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How the Program Works

The following three-part process is done in parallel with each part reinforcing the other.

Part 1: Reduce business operations and employee carbon footprint.

  • In not already done, assess business operations carbon footprint and identify energy efficiency cost savings and process improvements. Develop and implement a plan to reduce business operations carbon footprint.
  • If not already done, assess each employee’s direct carbon footprint and identify opportunities for improvement and cost savings. Develop and implement a plan to reduce employee’s carbon footprint.

Part 2: Support employees to reduce their household carbon footprint.

  • Host workshops in-house (“Global Warming Cafés”) to introduce the Low Carbon Diet to employees.
  • At the end of each workshop, invite employees to form household-based EcoTeams – five to eight people who serve as a peer support group for completing the carbon-reduction program. (EcoTeams follow a series of four structured meetings guiding participants through the program’s carefully crafted carbon reduction actions. Households participating in the program reduce their carbon footprint by up to 25%.)
  • Utilize employee household carbon reduction knowledge and motivation to help lead and sustain the business carbon reduction strategy.

Part 3: Help community residents reduce their carbon footprint.

As part of the company’s volunteer program interested employees who have participated in EcoTeams implement the Low Carbon Diet program in their community. Called a Cool Community campaign, its goal is to empower citizens to reduce their carbon footprint using Low Carbon Diet. The following strategy is designed to enable that outcome.

  1. Identify the carbon footprint of the residential sector of the community so individuals can understand their potential impact.
  2. Set a CO2 reduction and citizen participation target so community members have concrete goals to achieve.
  3. Bring together local organizations across all sectors of the community to serve as partners in implementing the campaign. This allows the community to align in common cause while reaping the additional benefit of greater connectivity to address future issues.
  4. Facilitate an empowerment training for partner organizations to teach them the behavior change, community engagement and coaching tools needed to form and support effective EcoTeams. This is followed up with coaching to support their efforts. This builds local capacity and amplifies the potential number of community members reached.
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Become Certified as A Cool Corporate Citizen Leader


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This is Empowerment Institute’s leadership certification with a focus on implementation of the Cool Corporate Citizen program. You will learn how to customize the program to the unique employee engagement and sustainability needs of the company, lead employee engagement workshops (Global Warming Café), train EcoTeam leaders in how to facilitate the Low Carbon Diet EcoTeam meetings, build internal capacity to lead EcoTeam leader trainings, and bring the program to the community, and provide on-going consultation as the program progresses. Click here for more information on the certification program. Empowerment Institute also provides the above Cool Corporate Citizen services directly to companies. To schedule an interview to learn more click here.

Purchase Low Carbon Diet Workbook


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Low Carbon Diet:
A 30 Day Program to Lose 5,000 Pounds

by David Gershon

The core tool of the Cool Corporate Citizen program.

Click here to purchase the book

Low Carbon Diet and the Cool Community


Socail Change 2.0Learn about the social change framework and research underpinning the Cool Corporate Citizen program in David Gershon’s award-winning book Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World. Chapter 11 of the book is a case study of the Low Carbon Diet behavior change program and Cool Community empowerment model on which the Cool Corporate Citizen program is based. This chapter has been excerpted as a six-part series in the Sustainable City Network listed below:

Part One: Low Carbon Diet and the Cool Community

Part Two: An Inconvenient Truth Finds a Convenient Solution

Part Three: Instead of Cursing the Dark, Light a Candle

Part Four: The Global Warming Café

Part Five: Taking a Cool Community to Scale

Part Six: The Cool City Challenge

Click here to purchase Social Change 2.0

Environmental Leader


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Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Social Engagement

Cool Corporate Citizen Testimonials


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“We’ve always believed that we are more successful when we work together with our stakeholders towards common goals. Cool Corporate Citizen is a great opportunity to act on that belief holistically - through our own actions as a business, our employee volunteerism program and our outreach into the local community - all in an effort to raise awareness and change behavior related to greenhouse gas emissions.”
– Mike Dupee, Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

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