On Earth Day the cities of Redmond, Bellevue, Issaquah, and Mercer Island will launch the regional Eastside Climate Challenge, which is a roadmap for households to reduce their carbon footprints, save money, and live healthier lives.

“The city of Bellevue is committed to taking bold action to address climate change and enhance sustainability,” said Bellevue Mayor Lynne Robinson. “If we want to play to win in our climate actions and make our goals a reality, we need the help of residents, businesses, and community organizations to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions together.”

The four Eastside cities are founding members of the King County Cities Climate Collaboration, which has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by the year 2023; to do so, the collaboration views household actions as essential.

Through the Eastside Climate Challenge, households can create profiles where current activities can be tracked. Users can browse a list of sustainable actions that will assist households with reducing their environmental impact. Sustainable actions can be added to the account’s dashboard, which will show next steps and costs. Households can also come together to discuss actions the entire community can take to reduce climate change and compete with other communities.

“Every time Earth Day comes around, residents ask me: ‘What can I do to address climate change?’” said Issaquah Mayor Mary Lou Pauly. “The Eastside Climate Challenge will help each of us do our part to mitigate the worst climate impacts in an easy and meaningful way.”

According to the cities, approximately 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in Eastside cities come from transportation, heating, electricity use, and waste generation. The Eastside Climate Challenge offers over 80 ideas to reduce the carbon footprints of households, and 30 additional actions regarding emergency preparedness and community resilience.

Actions listed in the Eastside Climate Challenge include turning off lights; switching to LED lights; using a convection toaster oven; installing solar panels; combining trips to drive less; telecommuting; skateboarding; going paperless to save trees and to create clean air and water; and taking shorter showers, among others.

“Working together as a community makes a difference and we wanted to provide our residents with more opportunities to partner on climate solutions and resiliency,” said Redmond mayor Angela Birney. “Redmond is proud to have led the research for this collaborative effort.”

The Eastside Climate Challenge welcomes those who live outside of the four partnering cities to join the challenge, and it will be available to all residents throughout the year.

For more information visit https://eastsideclimatechallenge.org/