Complete 12 pledges and receive an eco-shopper
Welcome to Tread lightly, the Guardian's new green community.
Tread lightly allows Guardian readers to join an online community of people who want to take personal and collective action to reduce their C02 emissions.
By making weekly pledges and recording your actions, you can see how much carbon you have saved individually and together.
Each Friday, we will have a new pledge to sign up to. These will range from simple actions such as our first week's pledge switching to energy efficient light bulbs, or taking showers instead of baths, and turning appliances off standby, to more imaginative ideas that you can suggest.
The pledges are on three different levels - for light, medium or heavy users.
To coincide with each pledge, we will be running a weekly blog where you to can share tips for how best to achieve the lifestyle change, ask for advice, read the latest news and features on the pledge and learn about special offers that could make it easier for you to make the switch.
To join Tread lightly, you must have a username and password for Guardian Unlimited services. New users can register for free here, and existing users can sign in when they commit to their pledge.
You will have a personalised pledge history page charting pledges you have made and achieved and your total savings to date. These will be added to the reductions made by the community as a whole to give overall CO2 savings. Together we hope to be able to save enough carbon to switch off a coal-fired power station.
Nurturing a sense of community through Tread lightly is key. No one likes to feel they are acting alone. And we can achieve so much more by acting together.
If you are sceptical about what we here in the UK can actually achieve in the face of increasing carbon dioxide emissions from China and India, it is worth remembering that according to WWF the UK still produces 9.1 tonnes of C02 per person, whereas China produces 3.2 tonnes and India only 1 tonne. Moreover, a quarter of the greenhouses gases being emitted in China today are a direct result of making goods to be exported to the West. In addition, nearly two-thirds of the CO2 in the atmosphere today was emitted by major industrialised countries. So shouldn't we be leading the way?
Tread lightly aims to encourage habitual change in our everyday lives in an engaging and communal way so that we get to the point where most of the pledged actions become second nature.
We know we won't have got everything right. We look forward to your comments and suggestions for ways that we can develop and improve Tread lightly. With your active help and support we want to ensure that living a low carbon lifestyle is a fun and smart option. So over to you...
