Greening Neighborhoods

About a year ago a group of Peachtree Hills neighbors decided to do something about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving natural resources by attacking these problems through a grassroots effort.  Even though Atlanta has a fairly aggressive sustainability program with mandated LEED certification for all new government buildings and a commitment to meet the 2030 initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50%, those goals will not be met without conserving our natural resources on a household by household effort.  So a bottom up approach was initiated to complement government’s top down efforts.

Greening Neighborhoods’ mission is to promote, educate, and support neighborhood efforts to conserve our natural resources, save money, and reduce dependency on nonrenewable resources.  To do this we have outlined eight categories in which resources can be conserved, money can be saved and the individual household carbon foot print can be reduced.

Energy Saving Categories

1)      Alternative Transportation

Objective:  Reduce fuel bills, lower carbon footprint from personal vehicles.

2)      Heating and Air Conditioning

Objective: Reduce heating and cooling bills, decrease carbon footprint

3)      Storm Water Management and Municipal Water Management

Objective: Reduce storm water run off.  Reduce use of treated municipal water.

4)      Heat Island Effect

Objective: Use light colored roofing/paving materials to reflect solar heat gain and reduce heating and cooling bills..

5)      Light Pollution Reduction and Lighting Efficiencies

Objective: Use outdoor lighting fixtures that are shielded so no light is directed upward or off the lot.  Indoors, use low-energy consuming light bulbs.

6)      Separate and Properly Dispose of Recylicables

Objective:  Recycle waste materials to avoid using land fills

7)      Garden, Use Regional Materials and Renewable Materials

Objective: To reduce transportation costs of purchased goods and materials.

8)      Improve indoor air quality

Objective:  To create a healthy living environment and avoid future medical bills.

Greening Neighborhoods invites individuals to join our effort.  There is no cost to do so.  The only thing we ask for are two commitments from those who join:

1) Commit to keeping track of the water, heating fuel, electricity and gasoline used each month

and

2) Commit to keeping track of resource saving efforts that have been carried out.

This allows every household to create its own baseline from which to measure its success and to pass on successes to their neighbors.

Every week Greening Neighborhoods sends out a “tip” to its members on a way to save money and conserve resources.  From time to time the neighbors report back on what they have done.

For example, last November one of our neighbors installed 12 inches of fiber glass insulation in his attic.  Because he kept records from 2008, he had a baseline that allowed him to measure that in one month he had saved $60 in his gas bill over the previous November.

In February of 2009, another neighbor made a $20 investment and simply changed out her faucet and shower aerators to low flow ones.  Because she had records of her water use from 2008 she determined that by the end of 2009 she reduced her water use by 9%, saved 3,148 gallons of water and $58 in water bills.  Not bad for a $20 investment that will continue to save resources and money every year and provide an incentive to further reduce water consumption.

These are small success stories but taken together, neighbor by neighbor throughout the city, they add up to enormous savings.  The ultimate goals of Greening Neighborhoods are to reduce the carbon foot print of every participating household to zero by the year 2030, and to reduce our water use 50% by 2020.  With consistent conservation efforts by individual households and by taking advantage of greater and greater numbers of innovative sustainable products these goals will be reached.