Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan

via WorldChanging

Rob Hopkins came to this small seaside town of 7000 inhabitants renowned as Ireland’s gourmet food capital, as well as the home of a well-known jazz festival. He started the first full-time two year course in Europe training in people in Practical Sustainability in Kinsale Further Education College.

He had a simple idea for his students: to ask them to think practically about all the aspects of a town that would need to be changed if a low-energy future was to happen, and how they could do so over a fifteen-year period. So far, so standard college project. But what was extraordinary was the way they went about it – seriously, meeting the movers and shakers of the town in a “community think-tank,” and researching and writing with every intent of making the project real. [snip] The first draft was launched at a conference in Kinsale in June 2005, and two of the students set up a not-for-profit company to handle the project, called Transition Design. Then the big step came when in December 2005, Kinsale Town Council unanimously passed the motion to support “its initiative to act as process leaders in Kinsale’s transition to a lower-energy future and in developing the concept of a ‘Transition Town;’ making the transition from fossil fuel dependency to a state of energy independence.”

Download the plan here.