To drive sustainability in your club you can take the 7 steps described below. For more details please use our handbook.
Step 1: Understand the mindset and build an environmental team
Begin by assessing the perspectives of your club members to identify supporters and potential resistances to sustainability initiatives. Form a dedicated Environmental Team, ideally consisting of members who are passionate, influential, and knowledgeable about climate issues. This team will lead by example, create awareness, and maintain momentum for climate action within the club.
Step 2: Plan your actions and consider a pledge
Develop a 15-month plan with clear activities to gradually introduce sustainability into your club’s agenda. Align your plan with the club president and board to ensure broad support and resources for implementation. Consider taking a formal pledge to strengthen commitment and create a shared vision for sustainability.
Step 3: Start communication and build knowledge
Effective communication is vital to inspire action and educate members about climate change. Host presentations, share best practices, and keep sustainability discussions active in meetings. Extend communication externally to inspire other clubs and raise awareness in your community about Rotary’s environmental contributions.
Step 4: Estimate the CO2 footprint and handprint of your club
Use the Become Sustainable! Online CO2 Calculation Tool to assess your club’s CO2 emissions (footprint) and the positive impact of its actions (handprint). Understanding these metrics helps prioritize areas for improvement and track progress toward sustainability. Strive for a handprint that significantly exceeds your footprint to ensure a positive climate impact.
Step 5: Make financial contributions to turn your club carbon neutral
Offset unavoidable emissions by supporting our Recommended Rotary climate projects that reduce CO2. Financial contributions can provide immediate climate benefits and help clubs achieve carbon neutrality. Include a safety margin of 30-50% to ensure all emissions are compensated adequately.
Step 6: Reduce the footprint of your club’s activities
Adopt best practices to minimize the environmental impact of events, meetings, and daily operations. Simple actions, like reducing waste, optimizing transportation, and choosing sustainable catering options, can significantly lower emissions. Strive for continuous improvements in many small steps to create a long-term culture of sustainability.
Step 7: Start your club project and increase the handprint
Launch effective projects that not only reduce CO2 but also have a social impact. There is a complete list of Effective Projects that we can recommend. By actively engaging in projects, clubs can enhance their contributions to both climate mitigation and Rotary’s broader mission.
For a more detailed description including many examples please use our handbook.
Feel free to change the sequence of the steps. Please send us your experiences, ideas and actions with these, other or additional steps via email to contact@becomesustainable.org