Coalition, Alliance hold environmental workshop Nov. 24

The Mono Mulmur Citizens' Coalition and the Caledon Countryside Alliance (CCA) are sponsoring a public workshop, Managing Your Environmental Footprint, at the Orangeville Fairgrounds on Nov. 24 from 3 to 5 p.m.

Dr. Ron Dembo, founder and CEO of ZeroFootprint, will lead the workshop which is designed to raise the awareness of area residents to the contribution each of us can make to lowering greenhouse gas emissions and improving the quality of life in our area and in the world.

ZeroFootprint is a Canadian not-for-profit organization based in Toronto that combines financial engineering, environmental engineering and business intelligence to create products and services that help organizations and individuals significantly reduce their environmental footprint. ZeroFootprint is helping cities across North America address the issue of carbon emissions through the use of the ZeroFootprint Calculator. Toronto (Ontario), Boulder (Colorado) and Seattle (Washington) have each committed to extend the application of the Calculator to their urban residents. Toronto has already initiated a program to gain experience with the Calculator by having the 40,000 employees of the city use it. It then intends to disseminate it to all the residents of Toronto.

Prior to founding ZeroFootprint, Ron was the founder, CEO and president of Algorithmics Inc., which he grew from a start-up to the largest enterprise riskmanagement software company in the world. He is a chemical engineer with a PhD in computer science. He has a distinguished 10- year career as a professor at Yale University. Ron is a weekend resident of Mulmur Township.

The ZeroFootprint Calculator (found at www. zerofootprint.net) allows individuals to calculate their own ecological footprint. It is a first step each of us can take in reducing our impact on the environment and lowering our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. A special version of the ZeroFootprint Calculator will be adapted for Headwaters area residents and posted on the ZeroFootprint Web site to allow the local impact to be measured and compared with others in other parts of the province and the world. The data will be presented at the workshop followed by questions and answers about what we can individually do to lower our ecological footprint.

At the workshop, Karen Hutchinson of the CCA will describe the environmental successes in Caledon since the CCA introduced its Ecological Footprint Project in 2001. The workshop will conclude with an explanation of carbon offsets by Dembo including a discussion of how they can be used in conjunction with efforts to reduce one's footprint.

With respect to carbon offsets, Air Canada has signed an arrangement with ZeroFootprint to let its customers offset the carbon they generate by their flights. The money they pay to ZeroFootprint is directed into a tree planting program in British Columbia. Air Canada chose ZeroFootprint because of their reputation, because they wanted their offset money to go to a Canadian project and because ZeroFootprint's carbon offset program is closely monitored and has third party validation.

More information about the Headwaters version of the ZeroFootprint Calculator can be found at www. monomulmur.com or www. caledoncountryside. org. To register for the workshop, email info@monomulmur. com or cca@caledoncountryside. org. Space is limited.