Make an Impact 

Alcoa of Australia and Greening Australia have partnered to develop a program to help Alcoa employees and their families reduce their household water and energy use and become part of the solution to climate change.

'Make an Impact' helps people to think about climate change and how they could do things differently in a carbon constrained world. Elements of the program include:

• A dynamic and comprehensive website featuring tips, tools and resources on how to reduce energy bills and live more sustainably
• An online calculator featuring best practice individual home energy and water use analysis. The calculator delivers a personalized action report for each user. Users can track their progress over time. This is presently only available to Alcoa employees
• A series of educational workshops covering a range of topics delivered  across Alcoa’s various operations which participants find useful for picking up further water and energy saving tips. Topics so far have included Top Tips for Saving Energy, Sustainable Gardening, Being Waterwise, and Going Solar.

A Practical Toolkit Making An Impact in schools

Also part of the Make an Impact program is a practical Toolkit designed to help children and their families learn about how energy and water is consumed in the home – which appliances are using huge amounts of energy and where there are opportunities to make savings. It consists of four tools or instruments to help carry out a home energy and water use audit including:

• A Power Mate – to measure energy consumption and running costs of appliances;
• An infrared thermometer to measure fridge, freezer and hot water temperatures;
• A compass to identify the orientation of the home and passive solar heating opportunities;
• A stopwatch to measure shower and tap flow rates;
  

A series of activity sheets for each ‘tool’ is also included.
Forty schools located in and around Alcoa’s operations in WA have each received a complimentary copy of the toolkit along with educational support from Greening Australia’s Community and Business Engagement Coordinator, Arlene Moncrieff and members of Alcoa’s Discovery Centre Education Officers.  

Make an Impact has assisted some 1200 Alcoa employees and hundreds of school children to reduce their carbon footprint. For more information click here.

Alcoa and Barwon Water in partnership to ‘make an impact’ on climate change

A program that originated to help Alcoa employees become part of the solution to climate change is being shared with the wider community starting in Geelong, Victoria. ‘Make an Impact’, which was founded by the Alcoa Foundation and Greening Australia in 2006 to help Alcoans reduce their personal greenhouse footprint, has taken on its first ‘Associate’ in Barwon Water.

Make an Impact aims to change the way people think in our carbon constrained world. It includes: access to an online energy use calculator that provides users with customised action plans to help them reduce their water and energy use; regular workshops run by ‘green experts’; and take-home Toolkits with corresponding activity worksheets to get the kids involved.

As a Make an Impact ‘Associate’, Barwon Water employees now have access to the program’s resources - enabling greater positive environmental change at an individual level within the Geelong community. The program also includes a comprehensive website that is accessible to anyone with the Internet, which features a range of carbon reduction tips to help individuals make changes at home, while on the move, at the shops, in the garden and at work.  Featuring discussion about the impact of climate change worldwide, and facts about Australia’s greenhouse footprint, the website is also a useful resource for school students and can be accessed at www.alcoa.com.au/makeanimpact.
 
Barwon Water General Manager Capital Projects and Greenhouse Paul Northey said Make an Impact was in line with the corporation’s values, which included a commitment to environmental sustainability.

“Barwon Water as an organisation has set targets to reduce emissions and has greenhouse gas reduction programs in place through our Greenhouse Strategy,” Mr Northey said.
“Make an Impact complements these actions by giving employees the chance to implement change in their homes, as well as at work.”

Currently more than 1400 Alcoa employees in Australia are part of Make an Impact, making simple and practical changes to their homes and lifestyles.

Alcoa and Greening Australia have plans to bring on board more Make an Impact ‘Associates’ across the country. Barwon Water’s launch of Make an Impact to its employees, follows Alcoa’s launch of Make an Impact Toolkits* in Victoria and WA. Moolap Primary School in Geelong, and Pinjarra Primary School in WA were the first schools to take ownership of Make an Impact Toolkits. The Toolkits are the latest initiative to be launched under Alcoa’s Connecting with Schools education program.

Read more at www.alcoa.com.au/makeanimpact and www.alcoa.com.au/schools.

Greening Australia video

Alcoa staff talk about the influence Make an Impact has on their lives.