Big Green Challenge

The Big Green Challenge, launched in October 2007 by NESTA, is a £1 million prize fund to encourage and reward people working together to find new and better ways to tackle climate change. We (NESTA) challenged not-for-profit groups and organisations to develop and implement approaches to achieve significant reduction of CO2 emissions in their communities.

Through the Big Green Challenge, we are aiming to reveal, and better understand, the potential power of new forms of community-led action on climate change - and the infrastructure (support, finance, organisational structure and policy) needed to maximise the potential of these innovations.

www.biggreenchallenge.org.uk

We've selected 10 finalists from the 355 initial entries to compete for a share of the £1 million prize. They now have unt il October 2009 to put their approach into practice and demonstrate a reduction in CO2 emissions. The Finalists are listed below and included on the Big Green Challenge map. A further 17 projects have been selected for funding by the Department of Energy & Climate Change, however these are not eligible for the £1m prize.
Pan or zoom the map below to find a project near you, or which interests you, and click to find further details. If you want to enter your Big Green Challenge project on to this map, please contact the Project Dirt team here


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THE TEN FINALISTS:

Back 2 Earth - Hackney, London
Back 2 Earth is based at Hackney City Farm and aims to be a community resource and environmental improvement centre with a focus on six categories: education, energy and water, food, resource use and recycling, eco building and transport. Central to achieving these ambitions is the farm’s use of volunteers. The farm will recruit a team of volunteers who will be trained in a range of new skills, which they will then take out into the wider community.

Low Carbon West Oxford - Oxford
Oxford Community Association ‘Low Carbon West Oxford’ is planning to reduce CO2 and deal with flooding via its ‘renewables building society’. They will run local renewable energy projects that will generate income to be used to make local homes more energy efficient.

Faith, Climate Change and Birmingham - Birmingham
Faith, Climate Change and Birmingham is focussed on the relationship between faith and the environment, working with a range of faiths including Christian, Muslim and Sikh groups. Changes the project makes in a place of worship will reach many different people, some of which would have not had direct experience with organisations concerned with climate change, whether they be worshipers or community groups, or simply users of a hired hall. All of these people will also be able take ideas for reducing CO2 emissions reduction back to their own homes.

The Green School Bus - St. Bede's, Lytham
The Green School Bus project, run by St Bedes School, aims to set up a Green Bus for the school and community that would use biodiesel, be equipped with solar roof panels and have charging points for pupils’ laptops, mobile phones and iPods/MP3 players. The project has be devised in response to changes in the 14-19 curriculum that will mean that students will need to travel between centres of education during the day, increasing student travel needs.

Household Energy Service - community owned ESCo. - Bishop’s Castle
Light Foot Enterprises will set up a number of community owned and operated volunteer workforces to help households take the maximum number of environmental measures at the lowest costs and provide ongoing contact and support.

Isle of Eigg - Isle of Eigg, Scotland
The Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust is planning to make the whole Isle carbon neutral with a range of innovative initiatives including community biodiesel use, using excess heat from island electricity generation to heat community buildings and new recycling schemes for paper and oil. The will also create tools for tourists and others to use to use the lessons learned from the island.

Meadows Ozone Green Loans - Nottingham
The Nottingham Energy Partnership, a charity working with a local credit union, has designed a 0% interest finance scheme for energy efficiency improvements, and is also working on complementary activities, including a local energy company selling green electricity.

Global Generation - Kentish Town, London
Global Generation is bringing young people, recruited from local schools, youth groups and housing estates, together to involve them in developing “living roofs”, including rooftop allotments and gardens. These will attract local wildlife as well as produce an array of seasonal herbs and vegetables grown for local consumption and to be sold to local restaurants. Global Generation has so far recruited five businesses, securing more than 1,200 sq ft for the project. There are currently another three businesses in the pipeline.

The Three Green Valleys - Brecon, Wales
This group aims to develop micro hydro generation on steep valley sides that will produce enough electricity to finance further installations and provide capital for habitat restoration, efficiency measures and community food and transport projects. The hydro-electric schemes are being resurrecting from ones that were decommissioned when coal was cheap and plentiful.

Waste Oil Recycling Project in Prisons (WORPP) - Arundel, Sussex
Work This Way aims to set up a bio-fuels production programme in conjunction with Ford Prison in Sussex, and collecting used vegetable oil from other prisons in the region to offer to local communities.

BIG GREEN CHALLENGE PLUS
Projects not in the competition but being funded by Department of Energy & Climate Change

Do the Green Thing
Do the Green Thing aims to inspire and change the behaviour of half a million people, encouraging them to lead a greener life. The programme will be delivered via the social networking website ‘Do The Green Thing’.

Get on the Greenside
‘Get on the Greenside’ is a neighbourhood sustainability project, working with residents who are living on social housing estates in Westminster in London. Led by Vital Regeneration, the project aims to raise awareness and increase involvement in local reuse and recycling initiatives. It will produce and distribute communication materials that promote low-cost ways of saving energy, with the goal of encouraging 100 households to take up the challenge of reducing their carbon footprint by 10-15%.

River Energy Networks
River Energy Networks will provide connections of information and experience for anyone who would like to use the potential energy in the water available to them. REN’s community includes hydropower groups, individual mill site owners, water companies, councils, national parks, community groups, transition towns, and potential investors. The Networks’ goals are:

1. To facilitate harnessing the energy in Britain’s rivers
2. To encourage optimum use of the water power in our rivers and outfalls, making it unacceptable to waste the available potential – whether that waste is caused by consumers, planners, regulators, objectors, property owners, or providers of equipment and advice.

The Carbon Co-op
The Carbon Co-op aims to bring people and communities together to purchase low-carbon products at discounted rates, ranging from energy meters to solar panels. Led by URBED, the Carbon Co-op is a member-owned, social enterprise model that is designed to deliver large-scale reductions in domestic carbon emissions.

Face your Elephant
Face your Elephant aims to encourage visitors to the Woodcraft Folk Centres by training 25 peer educators to implement an action plan at each residential centre. These will include energy league tables, energy monitoring of all groups, climate change related educational activities, and the promotion of materials to explain the importance of adopting a greener lifestyle. Peer educators have been recruited and will be trained by the Centre for Alternative Technology.

Redcliffe Carbon Challenge, Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE)
CSE’s project aims to generate greater understanding of climate change among young people, empowering them to take practical action and provide an approach that can be replicated in other schools.

Pupils will play an active part in designing the scheme, raising awareness in the community and tracking progress towards a publicised target.

The Eco CLEAR Centre
Led by Hamstreet Primary School, the Eco CLEAR Centre is a parent-teacher group from Kent, planning to set up a Community Local Environmental Action Resource Centre at the local Ham Street School. The centre will act as a showcase for information and initiatives, and include a Green Shop and Green Club.

Transition Together
Transition Together forms small groups of friends, neighbours and colleagues, and supports them to take effective, practical, money-saving and carbon-reducing steps. A workbook will help each person to build their own Practical Action Plan that improves household energy efficiency; minimises water use; reduces waste (and consumption!); and explores local transport.
The project is run by Transition Town Totnes and will be rolled out across the Transition Network.

BioRegional – Rebuilding communities
BioRegional will provide a supply chain of reclaimed, locally sourced renewable and sustainable building materials and set up Sustainability and Reuse Centres (SRCs) which will create employment and provide training for their local community.

Climate Friendly Food
Climate Friendly Food has come up with a ‘carbon awards scheme’, accessible to all primary food producers. They will develop a carbon calculator specifically targeted at food production to support farms in reducing carbon emissions.

Community Renewable Energy (CoRE)
CoRE’s aim is to promote, develop, manage and grow community owned, profitable renewable energy systems. It will deliver a wind turbine in Berwick and two anaerobic digesters alongside a number of other renewable projects already in the feasibility or development stages.

Carbon Clubs
Carbon Clubs is a group learning model that aims to achieve ‘carbon literacy’, including practical guidance on energy monitoring and foot-printing tools. The team will develop a Carbon Club network to support wider roll-out.

Sidmouth Carbon Challenge
Global Action Plan will engage people living in and around Sidmouth, East Devon. It aims to reach students, staff, parents/carers and the wider community by implementing and building on its Action at School and EcoTeams programmes.

The Farm Energy Project
The Farm Energy Project is developing solutions to the complex challenges of installing renewable energy technologies on farms. It will create and trial the ‘Farm Wind’ Package to create an affordable, efficient and financially lucrative renewable energy package for farmers.

Oxfordshire Eco-Renovation
Oxfordshire Eco-Renovation aims to reduce CO2 emissions by creating an innovative and replicable social enterprise network to motivate change towards eco-renovation. Eco Renovators will recruit community groups to take part. Partners from the property market and energy industry will promote the programme.

Marlborough Climate Pledge
Marlborough Climate Pledge is a local pledge scheme that encourages households and communities to pledge and track their reductions in CO2 emissions. Already operating successfully at pilot level, the team aims to expand and develop the scheme with a larger, more diverse volunteer base to support it.

Julie’s Bicycle – I-Greenmyband
Julie’s Bicycle aims to design and deliver a carbon reduction programme for artists and DJ’s – and their management. A team of advisors will work with 10 participants, training them in energy management and building a portfolio of guidance and online support.