You probably know that the typical U.S. household generates 55,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, compared to only 27,000 pounds in Germany and a mere 15,000 pounds in Sweden. You probably also know that the average American resident uses the energy equivalent of 952 gallons of gasoline per year through their household and travel energy consumption; according to the EPA, the resulting CO2 emissions per year equals 9.44 tons per person. It's enough to make you think.

And so it is that we at Seventh Generation have formed the 20/20 by 2010 initiative, a hope-generating, "if it aint' fun don't do it", education group dedicated to helping folks in the Seventh Generation Nation save money on energy costs, create a clean energy future (for themselves and their communities) and reduce our collective energy usage and C02 footprint by 20% and use 20% renewables (20/20), all by 2010.

We have adopted a program described by David Gershon in his workbook The Low Carbon Diet (LCD), A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds. The book outlines a process by which groups—called ‘EcoTeams’—come together over a one- or two-month period and select actions to reduce their carbon footprint. The program is straight-forward and is a great way to get people in their busy-busy lives to become more aware and actually find ways to reduce their energy use. The LCD is a program in which every household calculates its CO2 emissions—its ‘carbon footprint’—and, by making a number of changes in its energy use, reduces this footprint. The average reduction? 5000-12,000 pounds per household.

The reasons that the EcoTeam approach is so much more successful in changing energy use habits than other protocols and lists of "What You Can Do" are:

1. There’s social fun, creativity and support in the process, as well as the experience and wisdom of others.
2. Each household commits to making specific changes by the next meeting, so each is accountable to the other members of the team within an agreed-to time-frame. At the meetings, each household reports each action they have taken.
3. The amount of carbon avoided by each action-step has been calculated (on a yearly basis) and is printed next to the step in the workbook, so each step is immediately measurable. Thus, progress is palpable and provides incentive for further changes.
4. The process takes place over a long-enough period that participants have time to change habits and household-systems.

We have a bunch of movies we will be posting to give you information on what you can do. We will have reports from community-based Eco Team Groups that are forming and getting into the swing of reducing and redesigning their to do more with less impact. We will also have a calculator that we will have posted for people to measure their footprint - set baselines - an see how well they are doing.