Climate Action
Measure your emissions
Understanding your impact on the climate based on your activities helps you to understand areas where you can reduce your impact. Small changes by everyone can result in great outcomes.
Our council is promoting the use of Futurefit to encourage our community to look into actions they can take to reduce their impact in an easy and positive way. Results gathered from Futurefit will help influence future work in the climate action space for Te Tai Tokerau in conjunction with our neighbouring Councils. Check out Futurefit here.
Carbon Neutral New Zealand Trust is a citizen-based, community initiatives aimed at addressing climate change at the local level and offer a number of tools for individuals, households and business to assess and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Postive actions you can take
Personal Lifestyle
- Carpool where possible if walking or cycling are not options
- Switch to an electric vehicle
- Eat less meat and animal-based products, try a meat-free day once a week
- Create a weekly meal plan to reduce food waste
- Take shorter showers
- Use clothes driers less often and instead dry the clothing outside
- Try to buy second-hand before new
- BYO reusable cups or opt to drink your coffee in the cafe
- Plant native trees on your property or join a community planting day
- Advocacy to Council and Government for systematic changes
- Create awareness and promote living a sustainable lifestyle with friends and family (whānau)
Construction
- Install low-flow water fixtures
- Collect rainwater for the household and garden
- Utilise thermal mass for heating and cooling
- Orientate your house to take advantage of solar
Smarter Homes - Tools and Resources
New Zealand Green Building Council - Homestar
Business
- Procurement of sustainable businesses
- Investing in energy-efficient lighting and heating in offices
- Limiting packaging of products
- Reduce waste going to landfill
- Encouraging and supporting staff to use active modes of transportation to commute.
Genless - Businesses
ECCA - Energy Efficiency