LESS aims to cut carbon emissions in Caton

Lancaster-based LESS Climate Change and Energy Advice Project has made it onto the 100-strong nationwide shortlist competing for a slice of a million-pound Big Green Challenge prize fund by coming up with innovative ways to tackle climate change in the community.

LESS aims to cut carbon emissions in Caton with its Connect to Your Carbon project, by encouraging people to work out and reduce their individual or household ‘carbon footprint’, the amount of energy they use in their daily lives. The project will offer people three levels to get involved, each providing different kinds of help and support to reduce their carbon footprint, depending on people’s time and level of interest. These include running carbon calculator sessions, making home visits, and setting up carbon reduction action groups to look low carbon living in greater detail. At each level people will receive an estimate of their carbon footprint and a list of key actions to reduce this, especially those related to home energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The group hopes that this pilot project in Caton would then be expanded throughout the Lancaster district.

Selected from hundreds of initial entries received by NESTA, (The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), the shortlist comprises a diverse array of groups including local network organisations, schools, charities and social enterprises.

LESS (Local & Effective Sustainable Solutions) Climate Change and Energy Advice project is a voluntary project, set up last year to help people in Morecambe, Lancaster and surrounding areas live more sustainably, save energy and money, and to help reduce climate change.

The shortlisted groups now have until the beginning June to complete more detailed plans about how their ideas will work and will receive access to a range of experts to help them.

The top 100 groups will be whittled down to ten finalists in July, each of whom will receive up to £20,000, plus advice and support to get their green projects up and running over a year. The groups with the most imaginative and successful approach to cutting carbon emissions at the end of the competition will win a share of the £1m prize up for grabs.

Dawn Groundsell from LESS said: “We are thrilled to have made it through to the next round of the big green challenge. In March we held a climate change meeting in Caton and found that residents were really interested in our idea to reduce the village’s carbon emissions. We hope this make a real difference in the local community and beyond.”

NESTA Chief Executive Jonathan Kestenbaum added: “We’re delighted to announce that LESS has made it through to the next stage of the Big Green Challenge. We launched the prize fund to encourage people to get together and come up with great ways to save the planet, and we’ve had an amazing reaction from groups right across the UK.

“Moving forward we hope to see Caton’s local community getting behind this exciting and innovative project, as they demonstrate how their ideas could really have an impact in the fight to combat climate change.”

To learn more about all the groups on the Big Green Challenge shortlist go to www.biggreenchallenge.org.uk. For more information about LESS see www.lessuk.org.