The Reap Software Portfolio
Existing Reap Users
History & Concept
Why collective action?
Collaborative action is crucial to stimulate a critical mass of people to change their behaviour with the environment in mind. The arguments for encouraging collective action are twofold: firstly, people are more willing to act on behalf of the environment if they see others taking action around them; secondly, people learn together through social experiences and this strengthens their motivation to make changes on an indivitual and collective level that benefit the environment.
How is community defined?
A community can be geographically bound, covering all the people who live on a certain street or within a particular neighbourhood. A community can also be defined as the members of a local group or the families whose children attend the local school. Alternatively, a community could be defined as the members of a UK wide club or even contributers to an internet forum who are dispersed throughout the UK. REAP petite can be used with all of these groups but some footprint reducing actions such as communal gardens or car sharing clubs work best when a community can physically interact with one another.
Why footprint a community?
A community footprint tool is a potentially useful tool for communities:
- Firstly, it provides a way of measuring the effect of an individual or community's activities on the environment. Footprints measure the impact from consumption activities covering heating and powering your home, personal travel, food and the impacts from our shopping.
- Secondly, the process of collecting information to calculate the footprint can be a collective one that contributes to community development and civic action.
- Thirdly, the results can be broken down by activity and compared with those of other groups. Ways of reducing the footprint can be discussed within the context of local issues.
Introducing REAP petite
REAP petite started life in 2007 as an Excel spreadsheet, produced for Aberdeenshire Council who wanted to footprint the results of a questionnaire they were running with two local schools. Aberdeenshire wanted to find out if the communities they were working with had a different footprint to the district council as a whole and needed a tool that could calculate a 'community averages' which would then be fed into the main tool REAP.
REAP petite has now developed into a stand alone tool which calculates ecological and carbon footprints and direct water use of each individual in the community as well as determining the community average. The tool displays results in an easy to interpret format and shows the community how their footprint could be reduced through a number of actions.
REAP Petite has been updated and improved.
To download a free copy click here
If you are a license holder, contact SEI to get your new version.
SEI have just released a policy brief on Scotland's Footprint.
Our study has shown that Scotland's carbon footprint has grown by 11 per cent since 1992.
The figure includes greenhouse gases released overseas during the production of goods later consumed in Scotland and so is the most accurate gauge of the country's emissions to date.
While emissions generated in Scotland fell by 13 percent between 1995 and 2004, when trade is taken account, greenhouse gases rose by 11 per cent over the same period.
The full policy brief can be found on SEI's website.
An article has also be published in the Sunday Herald and can be found here.
The NHS England successfully launched their Carbon Reduction Strategy ‘Saving Carbon, Improving Health' on 27th January 2009. SEI contributed to the evidence base for the strategy, carrying out a consumption-based carbon footprint of the NHS England, who represents 25% of England's public sector emissions. The first part of the project examined historical emissions and identified the drivers behind a rising carbon footprint. This forms the first report published in 2008. The second phase of the project projects future emissions and models a range of policy options and their carbon reduction potential.
Further information can be found at the NHS Sustainable Development Unit website
Our phase 1 report for the NHS England carbon analysis project is available online.
This report provides a 2004 baseline for the NHS, a time series and a supply chain analysis of the pharmaceutical and medical equipment sectors (the highest impact procurement sectors of the NHS England).
We are in the process of developing a carbon scenario tool to contribute to the NHS England Carbon Strategy and target setting. The deadline for this is January and another report will be issued. We are also looking into repeating the study for the NHS Scotland, Wales and NI.