Groundwork is currently working in partnership with Rochdale Borough Council (RBC) to support the roll out of their Carbon Literacy training programme. RBC are one of many Local Authorities who declared a Climate Emergency in 2019 and have just launched their Climate Change Strategy which outlines their plans to become carbon neutral by 2038.
What is Carbon Literacy?
Founded by the Carbon Literacy Trust, Carbon Literacy is a days’ (8 hours) worth of training which aims to leave participants with an awareness of the carbon impacts of everyday actions at home and within the workplace to inspire ideas that result in carbon reduction.
At the end of the training participants need to complete an assessment form and pledge two actions that reduce emissions, one as an individual and one as part of a group, before being certified Carbon Literate by the Carbon Literacy Trust.
Carbon Literacy training can play key role within any organisation’s climate and sustainability strategies as it covers all the basics that staff will need to know on climate change so they can become aware of how to reduce emissions within the workplace and consider the environmental impact of business decisions moving forward.
How are Groundwork supporting RBC with the Carbon Literacy training?
All courses being delivered have been tailored from the Carbon Literacy Trust’s Local Authority Toolkits to make them relevant to Rochdale. As part of the programme, Groundwork will be delivering carbon literacy training to 240 staff using three different courses, which include:
- A standard course that is suitable for all council departments such as Planning, Housing and Environmental Management
- A course for senior leaders
- A course for elected members
Groundwork will be delivering training to a handful of Rochdale staff on how to deliver Carbon Literacy training, which will help embed Carbon Literacy within the organisation for future years and are also supporting with the development of an e-learning module which will introduce staff to the climate emergency.
Feedback from RBC employees who have received Carbon Literacy training:
“Really informative and as a result I had a much more better understanding of the issues that we are all facing. Brilliant ideas of how we can all take some personal responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint.”
“The course was engaging and interesting throughout, I felt there was a good mix of information and engagement. The trainer was great and did well to keep things light despite some of the tough content.”
“I felt we were able to unify during the course and seriously talk about how we could work together on tackling Climate Change and reducing our emissions.”
