Zoe’s zero-emissions toolkit

The Canberra Environment Centre is a non-government, not for profit environmental education centre that empowers people to create a sustainable future.

The centre supports lifelong behavioural change.

Project Officer Zoe McMahon was part of the centre’s team that created a toolkit to help people adapt to climate change, with the help of a Community Zero Emissions Grant.

The challenge

“The Canberra community is keen to put climate action into practice - however, sometimes it can be hard for people to know where to begin!” Zoe said.

“There are many resources available online, but the sheer quantity of often conflicting advice can be overwhelming and actually inhibitive.

“We wanted to curate a practical toolkit of in-person workshops and online resources to empower people to take climate action.”

The action

“The grant funds enabled us to recruit a part-time staff member to create the Adapt For Climate Toolkit,” Zoe said.

“We collaborated with experts to develop content, create high-quality videos, and run in-person and online workshops for the Canberra community.”

The workshops covered:

• growing your own food
• active travel
• planting for pollinators
• lowering your household waste
• planting climate-cooling gardens in your street
• adapting your home to be more energy efficient.

The benefit

“The toolkit helped people in the community adapt to climate change and lower their emissions,” Zoe said.

“We ran 21 workshops across Canberra that attracted 310 people.

“We had a huge amount of positive feedback from attendees who’ve now started their own climate action journeys.

“The nine videos created by the workshop presenters also attracted over 514,000 views from people worldwide.”