Page 5 - TNE WORKBOOK

Welcome to Transition Streets

Canberra!

Wait a sec, what’s Transition Streets again?

Transition Streets is a free program designed to help us all build a stronger community and reduce our
ecological footprint and our impact on the environment.

It involves a series of workshops or sessions — set out in this booklet — that you can take in your own home,
with your household, or with a bunch of your neighbours and friends.

By reading through this booklet together and doing the fun activities with friends, you’ll be able to save
money on your electricity, water and grocery bills, reduce your carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, help
minimise your household’s reliance on fossil fuels, find cheap and free alternatives to pricey consumer
products and improve your health! Sounds pretty good, right?

Why is it important?

Aside from the financial and health benefits, reducing your personal ecological footprint is one of the most
tangible and effective things you can do if you’re concerned about environmental sustainability and if you
want Australia to do more to address climate change.

Household consumption accounts for 60% of emissions globally.1 Australia has the 4th highest per person
greenhouse gas emissions footprint in the entire world. We’re just behind the oil-rich states of Saudi Arabia,
Qatar and the UAE. And at about 17 tonnes of CO2 per person each year, our carbon emissions footprint from
consumption is more than triple the global average.2 And guess who has the power to change your household
consumption? You!

If you do this program with your friends, you’ll prove to yourself that you are powerful, that your choices do
have an impact and that you get to choose whether that impact is positive or negative.

The wonderful thing about many sustainable behaviours is that they’re contagious – a few of the people
around you who see you taking on the activities in this workbook are likely to take them up in their own lives
too, and amazingly, they’ll take up these habits and consumer choices regardless of their own environmental
preferences.3 This phenomenon is called ‘the neighbourhood effect’ – and you can create it in your own street
or amongst your own group of friends by running through this program.4 So if you decide to switch your
bank, or eat less meat, or buy eco-friendly washing detergent, it won’t just be a drop in the bucket – it actually
has a big flow-on effect. While we face an uncertain future, we also have the opportunity to think about the
type of community we want to live in and to start creating that community right now.

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