Take Action

 

At ESRAG GB&I we are a small team of Rotarians
who enthusiastically believe that individual actions
can truly make a difference.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

As an individual

“Anything I do won’t make any difference.”

If everyone said this there really would be no hope.  The actions of individuals add up and can provide an example and inspiration to others.

Although residential activities make up only 15% of emissions the decisions made by individuals on their lifestyle will have an impact on all other sectors – particularly transport and business

Be a Hero – Go Net Zero

Calculate your own carbon footprint.  Consider how you can reduce it by following some of the suggestions below.  Then take action to offset your carbon use until you reach net zero. 

Take action as an individual

Get Involved and help us build the ESRAG network of changemakers

Whatever your skills or passions we have roles where you can get involved.

You can help us grow the network and create a platform that supports the efforts of Districts and Clubs in our region to grow and to implement meaningful projects and club activities that support Environmental Sustainability.

Become a volunteer

Wherever you live there will be voluntary groups working to improve the local environment.  This may take the form of restoring local habitats or ecosystems, managing open spaces, cleaning rivers and ditches, training volunteers or fundraising for environmental causes.

Contact the Trust for Conservation Volunteers Get Involved With TCV | Connecting People and Green Spaces or your local wildlife trust.

Consider green investing

Possibly the biggest single thing you can do is to invest your savings or pension in companies and funds that are making a positive contribution to the environment.

Increasingly companies are assessed by investment funds in terms of their environmental, social and governmental impact (ESG).

While there can be no guarantees with any investment in many cases returns on environment friendly investment may equal or exceed those that do not take environmental factors into account.

More detail in this excellent Green Investment webinar in the Speak up for the Planet series.

Energy use at home

Energy use at home:

  • Turn off lights and appliances not in use
  • Reduce the temperature setting on your central heating by 1 degree and wear an extra layer
  • Don’t fill kettles or pans more than necessary
  • Use a lid on saucepans when possible it reduces energy use substantially
  • Use a microwave or slow cooker rather than a hob or oven
  • Use economy settings on your dishwasher and lower temperatures on your washing machine
  • Dry clothes on an airer or washing line rather than your tumble drier which is one of the biggest energy user.

Get an energy survey:

This will cost about £50 and will provide you with a list of recommendations on what you could do to make your energy use more efficient.  Some may involve minimal expenditure, some may attract grant aid, some may not be cost effective.  These could include:

  • Increase your loft insulation
  • Install double (or triple glazing)
  • Install energy efficient doors or at least draft excluders
  • Improve floor and/or wall insulation
  • Install radiator reflectors behind radiators

Take steps to ensure that the energy you use is sustainable

This may involve substantial investment which will result in a substantial reduction in your bills but will only be repaid over a period of about 10 years.  However it is where the biggest reductions in your carbon footprint.

  • Move to a supplier who supplies renewable energy where possible
  • install solar panels, preferably including battery storage to make best use of what you generate.  Typically in the UK you could generate about 60% of your electricity requirements
  • Replace gas, oil or solid fuel heating systems with an air source or ground source heat pump.  Heating accounts for about two-thirds of domestic CO2 emissions in the home.
Waste and Recycling

Reduce

  • Restrict the amount of new things you acquire by focussing on what you need rather than what you want.
  • When you do buy, try to minimise the amount of packaging, particularly non-recyclable packaging, and consider the waste implications of the product.  eg buy loose rather than packed vegetables, take your own container to the butchers to carry meat.
  • Read a newspaper online rather than a print version.
  • Buy in bulk where possible – the larger the quantity the smaller the packing element.

Reuse

  • Minimise food waste by careful buying and reusing leftovers
  • Try to repair or adapt possessions rather than replace them.  eg convert jeans that have gone at the knees into shorts
  • Carry a reusable coffee cup rather than use take-out plastic coated cups
  • Don’t buy bottled water – carry a flask which has the added advantage of keeping your drink at the required temperature

Recycle

  • Take care to follow the guidance given by your local authority on recycling
  • Take items that are of no use to you to charity shops or local charities to support those in need rather than throwing them away or use online websites such as Freecycle to sell or give things away.
  •  Look for ways of recycling items that are difficult to recycle. Terracycle offer a very wide range of schemes for the free recycling of things such as crisp packets, breadbags, medical blister packs, laundry product containers and many more.  If there is not a location in your area your club could set up a scheme.
Transport

Every time you travel there are choices that will affect your environmental footprint.  Bigger long term decisions can also have an important impact.

  • Walk or cycle rather than use the car for short trips whenever possible – this app enables you to convert steps to trees
  • Use public transport when possible
  • Where car use is necessary use car sharing
  • Reduce flying and / or offset the effects of flying (insert link)
  • When changing car buy an electric car if it is practical
  • When moving house attach priority to access on foot to local services
Consumption

Food

  • Eat less meat and fish
  • look for options with less packaging and particularly avoid non-recyclable packaging
  • Minimise food waste – there are lots of ways to use leftovers click here for more ideas
  • Grow your own fruit and vegetables
  • Use peat free compost
  • Avoid chilled goods which have been imported over long distances and therefore have a big carbon footprint
  • Try to avoid food containing palm oil.  New palm oil plantations are one of the main causes of tropical rain forest destruction and many mass produced foods like bread, cakes and cereals.

 Clothing

  • Use clothes until they wear out
  • Extend the life of your clothes with repairs and alterations to keep them out of landfill for as long as possible
  • Pass on unwanted clothes to charities or charity shops and buy second hand clothes when possible
  • Use natural fabrics when possible

 Other goods

  • Buy what you need not what you want
  • With white goods go for maximum energy efficiency
  • Always consider repair before replacing
  • Always consider the potential for recycling beofre buying
Biodiversity
  • Plant pollinating plants in your garden which will attract bees and other plants vital to biodiversity
  • Have a pond in your garden which will attract amphibians, birds and other wildlife
  • If the boundaries to your garden are fences create small gaps which will allow hedgehogs to pass through
  • allow part of your garden to grow wild to encourage a greater diversity of wildlife
  • Plant trees in your garden if they won’t create problems for you and your neighbours
  • Put bird boxes or bat boxes in your garden
Education and Advocacy
  • Calculate your own carbon footprint by using one of the many online calculators https://zero.giki.earth/(insert links)
  • There are many actual or online events on the protection of the environment, which explain the issues in some detail and provide more information on what Rotary is doing around the world.
Offset Your Energy Use

You can take action to remove CO2 from the atmosphere to offset your own footprint – taking care to ensure the offset is genuine.

  • Use the Ecosia web browser when searching the internet.  Each search effectively removes 1kg of CO2 through tree planting in Sub-Saharan Africa to mitigate and reduce the effects of climate change
    www.ecosia.org
  • Contribute to one of the many charities which are trying to reduce climate change by planting trees or capturing carbon in other ways.  Many involving Rotary are featured in “Projects”

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

As a Club or District

Establish an Environmental Team

Depending on the resources and capacity of the club this may be a new team or a new responsibility for an existing team. It will be helpful to designate one member as the lead for environmental issues.

Prepare an Environmental Strategy

The scope for action to support the environment is immense.  Clarifying what you aim to do and how you aim to do it can help make your actions more coherent and effective. Examples of club strategies: PontelandCambridgeKimbolton Castle

Support District, National or International Initiatives

There are already many projects and initiatives at all these levels and there will be many more as action on the new area of focus gathers momentum.  This is an easy way to get started and get to understand some of the issues and opportunities better. 

Take action as a club or District

Develop Projects or Initiatives at club or district Level.

Club Initiatives may be small and one off or more ambitious and strategic extending over several years.  They may involve partnerships with schools, other young people’s groups, local community or environmental groups, or overseas organisations.  Ideas relating to different themes can be found below.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity and Carbon Capture

Clubs can add to local biodiversity and reduce CO2 levels by carbon capture in many ways.  These very visible projects can at the same time spread awareness of environmental issues and the way in which Rotary can work with communtities.

Tree Planting

Tree Planting is a relatively simple environmental intitiative which can also make a significant contribution to mitigating climate change by carbon capture.  It is one of the key themes of ESRAG GBI.  If done locally young trees can be procured in the form of “whips” from the Woodland Trust and funding for tree planting can be secured from the Tree Council when working with young people.   The Queens Green Canopy is a major initiative which can also provide support.  Guidance on tree planting can be found in ESRAG’s Heart for Trees project.

Tropical tree planting can make a greater contribution to carbon capture, because of the much faster rate of growth there and can also provide wider socio-economic benefits by contributing to the local economy.  Sustainable Global Gardens and Treekly are two projects that are run by Rotarians and can be supported by clubs or individuals.

Planting for Pollinators

Education and Advocacy

Use Rotary to get important environmental messages across.

Rotary is a trusted organisation and therefore well placed to get important environmental messages into the public domain.  a good example is Henley Rotary Club who took to the streets to explain the details of which goods are recycled and which aren’t and in the process recruited 3 new members.

Carbon Offsetting

Carbon offsetting should not be used so that one can continue with ones current lifestyle, All the previous should must be completed first. Carbon offsetting involves and individual or organisation to pay others who have opportunities to reduce their own emissions. There are several websites offering offsets which may involve tree planting or installation of additional renewable energy. provision of more efficient cookers in developing countries etc.     

These are more often than not quoted as a monetary cost to offset a flight  but other emissions are often more substantive and there is a serious question as to whether the costs charged reflect the true cost of carbon.    One Website for instance, (myClimate), suggests that a round trip from London to New York (Economy Class) causes the emission of 1.8 tonnes CO2 and can be offset for £39 per person (or £21 per tonne CO2).   However, recent analysis suggests that the true cost of carbon is rather more at around £75 per tonne suggesting a more realistic figure is £135 per person or £540 for a family of four.    

Carbon reduction strategies involving projects in developing countries must be carefully considered as to whether they do indeed reduce carbon emission globally.   Thus using offset funds to install solar PV cells in a village which previously had no electricity, though morally admirable, it will not help reduce carbon emissions.   On the other hand if the village had a diesel generator and this was replaced, then there would indeed be a genuine reduction.  Simlarly using the money to install more efficient cooking stoves such as the ones described by Keith Tovey at   Environmental Sustainability – Rotary Great Britain & Ireland – Posts | Facebook can make a substantial saving pf up to around 40 tonnes of CO2e  each year. It is vital that any disbursement of funds collected from carbon offsetting do fully meet the criteria of additionality. 

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Environmental Awards

The Rodney Huggins Environmental Award

This award is open to all clubs in Rotary Great Britain and Ireland and is designed to encourage clubs to take action on the environment.  Details for 2021-22.

District Awards

District 1080 has run an environmental awards scheme for clubs for several years.  This is to be relaunched with revised criteria to cover districts 1080,1090,1240 and 1260.