Mapping the Big Green Challenge - The Skills & Learning ...

Mapping the Big Green Challenge 145Familiar examples of community activities of this type would be litter picks, village fetes, charity runsand other fund-raising events. They are most likely to be local, relatively small scale activities butthey can be scaled up by networking dispersed events (e.g. a national day of action composed oflocal events).8.1.2 Contribution to Low Carbon GoalsGovernment policy acknowledges that there are a set of fairly well understood measures which, ifwidely implemented, could make a significant contribution to climate change mitigation in the shortto medium term. These are what we have termed regime changes and include energy efficiencymeasures in the home, reducing car and air travel, and changes to diet. Many of them are costneutral or would even save money for those adopting them. They often involve little in the way ofnew technologies but do involve people changing their everyday practice in relation to thetechnologies they use.Yet it is clear that these measures are not being taken up as widely as needed even when surveysreport that people are ‘willing and / or able’ to do so (see section 4.3) resulting in what has beentermed a ‘value-action gap’. Surveys discussed in Chapter 2 also report that many people say thatthey do not feel that their actions can make a difference and that they would be more likely to act ifthey knew others were doing so too. In contrast to the provision of more information of what oneought to do, engaging people in specific activities could be expected to be a way of actuallysupporting them to take action at that time. Examples that would fall into the category of clearlyidentified (and generally widely known) actions that need to be taken up more widely are installinginsulation and using the car less for short journeys.8.1.3 Issues to be Resolved to fully Realise Capability and ContributionThis type of activity is often embedded in an ‘event’ (i.e. context for doing something different). Thisworks well because it is a reason for engaging at that point rather than any other time (and so helpsto turn intentions into actions). However to ‘work’ the event needs to be sufficiently engaging.Even then it is likely to be missed by many people, because it takes place at a particular place andpoint in time. It also seems an approach more appropriate to things which can be characterised asrelatively one-off changes rather than ones that need to be sustained over time: in terms of theexamples given above it can be expected to be better at getting action on installing insulation that itwill be at getting people to use their cars less. These characteristics need to be recognised in thedesign and choice of focus.In terms of familiar ways in which community action is undertaken one would expect it to beinitiated by local grassroots organisations. As such it was often seen in the locally based proposaltypes discussed in the previous chapter (e.g. Zones and Local Projects). But it could be carried out bya community without local links provided they had another type of strong connection andprofessionally-led groups could facilitate or support grassroots groups in terms of organisation,activities and so on.8.1.4 Examples of Innovative ProposalsIn terms of the examples considered, installing insulation has the advantage of being close to a ‘oneoff’activity but might not be the obvious focus for an engaging event. Two proposals illustrate thatAppleby Ltd July 2009