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CJAD Radio Interview with Elias Makos

By The Proulx-Coll Household

Elias

We start off this hour with the Montreal family. They’re one of eight across Canada that has been chosen to participate in the challenge to reduce their carbon footprint. The challenge starts this Tuesday. The winners don’t only get a chance to contribute to saving the planet, but also winning a big cash prize. We’re joined now by Jessica Coll and Ollie Proulx on the line. Jessica, Ollie, welcome to the show.

 

Jessica

Thank you. Hi.

 

Elias

You know, I was seeing your, we’re we’re doing this on the zoom. I was seeing your beautiful faces. Before and now you’ve gone away. I can’t see. You any alright? Oh my. Now, now let me paint the picture for our listeners on the radio. Let me tell you Jessica and Ollie, they look fantastic and they look like a couple of people you’d root for in a big old contest. So tell us about the challenge, Jessica. I’ll start with you. Tell us. About the carbon footprint.

 

Jessica

Yes. So we live in Montreal and we have three kids and they chose us as the only Quebec family to participate in this challenge to reduce our carbon footprint. So we’re really excited about that because we live in a house that is 100 years old and there are a lot of changes that we could do to our house to make it more energy efficient and we’ll be participating in a variety of challenges over the next few months.

 

Elias

OK. So Ollie, let’s talk about 100 year old house. All I imagine is in the winter time you see the money escaping through every single crack. I mean that’s so tell tell me about that.

 

Oli

Yeah, exactly. So the challenge is going to help us look at all that. And we just started already. We got what’s called an ENERGUIDE audit. So they came into our house and they they did an audit to look at all that. And they actually put a big blower in the door to see where the air is coming out of our house and we got a big report and through the challenge we’ll be able to look at that report and get some help finding what’s the best way to change our house to  have the most impact for the less dollar.  And I think a lot of people are looking at that. They don’t just want to change everything in their house. They have a limited budget and so the challenge is going to help us choose that.

 

Elias

So off the top here, Jessica mentioned one family in eight families in the whole country, one family in Quebec. So how did you get selected? 

 

Jessica

We just applied. I don’t know. They didn’t give us much any detail, but we applied and we just had to submit a video and we just featured it. It’s mostly just talking about our lifestyle and how we could make a few lifestyle changes to decrease our carbon footprint. And then just to show how we can inspire. Other Canadians to do the same.

 

Elias

And now, Ollie, you know, we can go and do the ENERGUIDE and find out how the home isn’t as efficient, but I would imagine as well you also have to change habits. So what now? Tell me about that part of the equation. What are the things are going to happen when it comes to what you eat.

 

Oli

So the the challenge has 6 different challenges and two of those, off the top of my head is about lifestyle. So the first one that’s starting next week is about your commute, so how can you commute more efficiently? So I’m particularly excited about that one because I’m a huge fan of electric vehicles and we already have an EV, but we’re going to try to go even further. We have another vehicle that’s a bit more gas consuming…. We use it for our long road trips, so we’re gonna try to cut that one out of the equation and take all our long trips with our EV and go back to camping with the kids. So that’s where I think for us, it’s really going to be shifting our lifestyle because we love doing adventures and we love going in the outdoors. And so shifting that to be even more eco conscious and lowering that carbon footprint there.

 

Elias

And Jessica on on that and as well, what are the things that you know with the kids you’re going to? Be looking at and saying. OK. We we’re not gonna. Do this too much carbon. What? What are you gonna do?

 

Jessica

Yeah, I think it’s a good time to look at our current habits. And I think the main thing is that since we have two cars already, it’s just so easy to get in the car and bring kids places when they’re asking to go to activities. And and so we’re contemplating going down to one car. And then just choosing activities that aren’t too far and we work from home. I work from home and then he goes to work a few days a week. So seeing how we could manage everything, appointments and activities and work just with one vehicle and five people living in this family, I think that’s gonna be the main thing. But there’s other things too, like hot showers or heating and things like that.

 

Elias

OK, so my jaw just dropped. So what’s going to happen to the hot showers? Cold showers for all?

 

Jessica

I’m still gonna take hot showers, that’s for sure. And I don’t know. And the kids too, like to take hot showers. So I don’t know. We haven’t started this. And I feel like I have a lot to learn. So we’re gonna see what? And we’ll learn.  And sharing our experiences throughout this journey.

 

Elias

I was speaking with Jessica Coll and Ollie Proulx.

 

Elias

For anyone who was just tuning in with Jessica and Ollie. They’re competing in the Live Net Zero footprint challenge that starts next week. 

 

Oli

I was just going to follow up with part of the challenge is to establish a baseline. So kind of see what our current behaviors and habits are and what’s kind of our carbon footprint right now. And so I’m really interested to see which part of that has the biggest footprint and maybe the hot showers are or maybe it is something else.  But focusing on what could be our biggest impact for change, I think it’s gonna be interesting.

 

Elias

OK, I want to take a moment here to talk about, you know, to me, my jaw drops at times when I hear you talk. And then my eyes open up when I hear about big cash prize. What are we talking about here? What is this big cash prize that you’re that you’re aiming for?

 

Jessica

$50,000.

 

Elias

Wow, OK, so, this will really matter for you if you can beat out the seven other other families.

 

Jessica

Yeah. And we already received $5000 to use to participate in these challenges. So we’ll be figuring out how to use that money towards changes that we can do to improve our carbon footprint over the next few weeks.

 

Elias

And Olli, you’re you’re no stranger to this kind of thing, right? You’re you’re one of the founders of a company called ChargeHub. Won’t you tell us a little bit about that?

 

Oli

I co-founded the company. The company is called Mogile Technologies, but the the product that we have is called ChargeHub and the mission is to increase electric vehicle adoption and the way we think we’re going to do that is to simplify the charging. So you can use ChargeHub to find all the charging stations across North America. You could plan your trips and you can even pay for the charging from a single app. So we’re really trying to make it simple for people to get into the EV space and and drive an EV and charge as easy as possible.

 

Elias

Ollie and Jessica, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. I want to say good luck. Also, I hope you guys pull it out and take home the big prize for Quebec. And thanks so much. Maybe we’ll we’ll catch up at at some midway point to. See how you’re doing.

 

Oli

Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for having us.

 

Jessica

Thank you guys. Take care.

 

Elias

Fantastic. That’s Jessica Coll. And Ollie Proulx taking part in the Live Net Zero challenge.

Written by The Proulx-Coll Household

Read more of their stories as they vie with the other seven households to reduce their carbon footprint.

Meet the The Proulx-Coll Household
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