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Rauceby Little Footprint Initiative - Parish Council Open Meeting Address - 5th May 2009

I do not profess to be an expert on climate change or global warming, but am aware of a great deal that has been written on the subject. I am not about to preach or dictate to anyone how they live their lives, but to look into some common sense solutions that can only benefit our community as a whole.

We are past the point of discussion as to whether climate change is a myth or whether it has been influenced by man’s poor stewardship. The facts are clear. Climate change is occurring. 99.5% of scientists concur on this. There are some that put about that the earth has the ability to naturally heal and that man has little effect on what is happening. There are also those who believe adamantly that the holocaust during the last war was a myth. But then they are also clearly in denial.

I am not prepared to sit on my laurels in the vain hope that all these scientists are wrong. We are told according to the UK Climate Change Bill that the government plans to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions by 80% before 2050. Yet the majority of scientists also concur that for man to make an impact on climate change reversal, we in fact only have 91 months left before we reach a point of no return. By my calculations that makes 7 and a half years. Which would put us somewhere around the middle of 2016. Trust the government to be 34 years late! Never mind, perhaps we’d better stock up on some factor thirty.

The only way that we can make a difference to climate change is by acting ourselves as a community now, not next week but right now.

Do we really need a global economy? One of South America’s largest exports to the UK is cat litter. Where does it end up – landfill. There are large parts of South America springing up all over the UK! We need to be thinking a little more locally.

Electric Drive vehicles – The technology has been around for decades – If Tesla and Porsche can develop cars that out perform their fossil fuelled counterparts then why hasn’t it filtered down in the general automotive industries. Americans are being offered $5000 cash incentives to change their gas gusslers over to electric drive.

Nuclear Power - People say to me well what about nuclear energy, well yes its fab stuff if we can find a way of dealing with the waste, simply dumping it under the ground or in the north sea is not really an option.

There are so many questions to be asked and not enough answers to go round and it is only through groups like the RLFI that we can work out common sense solutions. Perhaps I should tell you a little about the Rauceby Little Footprint Initiative.

The RLFI was formed in July 2008 with its membership being drawn from local residents of North and South Rauceby. The focus group has now grown to 20 members and we hope the membership will grow steadily over the next 2 years.

The main aims of the RLFI are to focus on the ways in which Rauceby, as a community, can make practical modifications to the way the villages consume and live and to enable our community to develop into a model of sustainability, both social and environmental. In order to take this forward, the RLFI will seek to engage the local communities, not just discussing the issues but, more importantly, to promote local action with the introduction of a programme of varied, practical initiatives.

The engagement of the local community is a key element of the RLFI and it is anticipated that as programmes of work are implemented, membership will expand and the programme become self-sustaining. Not only will the RLFI work through members of our local communities, it will also look outside the locality and will develop close working relationships with environmental agencies, local government, and funding agencies, seeking advice, expertise and funding to help action the planned initiatives.

Our Constitution and Mission Statement were adopted on the 20th November last year.

As with any Community based project, it is imperative that any of the planned projects are backed by the people they are intended for, ‘The Community'. On Wednesday 26th November the RLFI held its first community event. It was in the theme of an environmental quiz but also included an opportunity for the participants to give their thoughts and support of the proposed initiatives:

Community Waste Management Project
Footpath Link and Road Calming Project
First Responders Project
Social Enterprise Store Project
Farmers Market Project
Walled Garden and Orchard Project

All of the initiatives received a very favourable response. There were also a number of suggestions:

Wind Turbines, Compost Scheme, Cider Press Allotments For Local Produce, Car Share, Cinema In Village Hall, Community CHP using local woodland, Photo Voltaic on Church Roof, Park for play (football), Village signs restoration. All of these suggestions will be looked into and we will not only attempting to find the best way in which to implement them but also giving the community the opportunity to give their comment on their viability.

We have recently completed a two month trial with 50 Smart meters through SustainNK. The Smart Meter is an intuitive little gadget that monitors the amount of electricity we use in our homes. It helps you to understand which appliances, gadgets and fixtures within your home are the most energy demanding and allows you to decide where you can make changes so as to reduce your bills and your environmental impact. I now have the results of the trial to hand:

‘Smart’ Meter Trial Results

Through SustainNK, the RLFI offered an incredibly exciting initiative to the first fifty households to contact The Rauceby Parish News to be involved with a trial involving the ‘Smart Meter’. The Smart Meter is an intuitive little gadget that monitors the amount of electricity we use in our homes. It helps you to understand which appliances, gadgets and fixtures within your home are the most energy demanding and allows you to decide where you can make changes so as to reduce your bills and your environmental impact. In fact every home should have one.

218 households in North and South Rauceby.

51 of these took part in the trial. 47 responding to survey 1 and 32 responding to survey 2.

Survey 1
• 97% of volunteers showed concern about the environment as well as wanting to save money.
• 72% made efforts to save energy at start of trial.
• 67.5% couldn’t be sure which electrical appliances or gadgets used the most energy.
• 90% believed that a community’s combined efforts to save energy could make a difference to global climate change.

Survey 2
• 90% found the trial worthwhile.
• 97% thought that they made more effort to save energy after the trial.
• 75% understood which of their gadgets and appliances used the most energy.
• 87.5% found that the trial had helped them identify where they could save money on their electrical usage.
• 81% stated that the trial had helped them understand their household's impact on the environment.
• 100% stated that they would like their community to continue to be involved in energy saving or ‘green’ initiatives.

Specific Outcomes
• The number of households with over 16 eco bulbs increased from 22.5% to 44%.
• The number of households turning their electrical items off standby stayed the same at approximately 78% (all or most of them).
• 87.5% of volunteers stated that after the trial it would be a key priority to find out how energy efficient a new purchase would be. Before the trial the figure was 80%.

How effective are standard messages about energy saving?
Before the trial most volunteers already demonstrated energy saving behaviour. The majority would only boil the amount of water specifically needed in a kettle, they would use eco programmes on dishwashers and washing machines. They would also turn out unnecessary lights. These actions seem to be the most obvious and the easiest ones to take.

More challenging behaviour change that was linked to enjoyable pastimes such as watching television or using computers or showering was far more unlikely to be done.

When asked after the survey the results on the ‘easy’ actions strengthened even further but the likelihood of Rauceby residents to reduce the use of electrical items such as TVs, computers and showers showed little change despite the use of the smart meter.

This may demonstrate that general awareness and a commitment to finding solutions to energy use increases after the smart meter has been used but volunteers found it difficult to take steps that would make their lives possibly ‘more austere’.

Carbon emissions from Rauceby
In the month of December 2008 the kWh of electricity used by 31 surveyed households in Rauceby was 14292 kWh.

If this was factored up for the number of households in Rauceby it would mean that a total of domestic electricity use for both villages would be 100505 kWh.This is equal to approximately 461 kWh per household. This would cost approximately £50 per month without including the standing charge. This would result in CO2 emissions per household of approximately 239kg of CO2 per month from electricity use alone.

If we use standard party balloons as a reasonable estimation for 10g of CO2. That equates to each household emitting 23,900 balloons per household per month for domestic electricity.

If this was scaled up for the 51 households that took part in the trial it would be 1,218,900 balloons.

If this was scaled up for the whole community of North and South Rauceby then it would equate to 5,210,200 balloons released during a calendar month from domestic electricity use alone.

Green Team – Gail Martin Rauceby C of E Primary school.
There will be a donation from David Webb at Sustain NK of £500 for raised beds which the RLFI plans to match to allow the plans for their gardens to be completed. David Webb asked me to give you his apologies for not being here this evening but is busily getting ready to depart from North Kesteven to work on another project in Cambridge. He has been involved with the RLFI from its inception and will be sadly missed as he brought a great deal to our meetings.

Walled Garden and Orchard Project
We are about to embark on an extremely ambitious project to renovate a Victorian Walled Garden and Orchard and the construction of a community store. We have an interested funding partner looking into the project who is prepared to offer us non recourse financing and are discussing the availability of funding for the first six months of the Project. During this time we will be able to ascertain the overall costs of the renovation of the Walled Garden and Community store, and have completed the restoration of the orchard, purchased equipment to allow us to have a community cider pressing, carried numerous community consultations and be in a position to bid for the funding of the main project in phase two.

Biodiversity Audit
On the 16th of this month we will be holding our first ever annual biodiversity audit called ‘Nature on your Doorstep’. This will involve a number of experts coming to Rauceby on the day to help us ascertain what in the way of flora and fauna we have locally, and whether they are in crisis. This will allow us as a community to monitor the local species and to protect them if needs be from the effects of climate change.

Lightbulb Library
We presently have for a short time only a light bulb library available for loan. This is intended to help you to make the right decisions before you buy as to what low energy bulbs are comparable to their tungsten counterparts. The tungsten bulb will thankfully not be with us for very much longer, so it is an ideal opportunity to take advantage of a reference such as this.

Age of Stupid
We are hoping to show a film called ‘The Age of Stupid’ later in the year which stars Pete Postlethwaite as a librarian in a very different world of 2055 asking the question ‘Why didn’t we do something about climate change when we had the chance?’ which is a more than poignant moment to bring my talk today to a close and gratefully thank the Parish Council for allowing me to speak today and for you the community to put up so politely with my ramblings. If any one has any questions I would be happy to do my best to answer them now.

Jonathan Hoare
Chairman of the RLFI

 

RLFI Update 15/02/09

Since The RLFI's inception in July last year the development of the group and its initiatives have come along in leaps and bounds.

As with any community based project it is imperative that any of the planned projects are backed by the people they are intended for. On Wednesday 26th November the RLFI held its first community event. It was in the theme of an environmental quiz but also included an opportunity for the participants to give their thoughts and support of the proposed initiatives.

The evening was comprised of an introduction by the Chairman of the group, and a talk by David Webb of Sustain NK, and his counterpart from the County Council. Following this we moved on to an environmental quiz, which was great fun. The winners, Joe and Daniel Bland were presented by David Webb with a wind up radio. We then had a break with some light refreshments and those in attendance had the opportunity to give some feedback as to the development of the projects that the RLFI are working on. It was all very positive and all the projects received the thumbs up. Additional suggestions of areas we could cover that came from the get together included; Wind turbines, compost scheme, cider press, allotments for local produce, car sharing, cinema In village hall, community combined heat and power using local woodland or
biomass, photo voltaics on church roof, park for play and football, village signs restoration. All these ideas will be assessed for suitability and will be dealt with as the project develops as a whole.

Since then one of our major projects the 'Locavores Project' has begun to develop at an impressive speed. The project in essence involves the development of a community run walled garden and orchard, a village farmers market and the development of a village store. The group had its first meeting at the site of the walled garden back in December last year and the steering group is in the process of tailoring a document to put a bid in for development funding in March. The initial funding will allow the group to ascertain the budget for the second phase of the project, being the development of the walled garden and the community store. The first phase will also involve the development of an orchard and farmers market as well as a community Cider pressing in October of this year. So all in all we have a busy year ahead of us, one which we hope you will also involved with in some way.

There will be many RLFI events during the year, and some of these will be an opportunity for you to air your views on what the RLFI is developing for your community.

One of the first major events will be a 'Biodiversity Audit' on the 16th May 2009. The purpose of this audit is to ensure the community is aware of the species around them and to actively seek to protect and make the most of them. It will include the involvement of a variety of local professional bodies who will collate the evidence and will need community involvement. It is the RLFI's intention to carry out regular biodiversity audits to monitor the affect of climate change on the local flora and fauna.

In June there will be a screening of the critically acclaimed 'Age of Stupid', a must see film of what the future will hold if we are stupid enough to come to the conclusion that we as a race are not worth saving. The film stars Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite. See press for details or go to www.ageofstupid.net

Any one wishing to be involved with the RLFI and its projects or if you have any suggestions please do contact Jonathan Hoare (the editor) to be placed on the mailing list. Here's hoping that we can make some great advances this year in combating the long term effects of climate change and work towards building our sustainable future.

 

Another Credit Crunch Busting Result

Ria has been at it again, and has managed to secure an exceptional discount for the 22 people that ordered their oil through the syndicate. Ria said, 'Well, I have negotiated very hard on our behalf, just as well I enjoy it! I have phoned four suppliers in total and they have come back with the following prices:

• Total Butler 26.82/litre
• Watsons of Lincoln 27.49
• Fuel Care 27.48
• Chandlers 26.80
• Boiler Juice 33.45

I am really chuffed with those prices; if we had ordered individually then those ordering 500 litres would have paid 33.97 and those ordering 1000+ would have paid 31.75. So we have made a huge saving as the total amount ordered is almost 25,000 litres at an average saving 5.5 pence per litre is £1375.00, a good result I am sure you will agree.'

A big thank you to Ria for all her hard work at negotiating the oil syndicate prices. Well done and what a fab credit crunch busting result.

 

Community Oil Purchase Results (29/10/08)

The Rauceby Syndicate set up by Ria Harkess for the Community Oil Purchase has placed their order with the winning supplier. Of the four suppliers that were approached Chandlers Oil & Gas, came in with a price on the 17,000 litres of 39.48 pence per litre.

If an individual was to place an order for 1000 litres they would have had to pay 43.98 pence per litre. The saving for the community came in at 4.5 pence per litre cheaper. This means a saving of £765.00 for the community.

A huge vote of thanks must go to Ria for her hard work in negotiating this excellent deal on our heating oil price. Ria said 'I am hoping that it has helped people on lower income more, as many companies don't like to come out for 500 litres and they often pay a much higher price than those who order 1000+ litres.'

What a huge success, lets hope that more folk come forward next time with their orders and take advantage of these amazing savings. Well done Ria and thanks again.

 

Article published in the Rauceby Parish News, Autumn 2008:

Get Clever With 'Smart Meter'
We have 50 'Smart Meters' available for a two month loan from October to the end of November. At the end of July 2008 a group of Rauceby residents got together for the first meeting of the Rauceby Little Footprint Initiative. These people are not the usual tree huggers and all have the same vision. That vision is to focus on allowing our community to develop into a model of sustainability, both social and environmental.

Through SustainNK, the RLFI is offering an incredibly exciting initiative to the first fifty households to contact The Rauceby Parish News to be involved with a trial involving the 'Smart Meter'. The Smart Meter is an intuitive little gadget that monitors the amount of electricity we use in our homes. It helps you to understand which appliances, gadgets and fixtures within your home are the most energy demanding and allows you to decide where you can make changes so as to reduce your bills and your environmental impact. In fact every home should have one.

There will come a time when our government will dictate (and if you think things times are tough now, just wait and see what the future holds), the way in which we live and consume energy.

Whether you subscribe to the reality of global warming or feel it is just another attempt of government spin to further emphasise the 'climate of fear', there will come a time, as with 'Darwinism' and 'The Creation', when we will just have to bite our lips and get on with working together. There is no point in arguing and if we do there is a good chance we will all be extinct before reaching an agreement. It is without doubt that energy will get more and more expensive and saving energy will be increasingly cost effective.

Our community has the potential to benefit hugely from funding available to make our community more self sufficient. There was a time in Rauceby's heritage when we were self sufficient. We had a Miller, a Baker, a Butcher, a Coal merchant, a Village shop, a Post Office, a Cobbler, a Brickwork's, a Quarry, and everything else that was required to sustain a community.

The RLFI is not about to dictate to you how you live your lives but to suggest to you the benefits of becoming part of an initiative to work towards developing some groundbreaking models that can not only change the way we live for the better but also benefit other communities.

So you ask what's in it for you? The ideas we have come up with so far are very challenging. They cover such things as improving our transport network. Ensuring that children can walk or cycle to school without being hindered by heavy traffic. Community owned facilities like a community store selling local produce. A grow our own policy, with community run allotments scheme and orchard. Community heating, where everyone can benefit from one source of renewable energy. Solar panels for all. Insulation for all.

All these ideas and more can be achieved through the funding available for a project such as this. What does this mean to the householder. Renewable energy and heating systems at minimal cost to the individual to install. An improved community spirit, locally grown fruit and vegetables, and an appetite to engage in something worthwhile.

If we act now as a community when these things are achievable rather than waiting until there is no longer the funding available, we have the potential of building a healthy future for our community and leaving a desirable legacy for our offspring. That is what sustainability is about. Not being dictated to by our peers with regard to carbon footprint and climate change at every opportunity. We can find solutions that work for us through a real common sense approach. Working together as a community we can make the difference.

Ultimately if we as individuals can see a way of saving money, and if it in turn helps our environment what could be better. We are privileged here in Rauceby to be living in a very beautiful environment. Long may it last.

If you are interested in having a two month trial with a smart meter then please contact Jonathan Hoare (the editor) on 01529 488508 or email at jonathanhoare@mac.com to arrange the free installation of your trial smart meter.

If you also feel that you want to be involved with RLFI focus group then please also contact Jonathan. It is open to all and we need to hear from you to ensure that we are making the right decisions. This needs to be a project that is developed and run by the community for the community. Why not get clever, save some money and in turn insure the future of your environment. Its not a tough decision and it might just guarantee a much more comfortable future for us all.

 

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