Big steps to a smaller footprint in NI
Publish Date: Thursday, 28 June 2007
Big steps to a smaller footprint in NI
Community Groups in Northern Ireland are today being given the chance to join the celebrity ranks of Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz by signing up to measure and reduce their ecological footprint - a gauge of each person's impact on the planet.
Community Eco Challenge, a new project launched today in Armagh, is looking for five enthusiastic community groups in the Armagh, Banbridge, Craigavon, Dungannon & South Tyrone and Newry and Mourne council areas to sign up for 'footprint reduction' sessions.
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 (supported under the Secretary of State's Environment and Renewable Energy Fund). This unique partnership approach brings together Central and Local Government, a Non-Governmental Organisation and Community Groups in order to deliver practical on the ground solutions and achieve tangible benefits for all those involved.
"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," said Anne Greene, Senior Project Officer.
Decisions taken 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 in Northern Ireland and around the world. 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.
"If everyone lived like we do in Northern Ireland, we would need three planets worth of resources to survive. We are currently taking far more than our fair share of the earth's resources 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," said Sara McClintock, Communications Manager, WWF Northern Ireland.
Community Groups interested in participating in the Community Eco Challenge Project should register their interest with Southern Group Environmental Health Committee, contact Anne Greene or Lynn Morrow on 028 37 515800 for further information.
