the Carbon Challenge

Britain Unplugged....

Just a quick post to tell you about the recent launch of our new website - Britain Unplugged - a brand new community acting to make Britain a bit greener. It’s made up of people who care about climate change and are taking simple steps to do something about it. Britain Unplugged gives people across the UK the opportunity to take up the challenge and show others what they're doing to help. This might be recommending a green website, insulating a loft, or making their own film.

Why not visit the site, join up and check out what others are doing as well as take par in the latest challenge? You can also check out the Britain Unplugged blog and find out a bit more about our work at the Energy Saving Trust.

Gordon Brown commits to save his 20%!

The C8 and Gordon Brown commit to save their 20%

Well, what a day yesterday was and indeed today if anything else is to go by. Yesterday I led a delegation of community groups - public, private and voluntary sectors to meet with the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible for citizen engagement - Joan Ruddock to discuss the C8 roundtable initiative, which kicked off Energy Saving Week.

I felt we must have looked a bit like the light relief for the Prime Minister given that we met him and his colleagues in between meetings with the Turkish and Israeli Prime Ministers! The PM was in a relaxed, engaging mood and I have to say showed a good grasp of the issues that we brought to the table. I think a particularly strong part of this process has been getting the message across that whilst the Government has a clear role to play developing the framework, they will not be the agents of change that will make things happen on the ground. It was good to hear the Prime Minister talking about the Energy Saving Trust and our innovations and initiatives that help ordinary citizens reduce their energy usage. I was also particularly pleased that the rest of our C8 grouping all had an opportunity to get across their message about individual initiatives they are already running, or planning to run in the near future.

The group included:

·       Joy Greasley, Vice-Chair, National Federation of Women’s Institutes

·       Dr Martin Blake, Head of Sustainability, Royal Mail

·       Adam Vaughan, environmental journalist and blogger

·       Andrew Fisk, Director of External Relations, Procter & Gamble Europe

·       Kai Boschmann, Group Director of Corporate Affairs, DSGi plc

·       Rachel Bradley, Social Responsibility Manager, B&Q

·       David Shreeve, co-founder of the Conservation Foundation and environmental adviser to the Church of England

What with this and an honorary mention at Prime Minister's Question Time today it's been quite a significant twenty-four hours for the energy efficiency agenda. Let's hope we make sure that this is not going to run out of steam any time soon.

You might like to look at the following photograph - I was particularly pleased to find myself for the first and almost certainly the last time, in the Foreign Secretary's chair at the Cabinet table!

The C8 - spreading the word amongst community groups

For Energy Saving Week 2007, the Energy Saving Trust has assembled a group of eight different community groups – the C8 – to help us spread the word among their networks about the importance of energy saving in the fight against climate change. Our guest blogger this week, Fay Mansell, the Chair of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, tells us why the WI could prove our secret weapon in reducing the UK’s carbon emissions.

“The WI is proud to be supporting Energy Saving Week today for Women’s Day as one of the ‘C8’ Communities.

The Energy Saving Trust’s latest research shows that WI members are really influential in their communities and have a good grasp of environmental issues. Well, another thing WI members do very well is talk – and given that there are more than 200,000 of them, when our members talk about an issue the word spreads very quickly through their extensive social networks!

Many people don’t realise it, but the WI has a long history of campaigning on environmental issues. As far back as 1926 we raised concerns about the pollution of the seas. As the threat of climate change grows, an increasing number of our members have been looking at ways to respond to this threat to our environment.

To help address these concerns, we launched the WI Carbon Challenge in June, which is designed for WI members and the general public to evaluate their carbon footprint and reduce it by 20% over the course of a year through simple lifestyle choices. Already more than 5,000 people have signed up – and you can, too. Please visit www.theWI.org.uk/carbonchallenge and see how easy it is to reduce your carbon footprint.

The Energy Saving Trust research reveals that women are much more likely than men to have good energy saving habits, so it’s fitting that women are the first C8 community to be represented in Energy Saving Week today on Women’s Day. In the developing world, women and girls are already suffering disproportionately as a consequence of climate change. Here in the UK women are more likely to be responsible for consumer and household choices and this places us in a powerful position to bring about the lifestyle behavioural changes necessary to minimise the impacts from climate change.

Today, representatives from the C8 organisations will come together to share their experiences of influencing their communities and to discuss how this could be applied to helping prevent climate change. Where we lead, we hope others will follow.”

Fay Mansell, Chair, National Federation of Women’s Institutes