UK: Community groups sign up to reduce environmental impact

Community groups, clubs and societies in the UK are being urged to sign up to an initiative to reduce their impact on the environment and boost local development. The Every Action Counts project, backed by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), will run to March 2009. The initiative, which is aiming to involve 14,000 local organisations over the next two and a half years, will concentrate on encouraging organisations to reflect on five core issues: saving energy, travel, ethical shopping, saving resources and caring for the local environment. It is being run by a consortium of partners led by the Community Sector Coalition and involves both the voluntary and community sector and environmental sector organisations. Once signed up, all signatories will receive ongoing support to enable them to improve their record in the five core areas. This will include regular updates, examples of best practice as well as the full use of a newly launched website packed full of useful resources. Community groups can find out and sign up to the project by visiting: www.everyactioncounts.org.uk. The website will log the number of actions carried out by registered voluntary organisations to show the cumulative impact of the project as a whole. Every Action Counts aims to show that by working together, each action can have a significant national impact both in terms of practical change and in terms of public awareness and involvement.