Kootenay Co-ops Rise to Carbon Challenge

16 Jun 2008

(Nelson) Nelson lived up to its reputation as a "green" community and rolled in as one of the leading cities across the country in last week's National Commuter Challenge.

The Commuter Challenge is an annual event in the first week of June aimed at getting Canadians to choose sustainable forms of transportation, such as, cycling, walking, ridesharing, bussing, and teleconferencing. Nelson had the second highest result for percentage of community member participation and the highest for a city its size.

As part of the nation-wide Commuter Challenge - Nelson & District Credit Union challenged other local cooperatives to determine which organization could leave a lighter commuter carbon foot-print from June 1st-7th. A grading system of walking, cycling, teleconferencing, public transit, car-pooling and driving solo was used.

The local co-operative in Nelson which accepted the credit union's challenge was the Kootenay Co-op Country Store. Bragging rights for the winning team and $200 being paid by the losing team to the West Kootenay Eco-Society was laid down.

Though $200 was paid by Nelson & District Credit Union as their staff used the most fuel to get to and from work, the real challenge was to each individual staff member to make a minor adjustments to their commuting habits...and many did.

Following the challenge, many success stories were shared benefiting the environment. Some staff cycled to work or took public transit for the first time. Others had a social week of filling up their cars with newfound car-poolers.

22 staff from Nelson & District Credit Union participated in the challenge, collectively saving over 3,500km of driving over the week.

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Category: Community, Environment