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 Project
name:
Eco-Teams at Home
Social Landlord’s name:
Devon & Cornwall Housing Association
Location:
South Molton, North Devon
Project aim:
To reduce the carbon footprint of 12
households through taking part in Global Action
Plan’s Eco-Teams initiative.
What you have done:
Twelve households made up of two members of
housing staff and ten resident households
monitored their water, energy, waste sent to
landfill and recycling for three months. Meeting
once a month to discuss progress and explore new
ways of becoming more environmental at home.
This initiative is facilitated by Global Action
Plan who provides the team with training, a work
book, video and monitoring sheets and they
collect the data to input onto a national
spreadsheet to assess the value of direct action
at home. There is a similar initiative for
working in the office.
Which community partners were
involved:
Global Action Plan and The Devon Community
Recycling Network.
Where did the money come from:
Global Action Plan provided the training and
books free as they were receiving support from
the Environment Agency however this initiative
is normally quite costly. Devon & Cornwall
Housing contributed through their Sustainable
Living Project providing additional funds and
staff support.
What worked well:
The once a month gathering was a
good point of contact though on evaluating the
project the residents’ said that sharing ideas
between neighbours was more enjoyable than the
more formal presentations. We did try to make
the meetings fun and held quizzes and at one
meeting we had a food miles meal with everyone
contributing food and refreshments. Two
neighbouring estates were involved in the
project, one of those being our newly built
eco-estate Oak Meadow so it was fascinating to
see the difference in water and energy
consumption between the homes. It gave practical
evidence that life style choices make a big
difference to your household bills.
What
didn’t work so well:
The monitoring was quite difficult; we gave
out fish weighing scales to weigh the recycling
bins and waste sent to landfill. Standing
outside your home weighing your rubbish must
have caused a few raised eyebrows. It would have
worked better if it had been led by the resident
households and not a member of the housing staff
however it was a valuable experience and the
group will be coming back together for a family
day out to the Eden Project in the Autumn, a
thank you for their hard work.
What next:
Nothing planned but maybe the trip out might
spark some ideas for a future initiative.
Contact name:
Rose Hunter, Sustainable Living
Co-ordinator, Devon & Cornwall Housing
Association. Telephone: 01392 814471 Email:
rose.hunter@dcha.co.uk
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