We are delighted to announce that we have been accredited as a Silver Carbon Literate Organisation by the UN-recognised Carbon Literacy Project. This prestigious accreditation recognises our commitment to upskill our people to play a proactive role in reducing our organisational carbon emissions, and work towards a zero-carbon future.
The award also recognises our support for our membership via the creation and roll-out of a bespoke Carbon Literacy Training package for our sector.
In 2023 and 2024, we certified 125 learners across 56 organisations, who collectively saved 56.48 tonnes of CO2e through their pledges, and, consequently, created over £13,800 in social value to local communities
Carbon Literacy is defined as, “An awareness of the carbon dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis,” and revolves around a day’s worth of learning and action on climate change.
Our Carbon Literacy training programme has been developed/delivered by Jenn Huygen, Head of Policy and Strategic Partnerships and Stephanie Seaton, Network Support Officer.
To become accredited as a Silver Carbon Literate Organisation, Community Leisure UK trained more than 40% of their staff and board members via bespoke Carbon Literacy training materials, committed to Carbon Literacy as an organisation by embedding it in their work processes and creating a plan for future work on Carbon Literacy. Following initial Carbon Literacy Training a new Shareable Course has been developed to allow their members to upskill their entire workforce.
Being accredited as a Silver Carbon Literate Organisation is an important achievement for us because it:
Community Leisure UK published its first Climate Change Action Plan in 2021, recognising the climate emergency and our responsibility as a membership body to support members in their resilience and their local role in achieving environmental targets. We demonstrated the role of leisure and culture trusts in tackling the climate emergency. But our members also asked for support on how they can respond to the climate change emergency and work on their own environmental policies and action.
So, when the Carbon Literacy Sports Toolkit was released in 2023, this was our chance to roll out accessible training to our members to build their knowledge and confidence in identifying relevant climate actions. We accessed the Sports Toolkit and trained the Community Leisure UK team in summer 2023 so that all staff members feel confident in supporting members, but also so we could reduce our own carbon footprint.
We decided to run a pilot training session with members to scope interest in Carbon Literacy training. The pilot session for members was fully booked within 3 days, with a waiting list growing to over 30 people within two weeks of announcing the initial training.
This keen interest and the positive feedback from learners after our initial delivery of Carbon Literacy in September 2023 encouraged us to develop our own course, bespoke for our membership and focused on charities and social enterprises managing public leisure and culture. We also changed our own practices, reviewing our events and meeting policies and calculating our own carbon footprint, to reduce our emissions.
We delivered a year-long programme of Carbon Literacy training (April 2024 – March 2025) for the charitable public leisure and culture sector to upskill our members and the wider sector. As of February 2024, 49% of Community Leisure UK members now have at least one member of staff who is certified Carbon Literate. In 2023 and 2024, we certified 125 learners across 56 organisations, who collectively saved 56.48 tonnes of CO2e through their pledges, and, consequently, created over £13,800 in social value to local communities. We were recognised for this work as part of the national Social Value Awards 2024 where we got shortlisted in the category of ‘creating capability’.
Carbon Literacy is now fully embedded in our member support programme and has allowed us to update our internal environmental policies. Going forward we will continue to monitor our organisational footprint, and focus on rolling out Carbon Literacy training as a Shareable Course for charitable public leisure and culture organisations.
