Big Green Challenge events update
We held our first Big Green Challenge event in Birmingham on Friday. It was brilliant to see people there from a range of different groups and organisations. People who attended said they found it useful to find out more about the Big Green Challenge, and enjoyed meeting other people working on ideas to reduce C02 emissions in their area. Some people starting talking about the potential for collaborating on ideas, and one attendee laid down the gauntlet to the rest of the UK by saying that he felt positive a group from the Midlands would win…
The next event is in Bristol this Friday (9th November). I included links to sign up to most of the events in my blog post of 24th October. To register for the events you can either follow those links or sign up to receive an invite for your nearest event and get future updates on the Big Green Challenge.
We’ve now added three more event dates to our schedule:
London - 28 November
Scotland - 4 December
Sheffield - 6 December
Spaces at each event are limited so make sure you register.
I’ve been keeping track of coverage on climate change in the UK press and hope to capture some of my thoughts on news that resonates with the Big Green Challenge here.
Good to see the clear message coming through in today’s Guardian that the UK public needs to be given incentives if it is to really begin to take action on climate change. The Guardian has today launched The Green Living Awards with UnLtd – the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs (and incidentally our delivery partner for the Big Green Challenge). They are offering people taking action against climate changes small grants from a £100,000 pot. They’ve got two excellent case studies:
- Water Power Enterprises are going to use weirs that were built across British rivers in the 18th and 19th centuries to control water flow and drive wheels to generate hydroelectricity.
- Walkit.com provides customised maps and walking route instructions, as well as information on calories burned, carbon dioxide avoided and distance travelled – all in a bid to encourage people to walk rather than drive.
Elsewhere in the paper, Rosie Boycott refers to the fact that by 2015 all new housing in Britain is supposed to be carbon zero. Right now, only 2% of new builds reach this target. She suggests that homeowners who are trying to be green need to be given the same sort of tax-breaks as drivers of low-emission vehicles are given, if an appetite for green-living is to really take hold.
The Big Green Challenge is aiming to do all this on a much larger scale, incentivising whole communities rather than individuals to come up with the innovative solutions we’ll need to tackle climate change – the lion’s share of £1m being the carrot at the end of the stick. Together all these initiatives promises something quite powerful – to drive ordinary people to come up with the solutions that are evading government and scientists.
Why don’t you… ask your community?
We’ve targeted the Big Green Challenge at communities. Why? Well, there are plenty of schemes trying to get people to do good things such as getting homeowners to put in roof insulation or use low energy lightbulbs.
But one of the big things experts talk about but nobody knows how to make happen is to get people to change their behaviour. If more children walked to school, then there would be fewer car journeys so less road congestion and healthier children. And there are plenty of similar examples.
You can have “Walk to School weeks” and introduce parking restrictions or congestion charges. But are there more effective ways of discouraging people from driving their kids to school?
One way to find out is to ask communities for their ideas. Don’t tell them what to do but ask them to come up with good ideas and then test the best of these. They can be about anything – as long as it reduces the carbon dioxide emitted. That’s the thinking behind the Big Green Challenge.
