Welcome
Global Policy, Local Projects
Community Carbon Reduction (CCR) provides resources for communities to work together on solutions to the risks of climate change. Our focus is on carbon reduction, but our methods of Collective Action could be adapted to help communities respond effectively to other issues as diverse as environmental protection, sustainable transport and affordable housing. This website provides information, assessment tools and templates for collective action.
CCR is a social enterprise provided by Cambridge Science and Policy Consulting with free expert support to projects reducing carbon emissions. Our focus is on communities, meaning cities, neighborhoods and residential or business complexes, as these are the scales of action where individuals - working together - can have the greatest impact. Projects we support can be any combination of behavior change, energy efficient buildings, and low carbon community energy systems (we do not work at the scale of grid power, since that is best left to the professionals at utilities). We call these three areas of support:
The guidance you will find here uses examples from Cambridge in the UK, as this is where we live. But our approach to carbon reduction can be applied in communities anywhere in the world with a commitment to reducing the risks of climate change.
One site, three sections
There are three sections of this website:
Community Carbon Reduction provides background information and ideas for carbon reduction
Project Cambridge shows how those ideas were applied in the Cambridge Retrofit programme
Taking Action contains templates for community mobilisation to reduce carbon
You will find the 'markers' for these three sections in the upper left corner of each page, helping you understand which section you are in at any time.
Steps to success
Our process of community mobilization for low carbon projects has six steps:
Assessment - measuring where your emissions currently stand, and where you hope to be
Buyers Collective - organising potential project owners to create demand
Sellers Market - putting up sign posts for goods and services
Events - bringing the community together to identify new projects and celebrate success
Sponsors - hearing from community thought leaders and influencers
Posting Board - getting your voice heard on supply and demand for projects
This site contains templates for these steps which can be used in any community. These templates are based on Project Cambridgeshire and can be found on that part of this site. We call that part 'Taking Action'; the other parts of the site provide all of the background material needed to plan the actions needed. Feel free to use the templates for your own community programme, replacing the data and images to reflect your local situation.
How can we help?
You can visit our services either through the following hotlinks or using the horizontal navigation bar.
And now for something completely different...
This video was produced by the Vatican for the Pope's 2015 encyclical on the responsibility to reduce the risks of climate change, featuring the leader of the CCR. It is a global call to action for governments, businesses, communities and individuals world-wide. Just turn your speakers on and click the arrow to begin the video.
Learn how CCR helped develop the principles of community carbon reduction in Cambridge UK through the video below. It is a movie of about 9 minutes featuring the launch of Cambridge Retrofit. The same process is supported by CCR in San Diego, Cambridgeshire and other communities.