Want to be a super-hero and help save the world? Now’s your chance!

I am delighted to announce a new eco-initiative for this year. In 2008 we tackled the North Pacific Garbage Patch by reducing our use of disposable plastic cups, water bottles, and grocery bags. In 2009 we reduced our carbon footprints by walking more and driving less (or rowing more and flying less, in my case). So how were we going to top that?

We decided to round off the Pacific eco-campaigns by inviting you to become an Eco Hero. All you have to do is to log at least one Green Deed every day. For each Green Deed you’ll get points, and as you move up the points scale you’ll be awarded medals. Do more than one Green Deed a day, and you win more points!

Each week, the greenest of all our Greendoers will receive a special prize, donated by our sponsors SonyEricsson, who are giving away their eco-friendly Green Heart mobile phones, and DaKine, who have donated laptop bags made using their new Re-Gen bag technology. These aren’t available in the shops until the summer – so this is an exclusive offer especially for our Eco Heroes!

Green Deeds can be anything you like – pick up trash from your neighbourhood while you’re out walking, join an eco organization, write a letter to your newspaper or elected representative, start growing your own veg, start composting – whatever you like. Feel free to get ideas and inspiration from other citizens of our Greendom. Your Green Deeds will be scrutinised by the community – thumbs up means you did a great job, thumbs down means your Green Deed needs to go greener.

By playing the game, you’ll be connecting into a worldwide community of aspiring Eco Heroes. We hope that this initiative will take on a life of its own. I am just the first in what we hope will be a long line of Eco Ambassadors, leading the way to a better, healthier, greener future.

We gave a sneak preview to the National Geographic audiences last week, and 1,200 people have already signed up by SMS. The concept has received an enthusiastic response from everyone that we have mentioned it to. We’ll be putting out a press release next week to announce it to the world at large.

So how do you get started? At the moment we’re in the pre-registration phase. You can register your interest by going to the Eco-Heroes website and entering your name and email address. Of course we promise that we won’t pass these details on to anybody else.

Or you can register by SMS, by sending a message to 360-202-6062. Add +1 to the front if you are outside the US. Please use this standard format, to save Brennan from a lot of manual corrections:

Your Name, youraddress@email.com

Please note the comma and space between your name and your email address.

This doesn’t commit you to anything at this stage. It just means that you will get an email from us when we go fully live around the time of my launch. You won’t have to register again. As soon as we go live, you can start logging your Green Deeds, and start saving the world!

Huge kudos to Brennan Novak for all his hard work in making this happen. The Earth thanks you, Brennan!

13 Comments

  • Merit Badges, what a great idea. I always liked getting Merit Badges when I was in scouting oh so many years ago. With the way that kids get rewarded for everything they do these days I think it’s a great idea. I for sure will be passing this along to my grandchildren to get them interested and hopefully they’ll take it to school and get others involved.
    Thanks as always!

  • Hiya,

    Cool idea. I was not able to get to the website. Could you put a link to it here?
    Laurey in Asheville

  • Oh grrrrrr! This blog was initially posted by email, but that didn’t work, so I copied and pasted it into the site. And it removed all my hyperlinks.

    Couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

    Hyperlinks now included above. And the website is http://ecoheroes.me.

    Sorry!

  • UncaDoug is with RunnerDuck … being a merit badge maniac back in the ’60s.
    This is a simply wonderful idea, Roz. Brilliant! I really think this will catch on.
    Can hardly wait for your app ;-D

  • Looks like a good idea, Roz.

    My wife and I are currently planning to build our home this year. We are including the possibilities of solar panels, saving rainwater to minimise well usage, saving “grey” water for irrigation, keeping chickens and a couple of sheep and growing our own vegetables. They may not all be practical but we’ll do what we can. Perhaps I’ll do a blog about it.

    John

  • I am probably going to get a lot of negative feed back on this post but I think this needs to be noted: I hope people start looking carefully at the new “green deeds” they post. I am seeing many that are green in limited situations and some that are not really green at all. For example, check to see what happens to the stuff you throw in the recycle bin before you assume that it really gets reused and list recycling that material as a green deed.

    Remember the mantra is: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. We need more of the first two so we have to do less of the last.

  • This is indeed a very bright idea. If we all take it with the seriousness it derserves am sure we gonna have a carbon free environment that we are all dreaming of. Once again thumbs up Roz for taking the first step in making this happen.

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