West Roxbury’s First Low-Carbon Diet Groups Lose over 50,000 Pounds
July 2, 2009
Sponsored by West Roxbury Saves Energy, fourteen local households came together this past spring to save energy, save money, and reduce their carbon footprints to help combat global warming. In two groups that each met four times to share calculations of their household carbon emissions, their carbon-reduction action plan strategies, and good food and conversation, members participated in the first-ever West Roxbury Low-Carbon Diet groups and collectively reduced their annual carbon emissions by over 50,000 pounds.
LCD groups, as they are known, are forming all over the country in neighborhoods and communities so that families can actively engage in making positive choices to reduce their household carbon emissions, a primary cause of global warming. Finding that it is more fun and easier to learn creative ways to cut back on their carbon output by sharing ideas and goals with a group of friends, many families are pledging together to take shorter showers, recycle more, stop using plastic bags, commute by public transportation at least once a week, wash clothes in cold water, and myriad other carbon-reducing measures that they decide on.
In West Roxbury’s first two LCD groups, participants agreed that they wanted to keep meeting every few months even after the “official” program ended because they had learned so many great strategies through their brainstorming sessions and because the time spent together had been a terrific way to feel a part of the community and make new friends.
“Going green as part of a group was more fun, and reporting my family’s success in meeting our goals to create less trash, take five-minute showers, and walk to do errands instead of driving made us more likely to follow through and prouder that we did so,” said one LCD group member. Other members said they were so inspired by the experience of their LCD group that they planned to get other neighbors involved in the program this summer and looked forward to leading a group themselves.
West Roxbury Saves Energy co-founders Rickie Harvey and Ray Porfilio will be leading a third LCD group this summer and plan to have another Smart Energy Party to launch additional groups for people who are interested. For more information or to find out how you can join a Low-Carbon Diet group in West Roxbury, e-mail wrse@westroxburysavesenergy.org.
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Bravo! I think working in groups is the way to go! It’s motivating and you get to know your neighbors better.
I participated in an LCD group in Brookline and loved it! I had already made many changes, but the LCD group helped me to make a few more and I’ve stuck with them a year later, personally cutting 5000 pounds of carbon without spending a penny.