How can your organisation become greener and cleaner?

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Greener & Cleaner is a pioneering sustainable living charity supporting individuals and the wider community (including schools, charities, businesses, councils and more), to improve local wellbeing, air quality and biodiversity and reduce the costs of living and of doing business, while reducing carbon emissions.

Light Bulb Moment

I founded Greener & Cleaner as a community group in early 2019 after my return from a maternity leave spent watching and reflecting upon the School Climate Strikes of 2018. I suppose that was what you would call my ‘wake up call’. I’m almost ashamed to admit that it took thousands of children pleading with us adults., watching them huddled outside their schools with hand drawn banners and anxious expressions week after week for me to take action.

Joined by others who wanted to make a difference, our group quickly grew in support, scale and problem-solving ambition: we converted from a CIC to a charity in 2021 and opened our Community Sustainability Hub Pilot in South East London in March 2022.

How we are inspiring people to become greener and cleaner

One of our key goals is to improve equality, well-being and our chances of hitting national Net Zero targets by breaking down harmful myths and stereotypes and making sustainable living accessible and inclusive for all. We are working to do this through:

• Popularising and normalising active engagement with sustainable living for all through our Community Sustainability Hub Pilot for UK shopping centres and other ‘mainstream’ settings (‘Hub Pilot’)
• Facilitating local people to empower each other through their stories, knowledge, skills, resource and time sharing: online; at our Hub Pilot; and at our Community Garden/Allotment (‘CAG’)
• Helping people from all backgrounds and starting points to understand the local impacts of high carbon lifestyles and biodiversity loss, and how sustainable living is relevant to their own lives, while also giving them the knowledge and skills to use their choices and voices to protect their families and their communities
• Facilitating co-design and testing of activities and communications with different groups across South East London, including harder to reach groups. This helps ensure that we can much more effectively reach and support everyone in our community via our Pilot Hub, CAG and online; and include these key learnings in a Hub Blueprint for the UK.

Inclusion and accessibility is at the heart of the sustainability support we give to the different stakeholders we work with.

We are concerned that those most vulnerable to our carbon heavy lifestyles in the UK are often those least likely to be aware of current impacts to their health, finances and community at the moment. We are working hard to change that and are always open to collaborations.

Our model and plans

We use a peer-to-peer model of empowering local people to educate and facilitate others in their own community, for example by sharing their own experiences of sustainable living or training others in relevant skills. These activities can take place via our online platforms, in person at the Hub Pilot or the CAG, or at other satellite events. 

Over the next 2 years, while continuing to provide a local service, we will be seeking to identify the ‘smart’ way to address some of the biggest challenges faced by community groups and charities with an environmental focus, in order to make our model and the Hub sustainable and replicable.

This project will include co-designing, conducting research on and testing events, training and communications with different groups and demographics in local communities, with a particular focus on the:

• Gateway areas of sustainable living for disparate groups
• Gateway co-benefits of sustainable living for those groups (e.g. financial, wellbeing, community strengthening, social justice)
• Preferred activities and/or skills training.

How can your organisation become more sustainable?

Take time to consider:

• The type of energy you use and where you waste energy (e.g. greener energy tariffs, insulation, adding renewables where possible)
• The types of cleaner transport you encourage and/or use for commutes, fleets and holidays (Season ticket and bike loans are great, bike storage and showers too, ‘Climate Perks’ is a great project to check out)
• Where your money is (some bank accounts, insurers, pensions are better on climate and some much worse, our website can provide a starting point);
• Reducing waste (e.g. go preloved or borrow the items you need as the default)
• The food you offer (more meat and dairy free options, more seasonal, less food miles, less plastic)
• Make sure any rooftops, courtyards or green spaces you control are not ‘nature dead zones’ (grass and concrete don’t add value – design and plant for pollinators, birds and more)
• Communicate with and support your staff and volunteers - team members who connect with sustainability on a personal level and understand that you share their values, are generally happier and also much more likely to help you hit your organisation’s sustainability goals as quickly and cost effectively as possible (we deliver engaging and popular Lunch & Learns, Carbon Literacy Training, volunteering opportunities and a range of Workshops, to support teams at other charities and businesses)
• Starting, one step at a time, now.

If you would like some tailored ideas, get in touch! We deliver talks and workshops to fund our work and to help other organisations get greener and cleaner.