business society thing). However, they are currently lobbying the government to build more airports (against our economic, and environmental interests) so I resigned this year. In 2011, I was short listed for their South East Region's New Business Director of the Year Award, down to the final 30 from more than 300 entries. Its a great organization, but misguided on its aviation policy so I felt had to leave. Reasons why airport expansion is bad for the economy are here.

I nearly burned down the Ecocabin doing an experiment. As a chemist, a lot of work is still hands on. All our products so far were developed in house - we don't just buy in wholesale chemicals and re bottle them like some other brands. Anyway, whilst developing a new product, the Pyrex beaker smashed randomly, everything fell from the tripod and caught fire via the Bunsen burner. The burning liquid went on the table, and the floor of the cabin, it was pretty scary. Fortunately, the Ecocabin has a water butt on the side for collecting rain water, and a large rag was to hand with a bucket. The fire was put out real quick, with just a couple of burnt cables and light damage. The Ecocabin lives on today. The solar panel which powered the bottling machine on sunny days is still there and powers a 12 volt car radio. Free green electricity for around £50!

I'm Dyslexic. Apparently dyslexic people are more likely to be entrepreneurs. Richard Branson is also dyslexic. Apologies therefore for past spelling mistakes on Green Oil packaging!

I enjoy wild swimming - swimming in lakes and rivers, including the one at the Big Bike Bash in the New Forest. (All the more reason to stop people using PTFE, petrochemical packed bike products which end up in rivers and the sea!) I hand built the ramp for the Big Big Bash Lake Jump from reclaimed wood with my friend Kev in Southampton. Now its part of an annual event, where you can ride your bike into a lake, and attempt stupid things like back flips!

I was featured on the BBC Breakfast News last year. Did you see it? The famous presenter Tim Muffet came to our office, and in a previous feature they filmed at the Ecocabin. It was a fun day, and great publicity.
Four hours filming leads to a two minute clip curiously...

I secretly like Micro Scooters, and ride a similar thing called a Kickboard (half scooter, half skateboard) at trade shows.

I enjoy riding. I commute to the station by bike most days, and get out on the mountain bike when I can. At University I was in the mountain bike club (SUMBC), nick named 'Crazy Si' for once riding and crashing off a bottle bank, and had a great time in Lords Wood and other riding venues. I do a bit of dirt jump, non-competitive down hill, and cross country riding. I get to PORC in Sevenoaks when I can, a great trail centre.

Basically, for every bottle my company sells, thats 100ml less petrochemical rubbish going into the environment, even more plastic diverted from land fill, and less money going to those running companies without a conscience. Thanks for joining me, and using our products.

- Simon Nash, Founder and Director of Green Oil UK
Twitter.com/SimonFMNash

Green Oil UK Ltd is proud to have won a number of awards. The company is still growing and hard work continues. Here are some of the awards won. Recently Green Oil UK was a semi finalist in the PEA Awards, but here are some of our triumphs:

Bromley Environment Award. A proud achievement back in 2008, the Award was presented by Sian Lloyd, the TV weather presenter on ITV.

Curiously, a co-winner was a teacher from Simon's school, who helped turn some derelict land from a car park into a nice garden in Widmore Green, Bromley.

The trophy is made from recycled glass. It was presented by Bromley Council. The council must be also thanked for Bromley's excellent recycling scheme.

Future 100 Award. This award recognizes companies that could be the future FTSE 100. Whilst we don't plan on going public to risk being bought out like Ben&Jerry's, or the Body Shop, the award was most appreciated.

Picture shows Simon Nash and Sian Lloyd at the Bromley Environment Awards.

Green Halo Award This award was given at the UK Aware show becuase we had the greenest stand.
UK Aware is an environment show, so this was really great to get.

We use recycled wood for our display racks, our table, and also only use banners now from Greenhouse Graphics - they use natural fibres and ink, rather than kinky let polluting PVC! Our genuine passion came through with this award..

Bromley Best Business for Sustainability 2011 These awards were organized by South London Business. Green Oil UK was praised for its approach to sustainability. 'Sustainability' refers to the UN's definition of sustainable development - 'Meeting the needs of current generations, without inhibiting the ability of future generations to meet their needs'.
Since this time, the word 'sustainable' has been hijacked in the media as a phrase for short term economic growth for the next 5 years - like hardwood furniture companies and road expansion, which only really serve the current generation if that, relying on fossil fuels, destruction of forests.
We were really pleased and honored to win this award for genuine sustainability..

Bromley Business of the Year 2011 It was a great honor to win Best Business for Sustainability, but then at the end of the evening, a special award was announced, and Green Oil UK Ltd was crowned 'Bromley Business of the Year 2011'. We were chuffed, and thanks to everyone at South London Business for running the awards.

This Award is on the right behind the Sustainability Award.