To take action for Earth Day, Antioch interns participated in a month long Cleaner Contra Costa Challenge. This challenge was created to help Contra Costa County residents take climate action and save money, energy, water, reduce waste and build strong, connected communities. Students were introduced to the challenge and guided in setting up their profiles by guest speaker, Colleen Noland, of Sustainable Contra Costa.
The platform works in 3 basic ways:
1. The first step is to complete your energy profile (optional). This is answering a few questions to saying what is your impact today so you can see where you’re starting from. This step is OPTIONAL but doing it will allow you to see your current footprint and give more accurate information about how your actions affect your impact. It’s really easy to do – takes 5 – 10 minutes.
2. Then, the next step is to find some actions that you want to take for your household
3. The third step is to start or join a community so you can work together with a team, support and encourage each other along, and also to celebrate your success together.
Take a look at the impact Antioch interns had on their carbon footprint by choosing to complete the actions below. For example, some students committed to turning off lights and appliances more often. One student shared, “Sometimes I leave the lights on even when I don’t need them so I’ve stopped doing that and I’m more conscious about the lights and when to turn them off.”
Overall the team completed 28 actions, saving their households a collective $1,890! Their actions equate to approximately 7 tons less of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere and 9,152 gallons of water saved.