Hangzhou is always active in turning itself into a low-carbon city, in which the Dongpingxiang Community has made great contributions to setting up a standard of low-carbon for families.

Dongpingxiang Community, located in Hubin Street, Shangcheng District, Hangzhou, cover 0.18 sq m. There are around 2000 residents in this community.

On July 7, Du Juan, director of the Dongpingxiang Community, published a name list of 15 model families and rewarded them with certificates.

The appraisal went through several procedures – self-nomination, public hearing and professional evaluation. The 15 families, selected from 50 candidates, are all “low-carbon model families”. The name lists of second-class and third-class families will be published soon.

In order to encourage local residents to lead a low-carbon life, officials of the Dongpingxiang Community have called on the residents to keep “low-carbon diary” and make proposals on changing their family life into a low carbon style. Within one year, local residents proposed 700 tips, such as making old umbrella covers into environmentally friendly bags and making leaves into environmentally friendly curtains.

With the help of the experts from the Hangzhou Science and Technology Museum, the community divided the tips into five categories - household appliances, family life, water and gas, transportation and creation. Each tip will be labeled a point. The total number of points is 110.

Those whose tips total above 95 points will be selected as first class “low-carbon model families”, 90 points make second class, and 85 points make third class. This activity has received an enthusiastic response from local residents who are more active in saving energy and cutting their emissions.

By Xie Fang & Luo Jiao