Reducing our Impact with the Drawdown Ecochallenge

portrait of a woman, Angie Martin
Angie Martin Administrative/Project Assistant
infographic

Inspired by LHB’s Integrative Design Team vision statement “We live our passion to create regenerative communities,” LHB entered a team in the Drawdown EcoChallenge, a “21-day engagement program focused on carbon reduction.” This challenge took place April 4 – April 25, 2018 and encouraged those who participated to take personal steps toward our collective vision. The LHB team was made up of 17 employees and came in 86th place out of 767 teams in points awarded for challenges completed. The following is a result of a survey sent to the LHB participants asking about their experience and what they were motivated to continue exploring.

Of the seven challenge categories in the Drawdown EcoChallenge (Electricity Generation, Food, Women & Girls, Buildings & Cities, Land Use, Transport, and Materials), LHB employees collectively participated the most in the Transport, Building & Cities, and Food challenges.

Participants cited many reasons for taking part in this challenge including: the desire to learn more about a sustainable lifestyle, wanting to change habits to better the environment, interest in being part of the Integrative Design Team effort, and feeling inspired by the Drawdown creator, Paul Hawken. One participant wrote, “I wanted to feel like I was helping fight climate change and pollution, even just a little bit. It seems so doable when broken into little challenges, and it was fun and rewarding to ‘accomplish’ some of those.”

A recurring theme expressed by those who participated in the Drawdown EcoChallenge was how surprising and rewarding it was to see how the small changes they made added up to big results. Some other interesting discoveries noted in the survey included:

LHB employees volunteering to pack food at Second Harvest Heartland.

Multiple people from the LHB team noted this challenge was an encouraging acknowledgment of the ecologically-minded actions they are already participating in (recycling, opting for vegetarian meals a few days a week, carpooling/biking to work), as well as a positive affirmation of the forward-thinking actions LHB is currently practicing as a company (the Minneapolis office’s LEED Platinum status, plug load energy consumption tracking, using recycled paper). Participants said this challenge motivated and inspired them to continue exploring the following actions:

Transport

Materials

Electricity Generation

Women and Girls

Food

Other

Above is an image of the collective impact of all participants in the EcoDrawdown challenge from across the globe. For original image and material and additional information about the collective impact click here.

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