This is how we work:
- we meet up regularly in real life, sometimes on zoom. Group dynamics can never get old
- we form 5-strong chat-group sub-groups. A close group is the secret sauce to keeping things going
- we have a great combination of online platforms to collaborate and progress projects
- our newsletter makes our activities public, so people can see how “eco” works – KISS!
Milestones
🧍♀️🧍♂️🕺 The Group: we grow our group to make it 50 people strong
⬇️ 👣 Personal Carbon Footprints: we collect the CO2 numbers to give us accurate and reliable data that normally only companies and corporations would have access to. We generate a record of our activities like a bank statement to show how effective we are at reducing our impact on the planet
📱 Tech: We create a mobile phone app that allows us to enter our data as we live our lives at any time and see how we are sticking to our self-imposed “carbon budgets” (like weight watching or counting steps)
📊 Personal Carbon Trading: we set up a scheme to share the hard work, so for example someone who needs to supplement their carbon budget can beg, borrow or barter it from someone else
🎬 Reputation: we publicise what we are able to achieve to influence local business and government
🏗️ Blueprint: we use our structure, experience and tech platform to create new EcoCounts groups in new locations
Volunteer for Tasks
Join or create a small chat group
- With a few other people in your little group, you make your own pledges to the others in the group and then you won’t want to let them down, whatever it was. The accountability group chooses its platform, who is in it and how it operates. It helps participants remember that we’re in a climate crisis and we’re doing something about it, rather than business-as-usual.
- Requirements: an instant messaging app
- Milestone: the Group
- Contact Adam
Become a Local Co-ordinator of an EcoCounts sub-group
- Do you think you could actually bring 4 or 5 people together to do what EcoCounts does?
- More details here
- Requirements: willingness to try building a little group, communications skills, empathy antennae
- Milestones: the Group, the Blueprint
- Contact Adam
Become an EcoCounts Ambassador
- Bring climate action into your workplace, your school, university or organisation
- Get your organisation to support climate awareness and activities internally
- Arrange speakers, workshops and policy proposals
- Requirements: identify who to speak to, what networks to tap into, organise events, bring people together
- Milestones: the Group, the Blueprint
- Contact ???
Try out the Cool Apps out there and feed back on their features
- download one of Gandee, Greenr, AWorld, Yuka, Wildya, Pawprint, Warmd and others (see big list here: https://wiki.ecocounts.community/wiki/Main_Page), try it out for a while and report back what they do well and what they get wrong so we can do it better
- Requirements: a mobile or ipad/tablet
- Milestone: Tech
- Report back Mondays
Write an Eco Tip or Newsletter Post
- got an eco tip we haven’t covered yet (see here) or a longer article for the website, either your own idea/thinking or rewriting/re-editing an existing post or idea.
- Requirements: writing skills, research skills
- Milestone: Reputation
- Contact Adam
Carbon Footprint Data
- everyone can enter their own carbon footprint into our spreadsheet but we need more and more data – the flights, energy bills, food & diets, consumer goods etc. Can you search up the most reliable sources and help expand our database?
- Requirements: spreadsheet skills
- Milestone: Carbon Footprints
- Contact Adam
Marketing, Campaigning & Copy
- we concentrate on persuading people to join us, record their carbon footprint and help grow EcoCounts, but many people on the net will donate because the carbon currency policy makes ultimate sense to them
- Requirements: internet marketing skills
- Milestone: Reputation
- Contact: Adam
Instagram Influencer
- If you’re keen on Instagram, do you have the time to create and post content for the EcoCounts insta account? We can feed you ideas and material and we can take the ideas you put on Insta onto other feeds as well. There’s lots to learn about campaigning too, about the content we release, the audience we’re speaking to, the narrative we want to strengthen….
- Plus not just Instagram. If your favourite social media is facebook, pinterest, linkedin, reddit, nextdoor, ex-twitter, Quora, Diaspora, Mastodon, bluesky, wedonthavetime.org, hub.takethejump.org, sustainability.stackexchange.com
- Requirements: communications experience, being able to maintain a particular voice style
- Milestone: Reputation
- Contact Adam
Graphic Designer
- We constantly produce new material whether it’s articles, paper, social media posts or new page on the website, they often need graphics to bring them to life
- Requirements: graphic design package skills, e.g. Adobe or Canva, creativity
- Milestone: Reputation
- Contact Adam
Why do we do all this?
Did you ever wonder why it is so difficult for people in London to live sustainably and do something meaningful about the climate crisis? So did we! That’s why we set up this charity, to find out how green & sustainable a group of people can be.
We need to find our members, work out how we will best organise ourselves, work with our members to come up with the ways and means to live sustainably and reduce our carbon footprints, and then start recording the data from our activities so we can demonstrate how effective we actually are.
We believe in tackling all environmental and social crises – there’s not much point in sorting out the climate crisis if we end up on a dead, polluted planet because we forgot about Nature. We are looking at every issue: plastic, biodiversity, deforestation, soil degradation, overfishing, refugees, poverty, racism, sexism and all discrimination, and we will consider every potential solution, whether it’s practical, short-term, long-term, psychological, therapeutic, natural or technological.
We want to create demonstrative, visible evidence of improvements to our community through product and material re-use, re-purposing, recycling, better shopping and eating, energy and water efficiency gains, carbon footprint reduction, caring for nature and the built environment.
So in a nutshell, most of the effort we put into this goes into communication. EcoCounts aims to make it work in whatever way suits the individual participants – real life meetings, instant messages, SMS, emails, the discussion board. And the other part of the work will be recording the data. For the spreadsheet pros, you get your own spreadsheet on our cloud, or if you prefer, you fill in what you can and leave the rest to be estimated with the third-party carbon calculators that we use.
Who are we looking for?
Do you want to take part in something that involves people of all backgrounds, having a sense of common purpose & a strong desire to do something about the climate crisis? We’re building a diverse group with up to 50 people in our local community for people to bring their individual interests and willingness to collaborate into this sustainability & climate action group. That would be 49 people like you and of course, you!
What EcoCounts does to support participants
• community outreach and participant recruitment
• marshalling ideas and feedback
• organising group meetings / communications schedule subgroup integration
• monitoring, data management
• fundraising
• keeping our website, discussion board, spreadsheet cloud, blog and wiki running
What difference will you make?
Due to our newness, we have very little funding and are all volunteers at this point, doing the main work of the charity. So please join up. Because our results will be most convincing if we can show our participants are highly representative of the diverse population of North London, there is a place for everyone here. In the long run, the charity will support the volunteers in every way they need. We have just received National Lottery funding for six months to start building the founding group.
What’s in it for the participants?
Without a doubt this role is for someone who feels the need to do something about the climate crisis (and all the others). This kind of activity is great for your mental health. Having a plan to deal with climate change staves off the gloom and doom. It also brings you into contact with an eclectic mix of different people. Your involvement can also make a great entry on your CV.
Where
The boroughs of Islington, Camden, Hackney, Haringey, City of London, Westminster. Or near-by.
Time
Estimate of time needed: 3 hours a week or more.