SusMo - Sustainable Moseley
NEXT SUSMO MEETING on Thursday 16th May at 7.30 p.m.
For a trial three month period SusMo and KHTI (the Kings Heath Transition Initiative) will hold joint open meetings at 19.30 on the third Thursday of the month.
On May 16th and June 20th, the venue is the upstairs room at the Kitchen Garden Café, 17 York Road, B14 7SA; On July 18th we will meet in Moseley, venue tba.
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We are able to secure 90% funding for energy efficiency improvements for 40 homes in Moseley - contact and/or come to the meeting to find out more.
Meetings are informal and friendly - come and find out more about what we are doing to progress our aim "Supporting our community in reducing our CO2 emissions".
Contact Claire on 07878 792 763 if you need further details
HOME ENERGY ASSESSMENTS
If you live in the area, and your home needs more insulation and is draughty, get in touch with Angela Cooper, Project Manager - – or on 07587089191
FINAL BRITISH GAS GREEN STREETS UPDATE:
With the installation of Solar PV panels on the pavilion at Moor Green Allotments, electricity is now being generated by Solar PV panels on all four community buildings.
Hear an UPDATE at the meeting: about how much electricity has been generated by Solar PV panels at St Mary's Church, Hamza Mosque, Moseley CofE School and Moor Green Allotments
UPDATE 28 July 2011:
Solar PV panels are generating electricity at St Mary's Church, Hamza Mosque and Moseley CofE School
These three installations all have display meters recording the live energy generation, the kwh generated to date and weight of CO2 saved to date.
To find out more come to our next meeting! We hope for news of the installation at Moor Green Allotments soon. UPDATE 17 Aug 2011 The installation has planning approval and arrangements for the installation are progressing.
GOOD NEWS: SusMo is a British Gas GREEN STREETS WINNER
SusMo is one of fourteen winners in the British Gas Green Streets competition, sharing prize money of £2 million. UPDATE 7 April 2011 - the project is coming to an end and a presentation for a further prize (£100,000 worth of energy saving improvements) will be held on June 1st.
The competition is about saving energy, generating energy and engaging the community.
Andrew Hogan, Director of Communications, at British Gas, who sat on the judging panel in 2009, said: “The level of support within this community is outstanding. I was very impressed with the huge participation from across the area.
“To make Britain a greener place we need to build on the commitment and initiative of our communities. All the inspiring presentations we saw are proof of the passion, knowledge and energy that is out there in our communities. We were particularly encouraged by the strong focus that SusMo had on diversity and the ideas they had to involve the whole community.”
The SusMo Green Streets project will install energy-saving and renewable energy measures at the Moor Green allotment site (MADAHAL), in three community buildings – Moseley CofE School, Hamza Mosque and St. Mary’s Church and in 20 homes. The homes have been selected and include a mixture of tenures, income groups and ethnic backgrounds.
The project is managed by SusMo volunteers together with representatives from six partner organisations: Hamza Mosque, Moor Green Allotments, Moseley Community Development Trust, Moseley and District Churches Housing Association, Moseley CofE School and St Mary’s Church.
For more information about reducing Moseley's carbon footprint, check the SusMo blog in the Birmingham Mail.
SusMo: Sustainable Moseley – Supporting our community to reduce our CO2 emissions.
If you live in Moseley and would like to join this campaign to find out:
- how you can save money
- how you can help Birmingham to cut its CO2 emissions by at least 60% by 2026
- how you can help to save the planet
write to SusMo: or leave a message for SusMo at the Moseley Exchange, The Post Office Building, 149-153 Alcester Road, Moseley, Birmingham B13 8JP
Please provide your name, house/flat number, road, post code and phone number and, if you have one, your e-mail address. Thank you
Minutes of meetings are available under the 'Meetings' tab.
SusMo was set up as a sub-group of Moseley Forum from the considerable demand for action at the very successful Moseley Forum Public Meeting: 'Save Money & Save the Planet' that launched Moseley Festival on Friday, 22nd June, 2007. The first meeting of the group, which has cross-party support from local politicians – that later adopted the name SusMo - took place on Thursday, 5th July, at the Moseley Community Development Trust. A follow up was held on Thursday, 31st July, at Moseley & District Churches Housing Association.
SusMo is aiming to make Moseley a more sustainable community both by personal action to cut our household CO2 emissions and through community initiatives, including with local businesses, schools and other public sector organisations, along with third sector organisations from within Moseley, as well as around the city and further afield.
You can beat the credit crunch and cut your household CO2 emissions by sticking to the following tips:
Is Recycling a waste of time?
Recently, national newspapers from differents ends of the political spectrum looked at whether or not recycling did anything to improve the environment and cut our CO2 emissions. Click on the links below to see what they said:
The Guardian: Why Bother? Is there really any point in going green? -
Don't give up
The Daily Telegraph: Will recycling your rubbish save the planet?
The summary of both articles is basically that recycling is essential for us to cut our CO2 emissions and so reduce the impact of global warming and enable us to better utilise our diminishing natural resources around the world with less devastating impact on the natural world around us.
Our first steps were to take stock of the current situation in Moseley and how we can assess our impact on the planet. The first target is to calculate a 'carbon/greenhouse gas footprint' in order to establish a 'baseline' from which future targets can be drawn.
SusMo is part of the Birmingham Cutting CO2 campaign by Be Birmingham that links into the C-Red (Carbon Reduction) website. We are asking local residents and businesses to submit on-line pledges to reduce our own carbon footprints through this website:
This information is used to monitor our individual progress in cutting CO2 - by reducing our energy use in the home or at work, along with our carbon emissions from transport - as well as the progress that Moseley and Birmingham are making as a whole.
We will be lobbying Birmingham City Council to call for more stringent requirements on CO2 emissions for new developments in Moseley and across the City of Birmingham.
At present, there is a core group of about 20 people - representing a spectrum of interests - who got together following the public meeting. St Mary’s Church has ambitious plans for renewable energy generation at the church – with the long-term objective of becoming carbon-neutral within 5 years – and Moseley & District Churches Housing Association is on board, as well. Other local businesses are involved too, as are the schools in the Village. Through working as a group, we can learn from one another – and an element of competition helps in doing that bit more!
Meetings of SusMo are held in different venues, agreed between meetings.
In helping you at home or your business to cut down on your CO2 emissions, further websites of related interest are listed: