The idea was an interactive environmental website, one where users could not only swap green-friendly tips but also figure out their individual carbon footprint. The friends partnered with the CBC to present the site, One Million Acts of Green. That target number was exceeded in four months; Canadians have now gone online to register more than 1.6 million acts of green. This July a similarly smart and helpful website will be introduced in the U.S. and five as-yet unnamed countries in western Europe.

 

The potential is enormous. If its success in Canada is repeated—with one out of every 20 people going to the site to register what they are doing to cut down on emissions—within a few months the new website would rack up 25 million commitments. Will any of the Americans and Europeans who log on suspect that the company behind the website doesn’t have a corporate office? Would they be charmed to know that millions of people are connecting to six tiny home offices—five in Fredericton and one in Saint John?

 

Peter Corbyn laughs, as well he should. When you are a successful hardworking company of friends, you have fun at work. Inspired by a love of Star Trek, they named their green social networking site GreenNexxus as a sly nod to a reference in the sci-fi franchise. While work roles are carefully delineated, the four partners and two employees/shareholders don’t use formal titles. Corbyn has a business card proclaiming himself “Chief Green Nexxian.”  

 

 

The hours are brutal and the details mind-boggling, but Corbyn is doing what he wanted to do. A former environmental director for the Canadian Automotive Parts Manufacturing Association, he decided after the 2001 birth of his daughter, Paige, to commit himself to environmental action. Every day he applies his knowledge, skills, and work ethic to help bring some sanity to the global ecological crisis.

 

The idea for the interactive website came from Ryan Groom, one of Corbyn’s partners. It followed the less-than-successful One-Tonne Challenge. That national environmental campaign, with comedian Rick Mercer as its spokesman, had asked all Canadians to cut their carbon emissions by a tonne. It was a great idea, with one big problem: Who knew what a tonne of emissions looked like? It’s hard to get people excited about change if the change can’t be envisioned.

 

The Million Acts of Green website allows people to see exactly how much greenhouse gas emissions are saved by turning down the thermostat, insulating the basement, or taking public transit to work. Corbyn and his pals built the site on spec in the belief that if they built it, someone would eventually pay them for it. The City of Fredericton signed on first; its citizens loved it. From there it jumped to the national scene, thanks to the CBC and corporate sponsor Cisco Systems Inc. Cisco is also underwriting the new site being created for the U.S. and Europe.

 

And this raises a troubling concern. The CBC promoted the program like mad, children across the land were told to take this seriously, and when the milestone was reached there were cheers for all. But if you read the CBC website carefully and do the math, you’ll discover that all of the million-plus efforts of Canadians saved the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions created by Cisco Systems in about six weeks.

 

Corbyn said he didn’t know this but isn’t surprised, pointing out that huge companies use massive amounts of energy. What’s needed right now is to raise awareness of the serious problem we share. “When people ask me what’s the most important environmental step they can take, I say, ‘Change a light bulb.’ Al Gore says changing a light bulb alone will not save the planet but it will increase awareness,” says Corbyn. “It’s a visual reminder of what else you can do. It’s a cue to do other things. We have to start somewhere, and a walk of 1,000 miles begins with one step.”

 

That could sound like bafflegab coming from someone with less stellar credentials. When Al Gore decided to instruct other people to present his slide show/lecture on global warming—the one seen in the film, An Inconvenient Truth—Corbyn was among the first Canadians to receive training. Within six months he presented it 50 times, including five times in one day. And when Gore travelled to Montreal to instruct another 250 Canadians, Corbyn was the weekend’s emcee, sharing the stage with Gore and David Suzuki.

 

Corbyn is also one of the founders of a Canadian wing of Gore’s The Climate Project. He is no longer on the board but remains a special advisor. Right now most of his energy is needed to help turn people in the U.S. and Europe on to living greener lives. All of which raises a question: what’s in the water in Fredericton? This is one more shiny example of the New Brunswick capital being on the green cutting edge. For the second time, the city was recently named one of the smartest cities in the world by the New York-based Intelligent Community Forum. 

 

Corbyn says education is a big part of it: UNB pumps out engineers and computer scientists. It has plenty of environmental initiatives and a knowledge sector that employs more people than the government. Also, the city is small enough that everyone gets to know each other, which can create fresh working partnerships. And the quality of life is great, so people want to stay. After all, living close to nature is a quintessential act of green.