Update on Co-operation Green Project
The project that is funded from the Climate Challenge Fund has been hard at work for the last five months trying to reduce the carbon footprint of Tenants First by the 77 tonnes it has set as a target.
The project along with SCARF attended sessions at all our sheltered housing complexes, to offer advice on saving energy. Energy saving light bulbs was handed out, as well as TV power down plugs, both make a big difference to the energy you use. Chris, the project officer has met lots of people and offered advice on how to save energy and money. One of the latest was a member who had most things switched off at the plug, and seemed to be very energy aware. The energy monitor was switched on, and it registered 3p an hour, not much, but enough to make us wonder what was on. It turned out that the several light bulbs that were on were conventional bulbs, instead of energy saving ones. Chris replaced 4 light bulbs with energy saving ones that we had to give away, and the energy monitor went down to 0 pence an hour!
The project which has energy monitors has been loaning these out on a regular basis. Monitors were available to borrow for two weeks at a time. 42 households have borrowed them so far. People who have had them have found them really useful and wished they could keep them. There is a way of getting a FREE energy monitor, for more information go to our web site and register https://tenantsfirstco2pledge.cred2.co.uk/CRed/
Staff at Tenants First has had 4 talks on various topics – Sustainable transport, recycling, home energy saving and buying local and growing seasonal food. They have also been able to benefit from eco-driving sessions. An instructor takes you out in a car and offers advice on how you might increase your “miles per gallon” and save money.
The website for the project was launched in August and now has 52 people registered on it. The site encourages people to “pledge” to an action that will save carbon, which usually means it will save you some money as well. So far the people signed up to the site have made 330 pledges, and pledged to save 35.5 tonnes of carbon.
Staff have also been telling the project when they car share, or take the bus, or even perhaps work from home, and the project has calculated how much carbon has been saved; this is running at around 11.5 tonnes of carbon saved. So we are well on our way to hitting the 77 tonnes of carbon saved by the end of the project in March 2012.
The most recent addition to the project has been a Face Book Page, TenantsFirstEnergySavingTogether. The page is being maintained by Chris and Steven Black, our vice-chair, who has offered some of his time to help the project.
The project has also recruited the help of several other members who have shown an interest in volunteering for the project. One of the tasks they are looking at helping with is the calculations of the carbon foot prints of all the people who get involved with the project. It is hoped that in the New Year we will conduct a telephone survey to gather as many carbon foot prints of members as possible.
Hot of the Press: Prizes announced for those people signing up to our website and making a pledge – everyone signing up and pledging will be placed in a prize draw, to be drawn on the 19th December. The top prize is a Breville One Cup, which gives you boiling water for one cup, in 7 seconds – a great gadget, usually retailing at £40 a great prize to win for Christmas. There are various prizes alongside these – weekly bus passes from both First Bus and Stagecoach which will start when you want them to, as well as other environmental gadgets to help save you money.
Any help or comments contact chris.hunt@tenantsfirst.com.
