A year after Fairfax County declared its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050, Rekha Nadkarni has made her neighborhood, McLean Hunt Estates, the first community in the county to be an official part of that effort.

Nadkarni was one of a group of residents who worked with the county and the Sierra Club to create the Cool Neighborhoods program to compliment the Cool Counties initiative that was signed last July. The idea, she said, was to generate awareness and open the door for individual citizens to join the county’s effort to fight global warming.

In order to qualify as a Cool Neighborhood, at least 20 percent of the community’s households must either reduce their carbon emissions by 2 percent annually or have a carbon footprint 80 percent or less of the county average for homes with the same number of people. About 23 of McLean Hunt Estates’ 60 households expressed interest in the program, and about 15 have submitted the paperwork.

"We wanted to have an impact on the larger community, perhaps by setting an example here," said McLean Hunt Estates Citizens Association President Susan Bartram.

The households participating calculated the amounts of various resources, such as water, gasoline and electricity, they were using and will be reevaluated a year after they submitted their forms.

A graph was circulated, depicting each home’s use of resources without telling which house was whose, which neighbor Gary Reid said provided some incentive to make changes, since residents could see how they stacked up against each other. "We guzzled tons of water because we had a leaky pool," he said. The pool has since been fixed.

The Nadkarni, Reid and Bartram households all qualified for the program by coming in at least 20 percent below the county average, but they are still working to drop that number further. "We’d done a lot of this stuff before this program, so we’re sort of scrambling for ideas," Bartram said of her family.

Her family already combined driving errands and had cut back on indoor climate control. The thermostats in her house are on timers that keep the temperature at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and cool it down at night. When she had her siding replaced years ago, she had insulation installed under the new siding. She’d also had her windows replaced with models that allow less heat transfer, put insulation in the attic and installed an attic fan "to pull the heat out so it doesn’t sit there like an electric blanket over the house." She said her family had recently started turning off the computer and planned to get an energy-efficient Energy Star refrigerator whenever they replace the current unit.

Initially, she said, "a lot of the things we did were strictly self-serving."

"Saving energy is saving money," said Nadkarni. She recommended minimizing waste by sealing and caulking windows and turning down the temperature on the water heater. She and her husband had had an "energy audit" performed on the house to find out where the leaks were and then had them sealed.

Her husband, Prakash, said they had also put their outdoor lights on timers that know when the sun rises and sets, switched many of their light bulbs to compact fluorescent versions and started using "smart power strips," which turn off their peripheral outlets when the device plugged into the primary outlet is shut off.

"If you’re cool, you can get cooler," he said.

In addition to the recent pool repairs, Reid said his family set the thermostat to bring down the temperature around the time he and his wife come home from work, her arriving in a hybrid and he on the bicycle he rides to and from his job in D.C.

They put their second refrigerator in the basement, rather than the garage, so that it would not have to fight the outdoor heat. Also, over the years, when they renovated their bathrooms they replaced the toilets with low-water volume models, and they replaced the insulation and windows, just as they did when they renovated the kitchen and basement. They also upgraded their water heater and make a point to pull down their shades.

"People need to understand that they individually can have an impact," said Bartram.

Prakash Nadkarni said the 2 percent annual figure was more to get people started than anything else. "Once you get the awareness, people do things on their own and don’t need to be prodded by a number," he said.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerry Connolly, who has been a proponent of the Cool Counties program, said the board would be trying to get other communities involved in Cool Neighborhoods, through its work with homeowners associations and civic associations. "We have an enthusiastic citizenry that wants to be engaged in this kind of program," he said.

While a 2 percent annual reduction in emissions by 20 percent of the population would not come close to reducing overall residential emissions by 2050, Connolly said he thought advances in technology would continue to make emissions reduction easier. "No one’s asking you to become a Trappist monk," he said. "I think there are lots of different things that can be done."

The Cool Counties program, which started in Fairfax County, has now been adopted by about four dozen counties nationwide.