Greenpeace launches eco-friendly virtual city

Staff Writer on Feb 12, 2008 7:43AM

Greenpeace has launched an interactive virtual city showcasing how towns and cities across the UK are using cleaner energy to fight climate change..

EfficienCity uses interactive case studies and animation to demonstrate how the UK could cut greenhouse gas emissions and electricity bills, and improve the security of its energy supply.

Greenpeace has developed the project in response to the UK government's official energy policy, which favours large centralised power generation and nuclear reactors.

"With EfficienCity we are trying to demonstrate virtually how the real solutions to climate change can work in practice," said Darren Shirley, energy advisor at Greenpeace.

"We are hoping that visitors to the city will see that these technologies are not science fiction, they are already available today.

"There is no reason why this kind of integrated low-carbon system could not work in every town in Britain. That is why we want people to get active, contact their local politicians and demand real change."

EfficienCity was developed in collaboration with Biro Creative and aims to show how more energy efficient "decentralised energy" initiatives can be applied to every UK town.

Greenpeace is encouraging visitors to implement their own local energy schemes in a bid to "reclaim the power" from central government by engaging with local councils.

Visitors can interact with a virtual football stadium, supermarket, hospital and brewery based on real examples to see how their own communities can help combat climate change by generating their own energy.