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Imagine what Bristol could be in the future:
- a city where clean, green, affordable electricity and gas is produced and delivered by the community for the community. Where houses are warm and healthy in winter. Where decent long-lasting jobs grow from making the city more sustainable. Where profits are shared and communities benefit. Where Bristol shines as a green beacon to cities across Great Britain to show how a better future can be fun. Now is your chance to make this happen!
Bristol is a city bursting with good ideas for making our city truly sustainable. Dozens of groups, of all kinds and sizes – from the City Council to community-based volunteers - are already striving to make Bristol fit to survive in the 21st Century, and one of the most important areas in which they are working is with energy. How we use energy doesn’t just affect our wallets. It has one of the biggest effects on how we conserve our planet for our children and grandchildren.
Whether it is the City Council’s wind turbines and own energy company, Bristol Energy Co-operative’s and Low Carbon Gordano’s large solar-electric PV arrays, community groups helping people to save money by switching energy suppliers and making home improvements, or activists fighting dirty fossil-fuel exploiters; dozens of groups and members of the Bristol Energy Network are already working towards a fairer, greener, city for our home. But we must to do more to bring about the change we all need.
Bristol Energy Network is a network of around 30 members groups working across the city. We need to raise £3,000 to help expand our work. This funding will allow us to:
- Host talks and film-screenings
- Run workshops for people on low incomes providing advice on reducing energy bills
- Provide materials for home improvements, such as draught-proofing kits
- Get new and upgraded public engagement tools
- Carry out thermal imaging surveys of people’s homes to help them identify where they are losing heat
Why is this important?
Our current energy system does not work for the people or the planet. Many people cannot afford to pay for the energy they need, with thousands dying every winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes. We waste huge amounts of energy, for example a lot of heat is lost from our homes when they are not properly insulated. Our energy system is controlled by large companies and is run to make money rather than to benefit people, and most of the energy is generated from burning fossil fuels, which not only creates climate change but also the extraction of fossil fuels destroys the planet and harms the communities who live nearby.
We need to reach more people across the city and get them involved in creating a better energy system. By raising awareness and providing information and resources we can help bring about change in individual lives as well as at a community and political level.