Light on their feet

Back in 2008 we knew them as the Evers-Swindell twins – our rowing champions. First they claimed three world championships and won gold at the Athens Olympic Games, then at Beijing they stunned the world with an incredible second gold, claiming victory by just a hundredth of a second.

So how do they feel coming second to All Black Conrad Smith?

Caroline – now Caroline Meyer after marrying husband Carl – laughs loud and long at the question, her competitive hackles rising.

“It’s not fair! He doesn’t have kids! You can’t keep the room cold with little babies…”

Caroline, Conrad, and Caroline’s twin sister Georgina are part of an elite group of Kiwi athletes who are battling each other to see who can cut down their carbon footprint the most. They’re ambassadors for something called Project Litefoot and have been doing their bit for the environment through the programme since 2008, the year of their victory in China.

Also involved are golfer Michael Campbell, pro surfer Daniel Kereopa, cricketer Brendon McCullum and windsurfer Barbara Kendall. Every two months each athlete is assessed on their household’s CO2 output – based on things like electricity use and petrol from driving – and the results are ranked from best to worst and shared amongst the team. Caroline and Georgina have managed to reduce their CO2 output by a whopping 37 per cent and 39 per cent respectively – just behind Conrad’s impressive 44 per cent – with the others snapping at their heels.

Those kind of results might sound like a big effort, but for Georgina it was more about working on the easy and obvious ways that everyone can make a difference.

“It’s not a radical idea, it’s just the basics – it’s achievable for us. We were still rowing when we started, so we couldn’t make big changes. But it’s not about big changes; it’s about common sense and the small things that you can do.”

Common sense has to play a big part in what the twins do these days – life has changed a lot since they stepped off the podium in Beijing. Both are now married and both have two young children – Georgina has Lucy (who turns three in August) and Freddie (who’s almost one), while Caroline has Tom (two) and Rebecca (just seven months old).

That means their efforts to do their bit for the environment need to fit around busy family lives and keeping a cosy home (Conrad has it much easier, they want to emphasise). Yet they’re confident that being busy still means they can do their bit.

“It’s about the little low-cost things you can do that are effective,” says Georgina, and points out that she’s also seeing benefits in smaller power bills.

“Everyone can turn an appliance off at the wall.”

Georgina and Caroline’s easy household tips

All those Nana tricks like gardening and bottling are fun and great ways to cut down waste. Preserving your own produce means you don’t buy expensive out of season fruit and veges through winter that are flown in from overseas. And the empty jars are great for storage when you buy in bulk.

Think twice before you hop in the car! Try to plan trips so you get as much done in one go as you can – it’ll save you petrol. And try to walk the small trips – it’s good for you!

Little things count – get paranoid about turning the lights off when you leave a room – you’ll notice the difference in your power bill!

A sporting chance

Project Litefoot is the brainchild of 44-year-old Hamish Reid.

Hamish started thinking about harnessing the competitive spirit of sports people as a way to spread the message that climate change can be tackled in London in 2005.

Like a lot of Kiwis, Hamish followed his career overseas when he was younger, working at first in Paris for a large food corporation. He left that role in 2005 to start up a sport and music consulting business in London for Saatchi and Saatchi’s and it was there that he met golfer Michael Campbell. Michael had just won the US Open and was talking to Hamish professionally about where he wanted to take his life.

“Michael started telling us about his deep feelings for the land that come from his ancestry,” says Hamish. “He couldn’t really articulate it, but he felt it. He saw himself as a custodian of the land, but he had never really pinned it all together.

“We were really fascinated, so we started researching.”

Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, had just come out and climate change was rearing its head as the number one environmental issue. At the same time Hamish started looking hard at the role sport has in shaping people’s lives and decided, after about a year and a half of research, that it could play a big part in shaping a sustainable future. In 2008 he and Michael cofounded Project Litefoot and he returned to New Zealand to put his plan into action.

The first step was to recruit some top sporting figures who cared about environmental issues, and the next was to get them all walking the talk. Each ambassador was first assessed by government agency CarbonZero to work out a baseline for their carbon footprint. Their house was then set up with new eco-friendly light bulbs, their insulation was improved, and Hamish helped them look at simple things like composting and transport as ways to cut down their greenhouse gas emissions.

The results surprised everyone. Georgina thinks it’s thanks to Hamish’s clever idea of having a leaderboard system and letting the naturally competitive athletes fight it out for top spot; whatever the reason, the ambassadors’ CO2 outputs were being slashed by 20, 30 or 40 per cent instead of the 10-17 per cent they’d aimed at.

If everyone in the country could match those results New Zealand would be punching above its weight not just in the sports world, but in the global fight to halt global warming as well. And best of all, the results have come easily Hamish reckons. “None of them have compromised their lives,” he says – they’ve just started doing a few things a little smarter.

“A great example is Brendon McCullum. He and his boy started jogging and skateboarding to school instead of driving. That wiped about 30 per cent off their fuel emissions.”

Inspiring change

Caroline says she and Georgina became environmentally aware at a young age. The pair grew up on an orchard where waste management was basic at best.

“It was terrible! We used to put everything out in an incinerator and burn it – everything! GladWrap, yoghurt pottles, tin cans, the lot.

“Then we learned about recycling at school and got these containers and made Mum and Dad put them out at the back door. I remember vividly starting up the containers, and since then it’s always something I’ve been conscious of.”

The years spent training on the water also had an effect on the twins. “You think New Zealand has got the cleanest, greenest water, but that’s not the fact,” says Caroline. “We were training on Lake Karapiro – and we’ve raced on dirtier pieces of water, but cleaner ones too. We’d be rowing along and see bits of rubbish and it makes you pretty sad.

“You’d never think to throw rubbish into water. That’s something I’d like to pass down to my children.”

Passing on environmental messages is a big part of what Project Litefoot is about, and Hamish is keen to reach out at the grassroots level in New Zealand – which is where Liteclub comes in.

Liteclub is a spin-off of the Litefoot movement that started reaching out to community sports clubs in 2011. It’s an amazing free service that sees the Liteclub van rock up to a club – be it a bowls, surf lifesaving, rugby or rowing club – and swap out all their old incandescent bulbs for modern Philips eco lighting. Hot water cylinders get wrapped and pipes lagged, water saving devices are installed on taps and loos, and the club is given a waste sorting system – all for free.

The result for the clubs is big reductions on their bills that free up money for their sport, plus some satisfying environmental gains.

“So far we’ve visited 224 clubs around the North Island,” says Hamish. “We’ve saved $1.1 million for sport. We’re saving nine million litres of water a year. We’ve reduced electricity consumption by four million kilowatt hours and prevented about 600 tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere.”

Despite these impressive figures, Hamish says they’re just getting started. The aim is to get to 536 clubs by end of 2015 and expand into the South Island this year, so long as the movement can secure the funding. Project Litefoot is a registered charity that’s supported by the Tindall Foundation, the Ministry for the Environment, the ASB Community Trust and the NZ Community Trust among others and Hamish is confident he’s delivering bang for every buck they’re given: “We know that for every dollar that’s been invested in our trust so far $2.57 has been saved for sport.

“We’re a bunch of commercial people who came from very different backgrounds, so every cent gets measured. Everything we do is measured.”

Back to basics

Meanwhile, Georgina has just moved into a house in Cromwell, Central Otago – just down the road from Caroline – and will be starting from scratch in the efforts to cut down her carbon footprint (and knock Conrad off his perch).

This time she and her husband will be investing in LED lighting and will get some insulation up in to the roof – plus there’ll be the usual simple efforts around the home. The property already has apple trees and Georgina’s been preserving the fruit – “little Freddie has stewed apples coming out of his ears!” – plus they’ll have a look at what can be done in the garden for spring.

Both of the twins are now in older houses and Georgina says her new place is a bit draughty. “I’m going to make little worms for under the doors, I’ll zoom those up,” she says, and is looking forward to getting the place cosy for winter – while doing her bit for the environment too.

“It’s easy,” she points out. “It’s not a big change to our lifestyle. We’re the ones benefitting, so why wouldn’t you?”

“It’s not a radical idea, it’s just the basics – it’s achievable for us.” – Caroline

Liteclub in numbers

• 224 sports club makeovers so far
• $1.1 million cut from club bills
• 9 million litres of water saved
• 4 million kW/h of electricity saved
• 600 tonnes of CO2 kept out of the air

Michael Campbell, champion golfer

“I really enjoy going back home because of New Zealand’s natural beauty. The last thing I want to do is lose that... We’re marketed as the purest place – it’s our duty as New Zealanders to maintain the profile.”

Conrad Smith, All Black

“We’re known as the clean, green country. Probably, to be fair, we’re not pulling our weight. I’d love us to be leaders – we can set an example and that way enhance our reputation.”

Handy URLs

www.projectlitefoot.org
Tips and videos from the Litefoot ambassadors

www.projectlitefoot.org/lite-club
Sign your sports club up with Liteclub