​Stroud Life is urging people in the area to join the 10:10 campaign.

Schools, businesses, families and groups across the Five Valleys are being challenged to cut their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 as part of the Gloucestershire 10:10 campaign.

Dale Vince – founder and managing director of Stroud-based green energy company Ecotricity - has already announced his backing for the campaign.

Dale said: “Tackling climate change is the responsibility of all of us and, fortunately, considerable power is in our own hands.

"Because 80% of everyone's personal climate emissions come from the things we choose to spend our money on. The power to change things is literally in our own hands, and pockets.

Shop locally, buy British, go organic and switch to green energy sources.

“The more of us who do this, the more things will change.”

The Gloucestershire 10:10 has already raised awareness and support across the Stroud district and one of the schools to have signed up is the 760-pupil Wycliffe College in Stonehouse.

Matt Archer, a chemistry teacher at the public school, said: “For many years Wycliffe has worked to improve its environmental responsibility.

“This campaign gives definite targets which will enhance focus and drive to cut CO2 emissions.

“The onus on schools is to educate pupils in environmental issues so that the organisations they end up working for in the future can act responsibly. Many GCSE and A-Level syllabi, especially the sciences, geography and DT, have huge chunks of environmental education.

“As many of our pupils will be high fliers in business, it is important for them to understand the impact of environmental negligence so they can be proactive in the future.”

He added: “We currently recycle as much waste as possible throughout the whole school, from preparatory to sixth form.

“Each boarding house and classroom has a recycling bin and as much as possible goes into it. We also sort some recycling to sell including aluminium drinks cans and plastic bottle tops. The main aim of this sorting is to highlight that recycling is economically important and stated in the science GCSE syllabus.

“Last year we had a competition to cut electricity use by encouraging students to switch off lights and so on when not in use. This was won by Robinson House.

 “Robinson House also has a large vegetable garden in which the boys grow produce. This is then sold to raise money for a variety of charities.”