Greener Kirkcaldy is a Gold Carbon Literate Organisation.
This accreditation recognises that we are improving carbon literacy in our community. That we are engaging our audience in developing and delivering low carbon behaviours. And that we are supporting the development of a Carbon Literate workforce. The certification is given by the Carbon Literacy Trust.
Our Carbon Literate Organisation Journey
As part of Climate Action Fife, we developed our Climate Knowhow training course to improve understanding of the climate emergency in Fife. Our course also builds community capacity to take action. The training has a Fife focus to make the learning relevant to local people. In our course, we discuss the impact of climate change in Fife, as well as sharing success stories of local people taking action.
We focus on the co-benefits of taking climate action. This inspires participants to pledge to take action themselves. A strong message of Climate Knowhow is that community leaders are the right people to drive climate action in their community. George Marshall from charity Climate Outreach explains that very well here.
You can have the greatest climate scientist in the world, telling people that climate change is a threat, but in the end people only respond when they hear from people around them. When you have this climate collective silence, it is by naming the silence that you get action. Try to have a conversation or interaction every day where you do that and don’t for one second underestimate how important those conversations are.
The impact
Greener Kirkcaldy is a local climate change organisation. As such, we were already taking climate action and encouraging other to do so too. We see ourselves as leaders on climate action in Fife and the Gold CLO status is a reflection of our knowledge and expertise.
Our staff have completed the Fife Climate Knowhow course. This was a fantastic morale boost and refreshed our commitment to our work. The training improved our knowledge and increased our confidence to talk about climate change. It highlighted how all our projects and activities contribute to a future where everyone can live better and tread more lightly on our planet.
It also reminded us of the urgent need to reach new audiences and empowered us to lead by example. Greener Kirkcaldy staff and volunteers are climate champions in their own families and communities.
Our Carbon Literate Organisation future
We worked with Climate Action Fife partners to develop our climate literacy course. All the partners, Fife College, FCCAN and Fife Council are committed to completing the training and also hope to apply for CLO status. We will continue to deliver training to our partners and will support them to deliver it to their own communities.
It is important to continue to build capacity in communities across Fife to talk about the climate emergency – our job isn’t done! We will keep the course up to date and include more local stories. We will deliver both to groups, organisations and individuals and offer a mix of online and face to face training.
Our Climate Toolkit provides further resource to promote climate literacy. It contains resources, event guides and success stories to download that will get climate conversations going across Fife. We will offer workshops on climate action to support this. We will cover themes including transport, energy, growing, cooking and waste reduction. Alongside our training, this will support a wave of climate action across the county.
CLO status is a tool that we can use to further engage our community. Gaining gold accreditation is an important milestone for our organisation and the Climate Action Fife partnership. It provides us with greater authority and influence to make Fife a greener and fairer place to live.
