Low Carbon Chilterns Co-op

The Chilterns area has some of the highest household carbon footprints of all local authorities in the UK. In a very practical way, we want to reduce the carbon emissions in the Chilterns, and do our bit to improve energy security, as well as to make life better in our own communities.

So, we started the Low Carbon Chilterns Co-operative in late 2011, to work with the managers of community buildings by helping them to improve their energy efficiency and install renewable energy. This reduces their running costs and their carbon footprint.

We all use our local community buildings – community centres, village halls, schools – but they can waste energy and be too hot or too cold. And there is a lot more to this than just solar panels on the roof. We are looking at improving the whole building, including its insulation, lighting and heating systems. This is energy saving & generation that the whole community can own…. We also involve the users of the community buildings in these improvements, and hope to inspire them to undertake energy improvements in their own homes.

We raise money for these projects from grants and from investors in local communities. Our Industrial Provident Society (IPS) structure allows individual Chilterns community members’ investments to finance our work, so you can invest in our projects.

We seek community buildings to work with, members with time and skills to help us, and investors too.