Climate Network Lanark (CNL) got its formal start four years ago, just before the Covid pandemic took hold. Co-founders Gord Harrison and Sue Brandum, along with many volunteers, brought together 120 people at the Perth Civitan Club to launch a local organization that focuses on cutting local greenhouse gasses (GHGs). GHG emissions, which create Climate Change, are affected by many local decisions including how we heat our buildings, how we get between home, work, schools, shopping and recreation and what we do with household waste.

Throughout the pandemic, CNL educated local citizens by conducting a survey and writing articles for local media about local climate actions and concerns, and developing projects such as: support for various composting options, collection of recyclables and organic waste at events like the Stewart Park Festival, protection of wetlands, promotion of heat pumps instead of natural gas and oil for heating, and organization of events and actions to persuade provincial and local politicians to take climate action.

In 2023, through the Community Services Recovery Fund, PDCF supported CNL’s Climate Concierge Pilot Program. This program, which began in August 2023 and will run until March 2024, connects single-family homeowners to each other in clusters throughout Lanark County. It provides motivation, leading-edge knowledge, peer support, and local trade and supplier expertise so homeowners can make the best decisions, with confidence, about how to reduce their home’s greenhouse gas emissions. To date, it has helped more than 40 individual householders by educating them on climate change, retrofitting options for their specific circumstances, and navigating funding.

A member from the Perth cluster got a heat pump installed in her home in October of last year, two months after the group’s first meeting. She said, “We wouldn’t have done it without help from Climate Concierge Community Cluster. It gave us the confidence to do it.” After getting the heat pump installed, she decided to move on to properly air-seal her home.

This Spring, thanks to a 2024 Community Grant from PDCF, CNL will deliver two sets of education and networking opportunities to residents and municipal, community, and business leaders under the banner of Electrify Lanark County. These will consist of six workshops and one forum, both delivered in a hybrid format so people can attend in person and virtually. The workshops will focus on the details, for example: about the many ways to heat water electrically; about how to buy electric appliances such as induction stoves and heat pump clothes dryers; about electric transportation including EVs, lawn mowers and boat engines. The day-long forum will be a high-level exploration of how Lanark County can contribute to providing the electricity we will need and making its local power supply resilient. To keep informed, visit www.climatenetworklanark.ca