Engaging local communities

This chapter describes three Cooperative Research Centres for Low Carbon Living projects that trialled interventions assisting specific communities to reduce their carbon emissions. The projects worked, respectively, with regional tourism businesses, primary and secondary schools, and local residents, in each case using a tailored approach that provided a structure for change, necessary information, and professional and peer support. As well, they provided or made participants aware of incentives to reduce their carbon footprints, such as cost savings, opportunities to gain more customers, opportunities for student environmental education projects, and pleasant peer-based social learning. The projects led to significant carbon emissions reductions, and two of the projects have subsequently expanded beyond the regions and sectors in which initial trials were based.