Frequently Asked Questions

The Living Planet Community is a community of Canadians who are taking action to live a healthier life - healthier for you, for the planet and for our children. When you join the Living Planet Community you are lending your voice to a collective, positive and unified call for everyone - governments, businesses and individuals - to do their part, especially to fight climate change.

WWF-Canada is helping connect Canadians, and show how our actions add up when we work together. On this website, you can commit to personal actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, join or create like-minded groups, and invite or challenge others to join you. Many of us are already taking action to reduce our environmental footprint, no matter how small. Join the Living Planet Community, spread the word, and make it count!

You care about climate change, and you want to see something done about it. By joining the Living Planet Community, you are adding your voice and your actions to a community of Canadians making a difference. Your actions will help encourage everyone - government, businesses and other Canadians - to take action, too. From your My Account page, you can take action, invite friends, start groups and create challenges. You can also see how much your actions are reducing greenhouse gas emissions and how many other Canadians have joined the Living Planet Community too.

Some atmospheric gases, like Carbon dioxide (CO₂) trap the sun's heat against the Earth, the same way a greenhouse magnifies the sun's heat to grow plants.

These gases come from burning coal, natural gas and oil - fossil fuels - to make energy. This blanket of gas traps the sun's energy so that it can't escape beyond our atmosphere. If the Earth were too cold, humans could not survive, so some greenhouse gas cover is necessary and natural. But we are burning fossil fuels at such an extreme rate that the blanket of greenhouse gases is thickening to the point at which our planet is quickly heating beyond the healthy range.

Every contribution counts. Collectively, efforts to reduce emissions add up quickly, but that's not the only way in which your actions are meaningful. Your participation sends a signal to your friends, neighbours, and the government that says, "I've done my part, now it's your turn."

No. This is a way for you and WWF-Canada to demonstrate to government and policy leaders that Canadians are willing to take personal action to reduce GHG emissions.

We will be sharing (in aggregate) the number of Canadians who participate in the Living Planet Community and the corresponding total emissions reduced.

WWF-Canada recognizes that organizations and businesses can help individual Canadians reduce their CO₂footprint by providing product and services that enable individuals to take action. WWF-Canada has chosen to collaborate with a select group of companies who provide such product and service alternatives. In addition to providing product and service alternatives, these companies, whose logos are seen on the site, are also providing WWF-Canada with some of the financial support required to create and develop the Living Planet Community. WWF-Canada is pleased to highlight companies who are enabling footprint reduction by offering product and service options and supporting the development of the Living Planet Community.

The companies and organizations highlighted in the Living Planet Community, under the partners and supporters section, are providing WWF-Canada with financial support that has helped WWF develop the Living Planet Community site.

No. Any individual information collected via the Living Planet Community or any interaction with WWF-Canada will not be shared with any of our partners. WWF-Canada is committed to ensuring the individual privacy of the Living Planet Community participants and WWF supporters.

Signing up is easy. On the Sign In page, which you can get to from the home page, complete the fields and click Sign In. The fields in bold are required fields.

Signing up allows you to view the complete list of actions, take actions, invite friends and create challenges. It also helps us keep track of the number of individuals who are participating in the Living Planet Community and track total greenhouse gas emission reductions across Canada and by province.

In order to accurately calculate the Canada-wide and provincial totals of greenhouse gas reductions, we need to know your geographic location and also confirm that you are a unique visitor each time you come to the site.

Your postal code helps us assign CO2 savings. If you choose, your e-mail will also let us provide you with the Living Planet Community and WWF updates.

We will not share your personal information. Learn more about our privacy policy.

WWF-Canada will use the information provided for the purpose of establishing and maintaining your Living Planet Community profile, providing periodic conservation updates and opportunities to support the mission. We will not use your personal information for any other purposes, without your further consent. To review our privacy policy or to decline consent, please visit wwf.ca.

The Living Planet Community is designed for Canadians 18 years of age and older, but is open to all ages.

If you are under 18, be sure to obtain your parent or guardian's permission before you send any information about yourself (your name, e-mail address, etc.) to us or anyone else over the internet. We encourage parents to get involved with their children's use of the internet and to be aware of the activities in which they are participating.

They count! You can choose a start date up to one year in the past. (Neat, eh?)

WWF has partnered with different organizations to help bring some actions to Canadians. This might mean that a particular partnered action is promoted on the Living Planet Community to help Canadians become aware of that service or, in some cases, a partner may be a recommended place to find items that you would need to take that action.

We have used data regarding energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from Natural Resources Canada and Statistics Canada to calculate the average reductions associated with each action. Where electricity was the energy used, we have used the provincial averages for greenhouse gas emissions per kilowatt hour.

The precise greenhouse gas reductions associated with any individual's actions will vary. For example, the greenhouse gas reductions from choosing to leave your car at home and take transit instead will depend on what kind of vehicle you drive, how far it is to your workplace, and what kind of transit you take instead. We have simply used average emissions and commuting distances to make an estimate, as our goal is to show how these individual actions add up when taken as part of broader community of concerned Canadians.

You can use the data in this more detailed report on methodology to develop a more precise calculation for your individual actions if you wish. And if you get a home energy audit (a great idea, because then you're eligible for government rebates), it will produce a calculation customized to your home.

Some actions, such as those designed to raise awareness, do not generate greenhouse gas reductions. But it's also possible that you indicated that you were going to take an action in the future, and it will only begin to calculate your Greenhouse Gas (CO₂) reductions as of the start date. If you entered an incorrect start date by mistake, go to the My Account page, delete the action and re-enter it with the correct start date.

We do not save email addresses of those you invite to join your group, or invite to join the Living Planet Community. We send the invitation but don't store the address in our database. Learn more about our privacy policy.

No. Only the profile image and screen name that you choose for yourself will be displayed on public group pages. Your My Account page will always be private.

No. The information you enter on your profile can only be seen by you. If your group is public, then non-group members can see the Group page where your profile image and screen name will appear-but that's all they'll know about you.

No. You can take whichever actions suit your life and budget right now. The greenhouse gas savings you achieve through your efforts will benefit the group no matter what you do.

Yes, as long as your group is a public group, anyone can join unless your group leader disables the "Join" function. You can only join a private group if the Leader has sent you an invitation.

To get your group members re-energized about the Community, write something encouraging on your groups wall or invite another group to challenge your group to up the ante. Conversations and fun activities with each other will keep things fresh and interesting!

Yes, you can leave a group at any time from the options on your My Account page.

Yes, your can delegate the group leader responsibility to someone else - make sure you ask them first! Simply visit your group page, choose to "Edit Group" and then enter the new leaders email address or screen name in the space provided.

You and your group members can stay as long as they like as a group. If you can't function long as a group, that's fine-every little bit helps. Group leaders can choose to disable a group at any time.

No. This is important. If someone starts a private group, the members are identified by profile images, screen names AND the real names they used when setting up their account. We want to protect their privacy, so we would never let the group leader change the group status and make that information public.

No. The privacy setting for your group is the only thing that can't be changed. As group leader you can edit all the other information fields.

As much time and effort as you like. You can simply check your Groups page periodically to see how things are going and touch base with members. Or, you can regularly instigate challenges with other groups, organize events with your group and chat on the site. Its really up to you and what you and your group want.

The Living Planet Community is about taking action, and an important part of that is getting others to participate. A challenge is a fun way to inspire others - and yourselves - to take on additional actions, thus creating more greenhouse gas reductions. The more people who join the Living Planet Community, the healthier our planet will be.

For now, yes. We will introduce challenges for individuals soon.

A challenge officially begins one day after you create it to give everyone time to receive their invitations and accept.

Stakes are friendly wagers that make challenging other groups even more fun by upping the ante. For each challenge you create, you can choose suggested stakes, or create your own. Its up to you and the groups you challenge to enforce them, so make them reasonable and fun.

Challenges have a specific duration because we encourage people to make realistic changes in their everyday lives, and we feel that these timeframes give everyone an opportunity to do that. If you wish, you can extend multiple challenges to the same group, or create a new challenge once the first is over.

No. You get to choose or make up stakes for each challenge you create. Its best to make them reasonable and fun to keep the competition friendly and to avoid tempting anyone to exaggerate their accomplishments.

Unfortunately, we can't enforce stakes. In the Living Planet Community, we use the honour system. So the onus is on your group members and those of your fellow challengers to encourage each other to meet the stakes.

You could either share in meeting the stakes or you can create a new challenge to see who wins in the end. Its completely up to you.

In the Living Planet Community, we use the honour system. However, if you think someone isn't being entirely honest about their actions or commitments, the site allows ways to communicate with each other.

Because we use the honour system, it is up to each individual on the site to police themselves. the Living Planet Community is all about helping the planet, and cheating does nothing to fight climate change.

Go to your Challenge page, which you can access from your My Account profile once you've logged in (or from your Group Information page, which will list all the challenges that group has extended or accepted) to see how your group is doing against the others.

You cannot cancel a challenge once it has started.

You cannot delete a challenge once it has started.

Your contribution to both groups will be exactly the same, so you cancel yourself out. You'll have to leave it up to your teammates to tip the scales!

Click Forgot Password? in the Sign In/Login page, enter your email address, and then check your inbox for further instructions. We will take care of it for you. Make sure you check your spam or junk mail folder, in case it goes there.

The email address you used to create your account is your primary login identification. To determine which of your email addresses is active on the Living Planet Community, click Forgot Password? and enter any applicable addresses. (If an email address is found in the system, you will receive an email to that address).

Go to My Profile, select a new avatar, and click Save Changes. You can change your account details at any time.

We need to keep your account intact in order to know the number of unique visitors who have participated in the Living Planet Community. But you can change details in your account at any time on the Edit Profile page, which includes the ability to cancel actions if necessary.

When we receive any information about misuse of the Living Planet Community website, our administrators have the ability to lock an individual account. This may be what happened. For more information, please contact us at Community@wwfcanada.org

You can either do the action now or, if it's no longer possible or applicable, delete it from your My Account page.

Note: There is no "undo." You will lose the Greenhouse Gas (CO₂) reduction calculation you accumulated from this action. However, once you've deleted an action, you always have the option of re-starting the action and back-dating it; that way, you won't lose any Greenhouse Gas (CO₂) reductions you accumulated.

You can also "stop" an action. If, for example, you were participating in an action but no longer can do it, you can click the "stop" icon on your My Account page. You'll no longer generate Greenhouse Gas (CO₂) reductions for that action, but any CO₂ reductions you made up to that point will be included in your total contribution number.

You can't change an action, but you can delete it from your My Account page. Find the action you'd like to delete, and click the Delete icon.

Note: There is no "undo." You will lose the Greenhouse Gas (CO₂) reduction calculation you accumulated from this action. However, once you've deleted an action, you always have the option of re-starting the action and back-dating it; that way, you won't lose any Greenhouse Gas (CO₂) reductions you accumulated.

You can also "stop" an action. If, for example, you were participating in an action but no longer can do it, you can click the "stop" icon on your My Account page. You'll no longer generate Greenhouse Gas (CO₂) reductions for that action, but any CO₂ reductions you made up to that point will be included in your total contribution number.

Stopping an action means that you are no longer doing it. For example, you used to take transit to work every weekday, but now you have a new job that requires you to drive to work.

Comments are posted once they have been reviewed by a moderator. This could take up to 2-3 business days. So it could be a delay. Or, possibly, your comment was not approved because it is inappropriate or off topic.

To respond to an existing comment, first cut and paste the comment you're responding to. Then type your response and click Submit Comment. Your comment will appear once it has been reviewed by a moderator. This could take up to 2-3 business days.

Feel free to contact us