This past weekend, the Community Resiliency Working Group launched a webpage to help Harvard residents take action against climate change. Created through MassEnergize, a nonprofit organization dedicated to working with local communities to promote and implement “household and community-level climate actions,” this site will allow residents to opt into sustainability commitments that they can tackle from home.
In an interview with the Press, CRWG Chair Ellen Sachs Leicher said that by launching this site, the group hopes people will start to take responsibility for reducing their own carbon footprints. “We’re trying to get people to commit,” she said, adding that people often shy away from sustainability, not realizing that they can make a difference.
Once registered as a household, Harvard residents can choose from a variety of climate actions to participate in. Sachs Leicher explained that these include small commitments—such as composting, replacing traditional light bulbs with LEDs, and unplugging electrical devices and turning off lights when not in use—as well as larger and more expensive commitments, such as purchasing an electric vehicle and switching to heating and cooling systems that don’t rely on fossil fuels, like heat pumps and solar panels.
Paired with each suggestion are useful details to help get residents started. Along with an estimated environmental impact and monetary cost, there is also a description of each action, a “deep dive” into why it’s important, the steps required to complete the action, and space for testimonials of residents who have already completed it.
Sachs Leicher said the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in town are fossil fuel-based heating and cooling systems and cars. “So in the bigger picture, to help the state, country, and world, we hope that people go in that direction,” she said, but added, “We hope that people do a little bit of something and realize it’s not so hard.”
Harvard’s MassEnergize site can be found at this link: community.massenergize.org/HarvardMA, or accessed from the CRWG website, harvardsclimateinitiative.org. Residents can register for and participate in the climate action program online.
