Help for communities to fight climate crisis

The Muir family – mum Fran, dad Alistair and daughters Amelie and Olivia, and Wilbur the dog – took part in The Greening Campaign in Staveley

Subsidised help is at hand for communities looking to take the first steps to contributing towards the fight against the climate crisis.

The Greening Campaign is a specially-designed toolkit designed to take parish or town councils through structured steps to help households reduce their carbon footprint.

Ten parish and town councils are already involved: Ulverston; Staveley and Ings; Duddon; and Coniston; and six councils (Grange; Cartmel and Allithwaite; Cartmel Fell; Lower Holker; Lindale and Newton; Witherslack, and Meathop and Ulpha) banding together as Peninsula Environmental Action Together (PEAT).

They have taken advantage of an offer subsidised by South Lakeland District Council for the first phase to cost £25. Further phases will cost £150.

Staveley and Ings have recently completed phase 1, with schoolchildren and the wider community choosing and completing the challenges, which can be as simple as halving food waste by making a meal plan and using up leftovers, only boiling the water you need and turning the thermostat down by one degree.

Sixty-four households took part and their actions were calculated to save 39.76 tonnes of CO2, which can be equated to the volume of 39 hot air balloons. Scarecrows were placed around the village with painted signs alongside during the challenge, and are now displaying the results.

On the Cartmel Peninsula, residents are being invited to take the Greening Challenge this month, with everyone set to receive their Greening Campaign card in their copy of July’s edition of Grange Now.

To highlight the challenges and remind people to look out or their Greening card, there have been scarecrows popping up everywhere, from Bill and Ben and Beatrix Potter characters to Prue Leith and “Graham Greening”.

Community event planned

An outdoor community event is planned for September to celebrate the amount of energy saved.

Councillor Dyan Jones, SLDC portfolio holder for climate emergency and localism, said: “It is inspiring to see some of the local projects and work already happening in your areas around climate change and biodiversity, it’s clearly something many of us care about deeply.

“We are keen to work with as many communities as possible and support them to help reduce the districts carbon footprint and enhance health and wellbeing. The Greening Campaign is a great way to do this and we are delighted to be able to subsidise a reduced rate for phase 1.

“Anybody who thinks there might be scope to take part in their community should get in touch.”

The Greening Campaign makes actions by each household visible so everyone can have a shared experience, it involves all ages, all sectors of the community, and all the different community groups.

Phase 1 starts with small easy to achieve actions showing how much CO2 the community has saved, using cards with a list of practical challenges or actions each household can take to reduce, reuse and make a difference.

Households committing to take on at least five of these challenges can proudly display this card in their windows – and the collective difference measured.

It is then up to the individual communities whether they continue to move to the next phase. The phases move through a series of packs and options to develop the community response to climate change, before looking at changes in the home, a vision for a low carbon economy, how climate change will impact the community, what is needed to protect that community – and finally developing a plan that slots within with the communities town or village plan.

In phase 1, the Greening Campaign provides: