By registering with us and committing to carbon reduction, you’ll be having your say in how local environmental policy is formed to meet the specific circumstances of residents where you live.
By using the Toolkit, your local councils will be able to see what is already being done in your community, what people are planning to do, and what’s holding them back from taking certain actions. They can use this information to inform their planning and decision making, to come up with support that relevant to what’s actually happening in your area.
Away from the Toolkit, where we have some dedicated actions for how you can use your voice.
However, there is plenty you can do to make sure your voice is heard in your local area. You can be certain that there are many people who live near you who share your concerns about climate change and the ecological crisis. The ways in which we feel comfortable about getting involved are very personal.
Many people are starting to speak out for the first time and some people have been asking for change for many years.
Your school, church, local council and other local community organisations and groups are great places to meet with others nearby who share your concerns about the future, and to identify issues that you can lobby for. Collective action by individual people can be the thing that gets big issues onto the political agenda and we have enormous power as consumers and voters which we can use by letting companies and governments know how important climate change policies are to us.
What's in the Toolkit?
We’ve researched more than 60 different carbon reducing actions, grouped into categories, and rated them by cost and carbon impact. There are actions suitable for all individual circumstances. You’ll find them all waiting for you in the Toolkit.
Buildings
Transport
Food & waste
Land use
Energy
Money
Use your voice
Why is a local approach so important?
Much climate policy is driven by a top-down, national approach. It doesn’t take into account regional differences around the country. By using The Great Collaboration Toolkit you are part of a bottom-up, local initiative that provides detailed, local information to allow local policy to be directed at the specific needs of local communities. In other words, you’re helping get the right actions to happen in the place that you live.
How to get started
Open the Toolkit and browse through the various sections.
When you come across an action you’ve already done, tell us by clicking Already Done.
When you come across an action you can’t do, or don’t want to do, click Not For Now and tell us a little about why.
Try to find half a dozen actions that interest you, and click Commit to say you’ll take that action within the next 12 months.
There are lots of actions to choose from. Each one shows the likely cost (FREE, £, ££, £££, ££££) and the potential emissions reduction (CO₂↓, CO₂↓↓, CO₂↓↓↓).
