Low Impact Living Initiative (LILI), which was formed in 2001, is based at the Redfield Community, just off the A413 and has been showing people how to live a greener life and reduce their impact on their environment.

The idea for the organisation came out of a group of people who lived at Redfield, a housing co-operative, who thought people outside the community would like to know more about green living.

LILI director, Dave Darby, said: "At first we started to put on courses which lots of people were interested in and it grew from there. The idea came out of people living at Redfield, but people from outside work at LILI too."

Since then the organisation has taken off and receives thousands of visitors to its website for information on factsheets, courses and links to other initiatives.

The courses look at different aspects of green living, with some of the more popular ones including making biodiesel and keeping chickens, as well as constructing straw bale buildings, as highlighted on television programmes like Grand Designs.

Mr Darby said: "People have become more interested. When we started off we used to try to persuade people it was a good idea to live within their environmental means. Now we don't have to – if we start to talk about climate change, people know it is good to move to a lower carbon way of living."

LILI's factsheets look at different ways people can increasingly get into the green habit, such as using energy efficient lightbulbs, improving home insulation, switching to a reusable energy supplier, growing their own food and rainwater harvesting.
For details about LILI, visit the website www.lowimpact.org, email lili@ lowimpact.org or 'phone 01296 714184.