HOW THE GOLD COAST COMMUNITY EVOLVED WITH EC3 GLOBAL
A large majority of the population struggle to understand how the practice of environmental sustainability can be applied to their everyday lives. The successful introduction of a sustainability education programme by Gold Coast City Council aimed at teaching students – and the wider community – how to reduce their environmental impact has succeeded in showing the Gold Coast community how easy it is to make a difference.
The project was developed so that parents would be involved in their children’s learning, helping to bring about behavioural change as both current household owners and the householders of the future, the students, are educated in sustainable practices.
The Sustainability Challenge is a collaborative project developed and managed by EC3 Global, after partnering with the Gold Coast City Council to evaluate the best way to advance the existing software so that it was easily accessible to both students and their parents.
The Challenge is based on an interactive web-based programme which has been designed to engage students in a fun interactive learning environment. EC3 Global’s earthcheck™ benchmarking system allows users to monitor and find the best way to reduce their use of household energy, transport energy, water and production of waste and ecological factors. Students are required to benchmark their own homes environmental performance, research sustainability options and set household goals to improve their performance.
The concept of working with schools and particularly teachers as the agents to guide the programme had the added bonus of providing a cost effective way for the Gold Coast City Council to gather information on household resource consumption and ecological impact. It was also an extremely effective way to communicate through the wider community the benefits of sustainability practices.
Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clark, a keen supporter of the initiative and its positive educational outcomes, believes “the challenge facing all communities is to learn to live more sustainably and this programme has been an important step for our city in that direction. The Earthcheck Schools programme helped benchmark the city in terms of energy, water and waste. This information can now become a guide to household behaviour which will help all levels of government to improve their environmental-education programmes and messages.”
The protection and enhancement of the Australian environment directly relates to the ability of communities and society as a whole to understand the concept of sustainability and to implement sustainable practices into their everyday lives.
At the community level, the Sustainability Challenge has provided a mechanism through which school children are directly educated on the concept and issues of sustainability and provided with the tools and knowledge to actively measure, monitor and implement strategies to improve the sustainability footprint in their own households.
The project was initially trialled with 13 Gold Coast schools. Phase two has evolved to target a larger area.
Whether you are an organisation, a government department or a household the need to be accountable for energy usage is critical to tackling today’s environmental issues. It is through collective efforts like this Gold Coast Council initiative that we will begin to see a reduction to emissions figures in the future.
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