Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Win £1m to save the planet

From the Daily Mirror:

HERE'S your chance to win £1million to fight climate change.

The Daily Mirror is today helping to launch the biggest green prize competition ever offered, aimed at groups and communities across Britain We are joining Nesta (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) to challenge people across the UK to come up with ideas to reduce carbon emissions.

This is not a prize for scientists or businesses but for everyday people to come up with a great idea that will change the way we live.

The Big Green Challenge is open to any group from a single street, scout troop, school-based group, charity, football supporters club or Women's Institutes.

The only people who can't enter are individuals, members of organisations from outside the UK and businesses or statutory bodies.

The best idea will take the lion's share of £1million to invest in their scheme.

Research by Nesta has found nine out of 10 Britons are concerned about the effects of global warming on their communities.

And one in three think the time to do something about it is running out.

Almost half feel that individual action is not enough and that some fresh thinking is needed.

Nesta Chief Executive Jonathan Kestenbaum says: "There is a tremendous appetite for new and imaginative solutions to come not from government and not from scientists or businesses but from everyday ordinary folk who are coming up with very creative ideas but just need to find a way of having them taken up.

"So we came up with this prize - which is the largest single prize of its type ever offered - to galvanise groups of people and bring them together.

"This is not about business - it's about ordinary people in existing groups or new groups in the community....MORE