How are digital media and communication tools changing your behaviors? For some people, more screen time leads to disconnection from nearby people and place. But there are many different ways in which these tools can help you connect to like-minded folks, both within your immediate physical communities and with a larger network of people who share your interests. How can digital tools help maintain the vitality of Vermont Communities, and help to support and encourage a sustainable lifestyle? Check out more info in the article at: http://vtrural.org/programs/digital-economy/updates/technology-community-sustainability

1. Digital Tools and
Sustainable Vermont
Community Living

2. Digital Tools and Sustainable
Vermont Community Living: Contents
1. Reducing your Carbon Footprint in the Workplace
2. Competition and fun through Gameification
3. Tools that Help Increase Civic Engagement
4. Tools that Help Increase Collaboration
5. Crowdsourcing
6. The Internet of Things

3. 1a. Reducing Your Carbon Footprint
in the Workplace, Generally:
Automating processes (such as invoicing):
“Our findings indicate that moving from paper-based invoicing to electronic invoicing decreases the carbon
footprint of one invoice (lifecycle) by 63%.” - Assessing the Carbon Footprint of Paper vs. Electronic Invoicing,
2010
Email instead of “Snail Mail”
“The average email has just one-sixtieth the footprint of a letter, according to a back-of-the-envelope
comparison.” - What's the carbon footprint of ... email? 2010
Online Meetings Instead of In-Person Meetings:
“We found that, in the two quantitative case studies, VWT (Virtual World Technologies) was successfully used to
substitute physical meetings with virtual ones and that the extent of avoided transport-related GHG (Greenhouse
Gas) emissions was several times greater than the direct emissions generated by the VWT in its use phase” - The
impact of information and communication technology on GHG emissions: how green are virtual worlds?, 2011

4. 1b. Reducing Your Carbon Footprint
in the Workplace, through specific
actions:
Working from home:
“A study commissioned by Sun Microsystems pinpointed the daily commute to and from work as
being responsible for more than 98 percent of an employee’s work-related carbon footprint. The
same study also found that employees on average save more than $1,700 per year in fuel and
wear and tear on their vehicles when they work at home just 2.5 days a week.” - Remotely
Green: Why Working from Home is the Ultimate Green Move, 2011
“In comparing home and work energy use, the company found that the rate at which office
equipment consumed energy in a Sun office was twice that of home office equipment. Study
participants averaged approximately 64 watts per hour at home, compared with 130 watts per
hour at a Sun office.” - National Study Finds Electronics Significantly Reduce Energy Use, Cut
Greenhouse-Gas Emissions, 2007

5. From The energy and greenhouse gas emissions impact of telecommuting and e-
Commerce, Final Report by TIAX LLC to the Consumer Electrics Association, 2007

6. 2. Competition and fun through
Gameification
Way To Go Vermont:
It is a chance for you or your business to go toe to toe against carbon pollution. Bike, walk,
carpool or ride the bus to victory! Win prizes, have fun—and help us reach our goal of
reducing 300,000 lbs of carbon pollution in Vermont.
TellEmotion: where sustainability comes to life:
It is an innovative sustainability company that reduces energy consumption by engaging
people at home, work and school in energy conservation. We use real-time energy
feedback, in the form of a cute polar bear, to motivate people to change behavior and
conserve resources.
Vermontivate: an online game with a serious side:
It aims to mobilize communities to tackle energy issues. Players from towns and schools all
over Vermont will spend six weeks racking up points for everything from changing light
bulbs and starting compost piles to writing energy poetry, decorating bicycles and
participating in the programs and events of Vermontivate’s 3-dozen partner organizations.

7. 3. Increasing Civic Engagement
Municipal Websites:
More information online = fewer trips to town offices and less paper.
• Examples: Selectboard meeting minutes, fees and licenses
payable online, as well as potentially town reports.
• Specific Example: Manchester VT no longer mails out water
quality report. Instead announces it on Facebook and Social
Media. Ended up reaching more people.
Open Data:
• Code for BTV and Hackathons (Burlington Open Data Platform)
• Open Oakland: Open Budget project = new ways to involve people
who might not have come to in-person meetings, and new
visualizations being produced that help shed more understanding of
overall budget
Adopt-a-Hydrant:
App that allows community members to “claim” a hydrant to dig out after a snowstorm. Also used for
other “adoptions” such as ensuring sirens work in Honolulu.

8. 4. Increasing Collaboration:
traditional Social Media
Facebook: local Facebook Pages and Groups that were
created to help with Tropical Storm Irene recovery.
• Southern Vermont Deerfield Valley Relief Support
Network – raised over $2,000 for flood relief for
towns in the Deerfield Valley. Still active today.
• Bridgewater Flood Response – coordinated
volunteer efforts and donations post-Irene. Still
active today.
Twitter:
• WATERisLIFE campaign: used hashtag
#firstworldproblems to create a moving campaign
focused on helping those in need and being grateful
for what you have.
• Local Hashtags for specific regions, including #BTV
for Burlington, which has a community around it,
including “tweetups”
Meetup: A way to connect with local folks around
specific issues. Environmentally focused Meetups
around or near Vermont include:
• Montpelier Local Health/Global Impact
• Friends of Lake Moreau State Park
• NY Passive House Capital District Meet-Ups
• Central New Hampshire Permaculture Group
Instagram: Photos shared through a mobile app. A
great example of use for environmentalism is with:
• Litterati: people take pictures of litter and post on
Instagram with hashtag #litterati. It caught on and
now almost 40,000 pieces of litter have been picked
up all over the world.

9. 4. Increasing Collaboration:
Vermont and cause-specific social
media
Car-share apps (already in Vermont): ConnectingCommuters.org is run by the state to
encourage ride-sharing, biking, and public transportation. Partnership with zimride.
idealist.org: just launched a new network to help connect people who want to do
good to share ideas worldwide, through connectors and teams
Front Porch Forum: neighborhood-based online community forum, where neighbors
can talk to neighbors.
350.org for Vermont: Specific network for climate change action in Vermont

10. 5. Crowdsourcing
Old Weather: Using the power of the crowd to map
worldwide temperatures for the past two-hundred years,
from ships’ logs. Since it started in 2010, people have entered
more than 1.6 million new observations from those logs.
Here’s a video of the climate change based on these entries.
Project Noah: (documenting nature): Project Noah is an award-winning software
platform designed to help people reconnect with the natural world. Backed by
National Geographic, Project Noah is mobilizing a new generation of nature explorers
and helping people from around the world appreciate their local wildlife. Our
community is harnessing the power and popularity of new mobile technologies to
collect important ecological data and help preserve global biodiversity.

11. 6. The Internet of Things (IoT)
Nest: Many people leave their house at one temperature and forget to
change it. So the Nest Learning Thermostat learns your schedule,
programs itself and can be controlled from your phone. Teach it well and
the Nest Thermostat can lower your heating and cooling bills up to 20%.
By allowing regular items, such as refrigerators or thermostats, to have enough computational skills to learn or monitor behaviors, you can save energy and more: