NEWBURYPORT — For one week, three locals are giving up cooking, shopping, driving and television-watching. Their mission — to raise awareness about carbon-conscious living.

On Sunday, John Brown, Elizabeth Marcus, Conrad Willeman and Niall Robinson, all members of Transition Newburyport, a local grass-roots organization, began the No Impact Experiment, a national weeklong "carbon cleanse," spearheaded by the environmental nonprofit No Impact Project.

The trio will follow the No Impact Project's day-by-day "how-to guide," available at noimpactproject.org, which explains how to gradually decrease your carbon footprint.

Each day focuses on a specific challenge: stop consuming new goods on Sunday, stop making trash on Monday, and on Tuesday switch to non-carbon producing transportation. Each day builds on the day before, so by Friday you are not shopping for new goods, not making trash, only traveling by sustainable transportation, eating locally, using less energy and wasting less water.

"They take you through day by day and suggest actions that you can take over the course of the project," Marcus, 59, said. "I was at an event and went into the ladies room to wash my hands, and had to choose between paper towels and the hand dryer — if I chose the paper towels, I would have had to bring them home as part of the challenge to collect all your trash. And I wanted to save energy, rather than use the hand dryer, so I ended up just shaking my hands off!"

Today's goal is to begin to try to eat more locally and stop eating packaged foods, which Brown said will be one of his biggest challenges.

"I probably don't have the best diet to begin with," Brown said. "As I get older, I feel my body crying out for a change in what I eat. I always wanted to make a change in my diet, and this was as good a time as ever to do that."

Though some of the experiment's volunteers may take the challenge to the extreme, such as shutting of the energy to their home throughout the entire week, Marcus said it doesn't take such radical measures to lower your carbon footprint.

"There are simple things you can do to reduce your energy consumption," Marcus said. "Don't just turn off appliances, unplug them. Your television, computer, printer, and other appliances use energy by just sitting there."

Marcus said other simple changes could be drying clothes on an outside clothesline or indoor drying rack rather than a dryer, or eating more raw food rather than using a microwave, toaster or oven.

Marcus said that because Transition Newburyport has a similar mission to the project, it shouldn't be too hard to adapt.

"Some days will be harder than others," Marcus said. "Some of these are things we have been looking at and doing already, but this will raise our awareness of other things we could be doing and bring up other areas we can improve. If we're unable to make the change immediately, it will give us something to think about."

During the course of the week, Transition Newburyport members will be documenting their experiences with the experiment on their Web site, transitionmassachusetts.ning.com/group/Newburyport, and invite other local participants to do the same. Nationally, others will be sharing their experiences on the No Impact Project's Web site.

"The experiment is not about being 100 percent pure or changing your whole lifestyle, or anything radical," Brown said. "It's a small experiment to become more aware. You can't change something unless you become aware of it."

The No Impact Experiment is run under the umbrella of the No Impact Project, an international, environmental, nonprofit project, founded last spring by Colin Beavan, aka "No Impact Man," following the success of his blog, book and film, which chronicle his family's yearlong experiment living a zero-waste lifestyle in New York City.

Marcus became interested in the project when she recently saw Beavan speak at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he spoke of the launch of the No Impact Experiment, and she thought it would fit in nicely with Transition Newburyport's mission.

"Our aim is to have the community as a whole look at ways to move into a lower-impact future, start living more sustainably and look at ways to make our local area more resilient and self-reliant," Marcus said.

Despite heading into a week of guidelines and restrictions, Brown believes the experiment will help him become more empowered and free.

"This gives me the ability to decide what kind of future, what kind of community, what kind of world I'd like to live in, rather than having someone else, a corporation or political party, decide that for me," Brown said. "On a personal level, I'll be able to learn how to be more earth-friendly and actually walk the walk of what Transition Newburyport talks about."