Sevenoaks CRAG 1st year minutes (13/3/2008)

david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

Minutes of Sevenoaks CRAG meeting 13th March 2008, to finalise our first Carbon Year.

Present: Susan Fallmann, David & Mary Bassendine, Mary & Barry Edmead, Lisa Simmonds, Ian Smith, Hazel Schofield and Dana Rowan (observing).

We had Dana from California visiting – she’s investigating CRAGs as a possible project. Great to meet you, Dana!

Agenda:

1. Footprinting Workshop
2. Finalising the Carbon Year
3. Our allowance system
4. Individual thoughts on the last year & plans for the next
5. Group activities next year
6. ADDENDUM: Allowances & Settling Up

1. Footprinting workshop

Well, we all got out the calculators and got down to business, to find out our 2007 footprints! It was quite successful, I think, in helping out with bills and resolving queries.

2. Our initial (2006) footprints (tCO2):

David: 3.4
Mary B: 14
Barry: 4.3
Mary E: 4.3
Susan: 5.1 (revised)
Lisa: 6.7
Ian: 2.8
average: 5.8
(Rosemary: 8.3)
(Caroline: 4.8)

Our 2007 footprints (tCO2):

David: 3.7
Mary B: 4.6
Barry: 4.05
Mary E: 4.05
Susan: 4.7
Lisa: 4.3
Ian: 2.6
average: 4.0

This is an average reduction of 31% on our previous year’s footprints! The whole group footprint (28t) came in well under our total group allowance (36t) (see below)

Also, Hazel joined this year with a footprint of 16t.

3. Allowance system

At a previous meeting we decided on an individually-calculated allowance system where allowances started from the level at which anyone joined the group (ie. their initial footprint), but reduced at a higher rate for higher footprints:

20-15t: 25% annual reduction
15-10t: 20%
10-7t: 15%
7-5t: 10%
3.7): Footprint actually went up, largely due to a uncalculated ferry trip to N. Spain, that took more time, and cost more in carbon and pounds! Doesn’t drive or fly, so this has kept footprint relatively low. Being a lodger for the past six months means you have little control over household emissions, and its difficult to get access to meter readings for footprinting.

Mary B (14=>4.6): Wants to go India to research a book, but for now is using local resources and the local Indian communities for research – but it’s very hard! Using the train instead of car for commute to work, and public transport between work visits. Has been looking to improve loft insulation, but complicated cases (eg. loft eaves) are difficult to get done. Kent Energy Centre (KEC) refer you to local builders, but builders are unwilling or unable to do it.

Barry & Mary E (both 4.3=>4.05): Found that doing all the ironing in one evening (an evening of hell!) cut their electricity bill by around 20%! Have switched some car use to public transport. Also convinced a whole group to go to Strasbourg by train rather than flying! => Looking to sort out cavity wall insulation (but Ian cautioned them that carbon monoxide can build-up if leaks are plugged up, if combustion fires are being used for heating)

Susan (5.1=>4.7): Cut out car use, but needed to take a plane trip to Malaga in order not to let her daughter down. => Looking to a new boiler & tank, and solar thermal

Lisa (6.7=>4.3): Finds being a CRAGger is difficult to communicate to others members of the household! Insulation in one part of the house has made it much warmer, but the heat difference between different parts of the house has interfered with the thermostat, making the heating system very difficult to run without fitting individual thermostats on radiators (costly).

Ian (2.8=>2.6): Has changed lifestyle to use public transport for longer journeys, rather than the car. Installed solar thermal to replace economy7 electricity use.

Hazel (16 to start): Flights to Thailand responsible for massive footprint! => Flights will go this year; also planning new condensing boiler, solar thermal, cavity wall insulation

5. Group activities for next year

A rapid-fire brainstorming session. These were the ideas that came up:

• Community insulation project. We thought we could target a fuel-poverty area and help householders with sorting out insulation & solar thermal to them (in collaboration with local business/council?). Mary pointed out the main barrier to installing loft insulation was the problem of loft storage. Volunteers could move it out and put it back on installed shelves afterwards, to help with this. Ian suggested checking out areas on Google Earth to see which had south-facing roofs for solar thermal!

• Writing and communication workshop. Mary would like to organise a writing workshop where we all bring along a sample article on climate change. We would experiment with different ways of communicating climate change in order to widen our audience.

• Biomass. There is already a good coppice resource locally, and David and Ian remain interested in doing something on this, but its been on the back burner. Need to recontact Louise Shrubsole for contacts and progress feedback.

• Transition Towns. The next big step is Susan’s Transition Town launch in a few weeks. There will be a core group (which, she hopes will include people from the CRAG), which will dissolve into separate working groups (eg. on energy etc.). We have still to work out how we will run TT and CRAGs alongside each other.

We also discussed some way of continuing the discussion before the next meeting, but haven’t sorted out a way of doing this.

6. ADDENDUM: Allowances & Settling up

We didn’t discuss this at the meeting, but I’ve compared our footprints to this year’s allowances, calculated the settling up (we agreed on 4p/kg = £40/t with a £100 cap), and shown our allowances for this next year.

Our 2007 footprints (tCO2), allowances (in ()), and credit/debt (in [], – = debt, + = credit):

David: 3.7 (3.2) [-0.5 = £19 to pay]
Mary B: 4.6 (11.2) [+6.6]
Barry: 4.05 (4.1) [+0.04]
Mary E: 4.05 (4.1) [+0.04]
Susan: 4.7 (4.6) [-0.1 = £4 to pay]
Lisa: 4.3 (6.0) [+1.7]
Ian: 2.6 (2.7) [+0.06]
average: 4.0 (5.13) [+1.1 on average]

Only Susan and me are in debt! I’m quite happy to pay my £19, but we still haven’t organised how to deal with funds or where they will go. Perhaps this is all something to discuss at the next meeting?!

Our 2008 allowances – here’s what we’re aiming for this year under our individual convergence system:

David: 3.1
Mary B: 9.5
Barry: 3.9
Mary E: 3.9
Susan: 4.4
Lisa: 5.4
Ian: 2.5
Hazel: 12
average: 5.6
(Rosemary: 6)
(Caroline: 4.3)

NB: our average allowance has gone up to 5.6 (from 5.1 this year), because of new high-emitter members (no offence, Hazel! – it’s really great to have you on board) – but, taking on new high emitters is also a very positive sign (perhaps this is a problem with looking just at averages). So, something else to debate, possibly?