Communities

2 phone calls and one email today from other communities wanting to reduce their carbon footprint.  There are plenty of inspirational community projects out there. next month I’m organizing a regional event for towns and villages  in Cheshire that want to know more about lower carbon living. if you live in Cheshire and would like to be involved please get in touch – we are looking for inspiring stories to share and communities to support. Here’s what’s happening in Staffordshire: Click on the link to Whittington and Fisherwick Environment Group to read about their visit from Penney Poyzer and Mark Lynas.

LAUNCH EVENTS

Our launch events were a huge success! Our speaker evening had something for everyone, and at our Big Green Fair we signed up over 125 new WFEG members. Plus, nearly 60 more villagers will benefit from our free energy health check in the next few weeks…

Moseley Forum

SusMo was set up as a sub-group of Moseley Forum in June 2007. The group aims to make Moseley a more sustainable community both by personal action to cut household CO2 emissions and through community initiatives. It is part of the Birmingham Cutting CO2 campaign by Be Birmingham and has cross-party support.

SusMo is working with other Moseley groups, local businesses, schools, public sector and third sector organisations to reduce carbon emissions. With the help of local MP, Lynne Jones, the group created and distributed a calendar to local households featuring information and tips for a sustainable lifestyle, and contact details for organisations and initiatives.

A popular Farmers’ Market gives residents the opportunity to buy locally sourced products and the community stall is a base for local campaigns. It also plays a significant part in plans to reduce the amount of plastic bags & packaging used in Moseley, with the aim of eliminating their use in the town as far as possible over the next few years.

The group will also be lobbying Birmingham City Council to call for more stringent requirements on CO2 emissions for new developments in Moseley and across the City of Birmingham.

“Through the Big Green Challenge we hope to come across many such examples of groups of people working together to reduce their carbon footprint and create positive change in their communities”, says NESTA’s Vicki Costello.

“The residents of Moseley and its surrounding areas already have a keen sense of community and this made setting up a ‘greening’ project seem like a natural step. Individually we’ve been making progress but now, as a group of active residents, we have a chance to make a real impact on our local environment.”

- Esther Boyd, SusMo

 

 

Moseley Farmers’ Market

Stretton Climate Care

Hi Tracy,

You and Mark Lynas must share the credit for encouraging the setting up of Stretton Climate Care! It was the Carbon Netural Conference at Chester in 2007 which helped firm up ideas.

We’re now running our unique Carbon Footprinting Classes each week at the local Library, fully booked each session, about to start home visits to give energy saving advice and help folk calculate their carbon footprints. Next on the list will be an “advice drop in service” at the local community centre and the local farmers market.

We’ve started giving talks to community groups and are happy to share our experiences (and frustrations) with other groups. Logging on to our website will give folk an idea of what we’re about.

Jon

Good news for comunity renewables

Latest news from Rural Community CarbonNewtwork:

CoRE on its way to biggest project yet…

CoRE (Community Renewable Energy),  the national pilot project based in Berwick-upon-Tweed,  has embarked on what will be its biggest project so far; aiming to generate a whopping £4m for the town of Berwick.  CoRE is funded and supported by the regional Regional Development Agency One North East and this latest venture involves Berwick Community Development Trust; Berwick CoRE has submitted a proposal to put a community owned turbine on a site just north of The Ramparts Business Park, Berwick.

This renewable energy development is a really great example of a what progress can be made by new organisation (CoRE is only a year old!), when the motivation, commitment and co-operation exists amongst key stakeholders.

Berwick CoRE will be holding public meetings to discuss the proposal. They are keen to hear from anyone about the idea, or from those interested in getting involved in this project, or who have ideas for other projects anywhere in the North East. For more information contact ross@core.coop or go to www.core.coop

Hello

This blog will chart my days of living low carbon. On here you’ll find out where I am and who I’m meeting.  Yesterday I had some very interesting conversations about social networking and the opportunities this presents for rural communities. They day was hosted by Ruralnet. To prove that anyone, no matter how technophobic can learn to use these tools, here’s the result of half an hour playing about on the internet – my first blog post!