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Community Groups in Northern Ireland have the chance to join the celebrity ranks of Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz by signing up to measure and reduce their ecological footprint. Community Eco Challenge is looking for five enthusiastic community groups to sign up for ‘footprint reduction’ sessions.
Anne Greene and Lynn Morrow from Community Eco-Challenge and Sara McClintock (WWF NI) encourage community groups to move from a three planet lifestyle to a one planet lifestyle.
At present people in Northern Ireland would need three earths to support their lifestyle so we need to reduce our impact on the planet.
Community Eco Challenge, a new project in Armagh, is looking for five enthusiastic community groups to sign up for ‘footprint reduction’ sessions.
The project is looking for community groups in the following council areas:
The project aims to work with around 100 households over the next year, encouraging them to make simple lifestyle changes in order to move towards a way of life which reduces their impact on the natural world.
Community Eco Challenge is being delivered by Southern Group Environmental Health Committee, in partnership with WWF Northern Ireland and the Department of the Environment.
It is supported under the Secretary of State’s Environment and Renewable Energy Fund.
Anne Greene, senior project officer with Community Eco Challenge said:
"One of the big parts of this project is to show people that being more environmentally-friendly is easy, can be good for your health and good for your bank balance.
"We are going to be working closely with community groups to identify what local schemes will produce the best outcome for them.
"It might be about reducing waste, improving energy efficiency or something as simple as exchanging books or toys rather than buying new ones."
You can measure your ecological footprint on the WWF site.
Decisions we take every day on how warm we keep our houses, the type of food we buy, how we travel to work and whether we recycle our waste have an impact on the environment.
Each person’s footprint draws together data on land availability and use, waste, food, energy, water use and transport and combines it to produce a single indicator to demonstrate how sustainable (or not) our lives are.
Sara McClintock from WWF Northern Ireland added:
"If everyone lived like we do in Northern Ireland, we would need three planets worth of resources to survive and it’s leaving our planet in a sorry state, depleting our natural resources, contributing to climate change and threatening species like the orang-utan and the polar bear with extinction.
"Locally, the recent floods are a timely reminder that the risk of extreme weather caused by climate change affects us all and we all need to take action to prevent it. Small steps can make a big difference."
Any community groups interested in participating should register their interest with Southern Group Environmental Health Committee; contact:
Anne Greene or Lynn Morrow
t: 028 3751 5800
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