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How the competition works

Kāpiti Coast’s Greenest Street Competition aims to enthuse and assist groups of neighbours to work together, make friends and have fun while they work as a community to reduce their environmental footprint, be more self-sufficient and enhance the place where they live.

The competition participants from the winning street will receive win a cash prize of $3,000 that will be split three ways – one third to a charity of their choice, one third to a local school, and one third free choice for the street to spend communally. There are other prizes as well to reward particular achievements, such as ‘best garden’ and ‘smallest individual footprint’.

The latest round of the competition starts in September 2011 with participants completing an environmental footprint quiz that estimates their total personal environmental impact. The streets have nine months between then and June 2011 to reduce their footprint and carry out street initiatives. The competition then concludes with another round of footprinting, a ‘wrap party’ event and final judging.

The streets will be judged based on:

  • 40% for what they achieve as a community – how well they have worked together, involved people and made the most of their skills and resources; the streets final presentation at the wrap party is the final opportunity to improve their score in this area.
  • 30% for the absolute size of their average footprint at the end of the competition;
  • 20% for the proportion by which they reduce the average environmental footprint for the street;
  • 10% points for ‘green’ actions people have done within their individual households not covered by the footprint questionnaire. (NB: the weighting for this category may be reduced following a review)

The judges meet the participants in each street at their October 2011 launches and keep track of their progress through the regular updates the council and streets themselves provide. The judges visit the streets again in the final weeks of the competition, to see first hand what the streets have achieved.