It’s often said that solving the climate crisis will require, principally, efforts by large companies and Governments to commit to reducing emissions and that individuals can’t do very much on their own.
This narrative developed in part as a reaction to earlier pushes for climate action, based on carbon footprint calculators (first developed by BP in 2004), which placed responsibility for climate change on individuals rather than corporations and policymakers.
Hans Zomer, chief executive of the environmental charity, Global Action Plan (Gap) suggests we need both individual and corporate/Government climate action.
“We need system’s change – economic incentives and legislation – but we cannot achieve societal change without behaviour change. The choices we make about how we travel, what we eat and what we buy have a direct impact on our collective greenhouse gas emissions,” he says.
Gap’s Climate Champions programme is a model in which individuals team up with others to make small, everyday changes that, when added together, can have a significant impact on global greenhouse gas emissions.
“Studies by Columbia University’s Earth Institute and others have shown that the production and use of household goods and services are responsible for some two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions,” Zomer adds.
The organisation has already rolled out its Climate Champions competition in more than 100 companies, but in April, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, became the first town in Ireland to bring the challenge to schools, businesses and community organisations in its urban area.
Managed by Wexford County Council’s climate action team, Enniscorthy was chosen because it’s the county’s so-called decarbonisation zone. Each local authority chooses a decarbonisation zone as a test area for sustainable solutions that will then be rolled out throughout the county.
That the town had a “sustainable energy community”, nearly zero energy building construction skills courses and ran a public art and community decarbonisation project – Re-imaging Enniscorthy from 2022-2023 – were other factors in the choice of location.
In total, 19 teams with 126 participants signed up for the Climate Champions competition and logged more than 14,000 activities over two weeks. Frank Burke, climate action co-ordinator for Wexford County Council, says the most popular actions were recycling waste, switching off unnecessary lights, not using disposable containers and not printing paper unnecessarily.
“Doing the same action 10 days in a row is the principle of behaviour change and what’s great about this competition is that you can see the results – you can see the difference your actions make,” Burke says.
Zomer explains that by having the right to use the Norwegian digital social enterprise platform, Ducky, Gap can bring together local insights and behaviour change with data from climate scientists about the impact of individual actions.
“We are not saying that we have ‘the’ solution – there are hundreds of solutions to climate change, but we are saying that this is a good starting point to see what’s possible,” he says.
Each team committed to small everyday actions on the Ducky platform across energy (such as dry your clothes outdoors or run your washing machine at a lower temperature), food (prevent food waste, eat a vegetarian meal), transport (walk or cycle to school or work) and sustainable consumption (recycle your waste, repair something, don’t buy anything one day). And, they get immediate information about their team’s reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to compare with other groups on the challenge.
“It’s about the micro changes in your lifestyle – none of which require major investment. It’s about changing the everyday habits that we make unconsciously. And when you experiment with the alternatives over two weeks, it becomes a new habit. It’s also about having fun while you are doing it,” Zomer says.
Dearbhla Ní Laighin was the team leader of the Sustainable Enniscorthy group in the community and voluntary sector of the competition.
“For each activity logged, there is a corresponding score and carbon saving both for each of us on the team and the team as a whole. We could see how we were ranked collectively compared to other groups in the community and voluntary sector, which sets up a bit of competition between teams,” she says.
Ní Laighin says that while completing the challenge took a bit of effort each night to log your activities during the day, it was worth it.
“You quickly become aware that some habits are more impactful than others. For example, choosing to have a vegan meal one evening compared to a vegetarian meal or fish or meat.”
Ironically, the Sustainable Enniscorthy group – arguably, the best informed group – didn’t win the challenge. “We came fourth. We were beaten by Enniscorthy Community Allotments, Enniscorthy Rugby Club and the Ferns Diocese Youth Service. I expect they were pleased to have beaten us,” she says.
Michael Devereux, chairman of Enniscorthy Community Allotments – overall winners of the competition – says when people think of climate action, they often focus on big things like retrofitting their homes, but by continuing to change the small everyday things, people can also have an impact.
“It was a very worthwhile exercise. It’s things like cycling to work, reusing and repurposing old clothes, planning your meals to avoid food waste and having shorter showers. If you continue to do these things, you do have an impact,” Devereux adds.
Enniscorthy Community Allotments has about 250 members in total, and with Wexford Climate Action funds, the group installed a rain harvesting system for the polytunnel and off-grid electricity supply to charge tools, laptops and mobile phones from solar panels.
Referring to the recent Economic and Social Research Institute’s research, which found that most people don’t like change, Zomer adds: “We tend to resist changing our behaviour even when we understand that our actions contribute to climate change. Daily routines, habits and conveniences are deeply ingrained and the prospect of giving them up can feel threatening, uncomfortable or simply unappealing.”
Zomer says that the key is to bridge “the say-do gap”, which is when people express their concern about climate change but don’t seem to translate their concern into meaningful action.
“This gap slows progress and undermines collective efforts to transition to a low-carbon society,” he adds.
He believes the way to break this cycle is to enable people to build up their confidence that their actions do matter. “Our climate challenges help people to feel empowered, capable and supported, which means that they are far more likely to take real-life action – even beyond the two week’s challenges. It gives them a chance to discover their personal agency to effect change.”
The average Irish carbon dioxide equivalent generated is about eleven and a half tonnes per person per year. “Our assumption is that if people keep up their climate actions for 52 weeks, it would result in a sizeable reduction of Ireland’s carbon footprint,” Zomer says.
These are individual actions, which when combined within a committed community, can maximise decarbonisation efforts.
