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ECHO Action

Energy Conscious Households in Action (ECHO Action) is a European Union project aiming to reduce participating households' carbon emissions by 10 to 20% until 2009 through behavioural change. It builds on the premise that the support provided by a group motivates people to achieve more than they would as individuals and creates a model of active and voluntary involvement of families, residents and local small businesses.

Through our longstanding experience of carbon auditing, working with communities and our track record of making cuts to emissions, Carbon Descent became a partner in ECHO Action. With funding from the EU intelligent energy scheme, Transport for London and the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Greenwich, we hold monthly workshop sessions with groups of about 20 households at a time to inform them on carbon reduction topics such as sustainable transport, reducing heat loss, heating controls, insulation, saving electricity and walking and cycling. We took on the role of a trainer discussing with each household the options available to them, helping them make decisions and putting them into practice.

In total 107 households from Balham, Dulwich, Greenwich and Stockwell take part in London and we have already seen impressive reductions in energy use. For details on progress and the measures which were taken to date, please download our progress graph here.

ECHO Action started in 2006 and operates across Europe in Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal and Sweden. In 2009 the results of each country will be made public at www.echoaction.net.

Software for download

The success of the project and the individual households' performance is monitored through data collection. The households' utility bills from previous years provide a baseline and the current energy use is monitored and compared continually. This is done with two software tools developed by Carbon Descent which are available for download below. The Carbon reduction planning tool helps participants plan which actions will be most effective for their household and the Carbon reduction reporting tool calculates the carbon reductions from each change made on completion of the project.

1. Carbon reduction planning tool
2. Carbon reduction reporting tool

ECHO Action Handbook Factsheets for download

All households are given an ECHO Action Handbook with fact sheets for all our workshop topics. You can view and download the ECHO Action Factsheets below.

Energy Bills

Transport

3. Alternative fuels for cars
4. Car emissions and buying a new car
5. Efficient driving
6. Public transport in the UK
7. Car sharing and car clubs
8. Holidays without flying

Reducing Heat loss

9. Insulation check list
10. Reducing heat loss

Heating Controls

11. Heating controls

Insulation

12. Floor insulation

Saving Electricity

13. Down lights and spotlights
14. OWL and Wattson
15. Saving electricity

Walking and Cycling

16. Lambeth walks programme Jan 08
17. Useful walking and cycling websites
18. Walking and cycling fact sheet

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