» current:Rural Community Carbon Network
Shortlist announced for UK’s biggest ever community environment challenge.
ruralnet|uk are delighted to announce that the Rural Community Carbon Network has made it to Stage 2 of NESTA’s Big Green Challenge.
The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) has revealed
that ruralnet|uk has made it onto the 100-strong nationwide shortlist competing for a slice of its million-pound Big Green Challenge prize fund by coming up with innovative ways to tackle climate change in their communities.
ruralnet|uk aims to support rural communities cut carbon emissions and share experiences with its Rural Community Carbon Network (RCCN) project. Since early 2006 ruralnet|uk have been aware of communities, usually rural, that are working collectively to tackle climate change. The RCCN builds on ruralnet|uk’s long term experience in identifying similar community-based initiatives, linking them up and enabling them to help each other. And providing expert, just-in-time, support services.
Selected from hundreds of initial entries received by NESTA, the shortlist comprises a diverse array of groups including local network organisations, schools, charities and social enterprises. The Rural Community Carbon Network has been developed alongside research that ruralnet|uk has undertaken into community energy projects; Why they started; How they have evolved; How they are funded; What fringe benefits have there been to the community working together on this theme and so on. The RCCN will support collective action by joining people up.
The shortlisted groups now have until the beginning June to complete more detailed plans about how their ideas will work and will receive access to a range of experts to help them.
ruralnet|uk will be hoping to make the cut when the top 100 groups are whittled down to ten finalists in July, each of whom will receive up to £20,000, plus advice and support to get their green projects up and running over a year. The groups with the most imaginative and successful approach to cutting carbon emissions at the end of the competition will win a share of the £1m prize up for grabs.
Speaking of their success, Samantha Adams from ruralnet|uk said:
“We are delighted to have reached Stage 2 of the competition. The RCCN has been in development for over 18 months and builds upon an exisiting need for communities to access the ‘collective genuis’ that exists amongst all UK communities taking action to tackle climate change. Starting and maintaining a community energy project is not easy and most communities want to start by making contact with others’ who have ‘been there, done that’. The project will facilitate this open collaboration.”
Commenting on the group’s shortlisting, NESTA Chief Executive Jonathan Kestenbaum added:
“We’re delighted to announce that The Rural Community Carbon Network has made it through to the next stage of the Big Green Challenge. We launched the prize fund to encourage people to get together and come up with great ways to save the planet, and we’ve had an amazing reaction from groups right across the UK.
“Moving forward we hope to see local communities getting behind the exciting and innovative Rural Community Carbon Network, as they demonstrate how their ideas could really have an impact in the fight to combat climate change.”
Notes to editors
1. ruralnet|uk is registered charity number 1089238
2. About the Big Green Challenge:
From the beginning of June to the end of July, NESTA and a panel of expert judges will whittle down the 100 shortlisted ideas to the strongest 10. These finalists will then be given a year to put their ideas into practice, with financial support and advice from NESTA. The groups with the most imaginative – and proven – approaches at the end of the competition will win a share of the million pounds up for grabs.
How will it be judged?
In the second year of the Challenge, short-listed finalists will have to achieve a measurable reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, involve the whole group or community and prove that their ideas can be expanded or copied in a different area or setting.
3. About NESTA:
NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Its mission is to transform the UK’s capacity for innovation by investing in early stage companies, informing innovation policy and encouraging a culture that helps innovation to flourish.
For further information:
Samantha Adams
ruralnet|uk
NREC, Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire
t. 0845 1300 411
e.s.adams@ruralnetuk.org
ruralnet|uk is delighted to announce that the Rural Community Carbon Network (RCCN) has been awarded a £7,530 grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation – a fantastic start to the New Year!
More detail »
This is a diary of our journey towards the creation of the Rural Community Carbon Network (RCCN). The journey started in the summer of 2006. (more…)
Update: RCCN now has its own website here
The Rural Community Carbon Network : a collective response to
climate change - call for support (Rural Focus Jan/Feb07)
In the autumn of 2006 ruralnet|uk teamed up with the
Carnegie Rural Community Development Programme to seek to raise awareness and
promote collective approaches to reducing energy use and increasing energy
production from renewable sources, or in shorthand, reducing the carbon
footprint of communities.
We have invested in the design of a national programme to
support communities who are working collectively to reduce their carbon
footprint. We want to support communities on the leading edge who know a lot more
about the practicalities than we do and we also want to support communities who
want to do the same. We also want to raise awareness amongst others who haven’t
even thought about this approach before.
Take a look at some of the shared bookmarks we are currently collecting here. These bookmarks relate to current news or information about community energy projects.
The on-going mapping exercise can be seen here.
Further details are contained in these documents: Original A4 Summary - October 2006 (Format: PDF, Size:
122K)
Executive Summary - Version 4.4
- February 2007 (Format: PDF, Size: 184K)
Proposal - version 5.4D - May 2007 (Format: PDF, Size:230K)
