Rauceby Little Footprint Initiative

Contact

Jonathan Hoare - 01529 488508

www.raucebyonline.co.uk

Summary

Rauceby Little Footprint is a new community group in Lincolnshire aiming to make Rauceby a model of sustainability. Their first projects will be looking at monitoring household electricity use, working with local schools, working towards developing renewable energy sources, and investigating setting up a social enterprise to run shop selling locally produced fruit and veg.

Full description

Rauceby Little Footprint Initiative is a focus group whose vision is to focus on ways in which Rauceby as a village can modify the way we consume and live to allow our community to develop into a model of sustainability, both social and in turn environmental. It will not just be discussing the issues and promoting them but also by bringing about the introduction of a variety of initiatives. The group will work closely with environmental agencies and local government seeking advice and funding to bring about the development of the variety of initiatives.

Some of the Initiatives:

1. To attempt to engage our community our first initiative is to have a trial with an Efergy ‘Smart Meter’. In conjunction with SustainNK we are planning to have a two month trial with the smart meter in October/November with 50 Households in North and South Rauceby. During the trial we plan to have a get together with the participants to take note of the findings and to undertake a questionnaire to establish what the participants would like the focus group to achieve. We are hoping that there will be people who would like to become involved with the focus group and set up steering groups to deal with each particular project. It is hoped that the smart meter will engage people in the project by seeing what they can do to make financial savings and in turn make environmental savings with certain life style changes.

2. We will suggest to schools locally to involve children in the issues regarding climate change. We are suggesting that kids could be actively involved from as young as reception class by planting a seed to grow a tree. Each pupils tree could be looked after by the student and at the end of the fourth year of their education at the primary school the tree could be planted in a wood belonging to a local land owner. The student will receive a certificate of where the tree has been planted and would be welcome to contact the landowner to check on the trees development. This initiative should inform the student of the importance that nature plays in the environmental process and how by making certain changes to the way we live we can work towards reversing the climate change crisis.

3. This involves co-ordinating with local food producers and through local government funding developing a social enterprise community store to sell local produce. This is hoped to encourage people to shop locally thereby reducing their environmental impact. The initiative will also look at the development of an allotment scheme for the production of vegetables, fruit and some livestock. All the processes involved will be scrutinized to ensure that there is a favourable equilibrium between social and environmental sustainability.

4.This involves the formation of a pressure group to work with local politicians, utility companies and vehicle manufacturers to ensure the development of renewable energy sources, non fossil fuel burning vehicles and ways of reducing the environmental impact of Rauceby and surrounding areas. It is hoped that the models developed by RLFI can eventually be adopted by other communities.