Here in the Waterworks valley we have a community dedicated to sustainable living.
Having dealt with a range of practical issues, such as energy audits of housing, solar hot water, community gardens and so forth, it has become evident that we could do useful work to understand on barriers that prevent people from reducing their footprint (responding to climate change).
To do this we are applying for a Climate Connect grant through the state climate change office. (Approved in April 2009)
The target is those who already accept the need to reduce their impacts, but who then face a range of barriers that inhibit them (i.e. all of us) from doing so.
We are devising such a project that would entail both monitoring of the community members (responses to feedback questionnaire) followed by a workshop(s) to flesh out issues in greater depth.
We believe the project would be informative not only to our own community members but also to the wider Tasmanian and Australian communities, because personal and social barriers to taking action don’t seem to be fully explored and understood.
Skeleton outline:
Overall aim:
1. To extend what we are already doing in Waterworks Valley – developing a model sustainable community, but going much further through outreach to households that are not yet engaged.
2. To conduct surveys within the community in order to develop an understanding of the barriers that inhibit Tasmanians from taking action to live sustainably.
3. To monitor the community’s progress by measuring energy savings (and other sustainability criteria) at a community and household level.
4. To publicise the project and its outcomes via media and broadly share information for the benefit of Tasmanian public and other community groups working on sustainability.
Tasks:
• Invite project collaboration with other stakeholders such as Centre for Environmental Studies).
• Engage IT professional to prepare social marketing questionnaire.
• Conduct two in-depth community workshops (focus / discussion groups).
• Visit each participating home to advise householders on steps they can take to reduce climate footprint and learn about their efforts, successes and difficulties.
• Engage person to document data and record results.
• Provide useful information to state climate change office and publicise project outcomes.
Chris at 195, plus Amanda at 144, Jonah at 46, Jacqui at 52
(Email Chris at wwvalley@dodo.com.au if you want an email copy of our submission)
4 comments ↓
[...] is a major project that will be conducted in the forthcoming 12 months. For an outline click HERE. Or you can download the grant application HERE to see what it [...]
huge congratulations – those applications take a lot of time. Well done!
[...] if you are new to this site and are a householder wishing to contact us about this ‘Climate Connect’ project please email us at [...]
[...] Amongst the confusing array of shower heads that are on the market we have picked one (pictured) that gives you a ‘bloody good shower’ using less than half the energy of older technology. We have bulk ordered these and will be offering them to eligible homes as part of our climate project. [...]
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