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Would you ever ride your bike to work so that a Chelsea mum can drive the kiddies to school in a gas guzzler? That was one of the questions participants in the RSA's personal carbon trading scheme, Carbon Limited, were forced to ask themselves when trading their carbon credits.

The results from the pilot of personal carbon trading showed that unlike trading schemes between businesses, the personal trading scheme factored individuals' perceptions of each other and the validity of their activities into the price.

Rather than selling them, some people kept their surplus credits to themselves so that others had to reduce their emissions rather than buying their way out of the problem.

We're encouraged by this, and by the fact that the pilot has now been taken on by the sustainability centre at the Local Government information Unit (LGiU), a local government think tank. The LGiU is proposing to run a voluntary trading scheme between local authorities, to prepare them for regulation like the Carbon Reduction Commitment by incentivising them to reduce emissions and helping them learn how carbon trading works.

Local authorities have until April 2008 to sign up so if you want your council to get involved write a letter to you local Councillor to encourage them to sign up. To find out who your Councillors are, go to Write To Them.