MEG (Moortown Environmental Group) was started by local residents, motivated by the predictions of climate scientists. With the overall aim of promoting local action on carbon reduction and the environment, they want to raise awareness and come up with real ways to change individual lifestyles, so that people do not need to feel disempowered in the face of the big problems we confront today.
MEG are concerned that the move forward with emergent green technologies that could make such a difference is slow, and inevitably local communities struggle to make change happen. As a community-led initiative MEG aims to help combat climate change by cutting community carbon dioxide emissions, encouraging local residents to live more sustainably, and contributing to a more cohesive and resilient community.
MEG does this through projects on energy, transport and gardening as well as running events and activities.
The main focus has been to assess individual carbon dioxide footprints with a view to using this information to reduce them to a minimum. Steps such as improving home insulation, lowering thermostat settings, reducing the hours and the days that central heating is used all help to reduce your carbon footprint at home.
A major initiative of MEG has been to encourage low carbon transport options. These are surprisingly simple – walking or using a bicycle rather than jumping into the car for a short trip. To this end MEG is encouraging its members to treat every day as an “Earth Day” and has launched a competition for the best ideas to reduce your carbon footprint. For the month of May 2015 MEG is offering a special prize for the family which reduces its carbon footprint by the greatest amount. A new web page was launched by MEG on the 30th April to provide a simple lifestyle calculator to enable you to calculate the impact simple changes could make.
However, to produce a Zero Carbon footprint requires some extra effort and MEG are pleased to announce that an anonymous local business has agreed to match the carbon savings made by the five families who make the biggest reductions in their carbon emissions by buying carbon offsets on their behalf for an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emissions.
The average Moortown family has a carbon (dioxide) footprint of about 5000kg per year. If a family can cut its carbon emissions by about 200kg in one month, then this would be a saving of about 12 x 200kg = 2400kg in a whole year. If you then add in the donated carbon offsets of 2400 kg that just about equates to a Zero Carbon Household (ZCH)!
The ultimate objective of MEG is to make whole streets and even Moortown itself Carbon Neutral.
Everybody living in Moortown can join MEG for free via the website. People living outside of the area are still to welcome to join for a small subscription of £5 per family per year.
To join the group or for more information please visit
www.imslconsulting.co.uk/joining-moortown-environmental-group
