The CLCC consortium came together in 2019 in order to increase Carbon Literacy within their organisations. By working together they were able to pool money and resources to increase capacity and knowledge across the consortium.
CLCC has worked with 29 different RSLs and currently has 22 members across Wales, representing over 113,000 homes.
Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales runs the secretariat for CLCC, organising meetings, holding funds for use by the consortium, providing support around Carbon Literacy and facilitating Community of Practice sessions for CLCC trainers.
Carbon Literacy is defined as a day’s worth of learning around the causes and consequences of climate change, action you can take on climate change and empowerment to make individual and group actions personally and professionally.
The Carbon Literacy Project has defined the standard of Carbon Literacy and accredits courses and learners.
29 different RSLs from around Wales have either worked with or are part of the consortium – demonstrating the motivation from the sector to collaborate to create change. The programme has increased the number of Carbon Literacy trainers in Wales from 1 to over 70.
The current Chair of CLCC is Nadine Davies, Community Decarbonisation Officer at Bron Afon.
“We’ve done the [Carbon Literacy] training, it’s raised awareness and as a consequence, this has now happened. Would we be looking at electrifying our fleet this year? No. But we are. Would we be looking at half a million-pound investment to kickstart our carbon reduction plan. No. But we are. We are now re-procuring our energy to go to green renewables.”
Richard Mann, Deputy Chief Executive and Group Director Operations, United Welsh.
CLCC history
In October 2019 representatives from 16 different RSLs around Wales came together to learn more about The Carbon Literacy Project and hear a proposal to create a Carbon Literacy consortium of RSLs in Wales.
The delegates of this meeting edited the proposal which went back out to all RSLs in Wales. In January 2020 a meeting surrounding this proposal led to the creation of a Carbon Literacy consortium of 27 Welsh RSLs. The consortium was named Carbon Literacy Cartrefi Cymru (CLCC).
Programme
- February 2020 – Phase I: rounds of Carbon Literacy training for member organisations delivered by Cynnal Cymru.
- March 2020 – Lockdown. Training continues remotely with a new online course and the whole CLCC programme is moved online. 65 member organisation employees receive training and became Carbon Literate.
- May 2020 – Phase II: 5 training experts from within the consortium work with Cynnal Cymru and Manchester Metropolitan to develop a customisable Carbon Literacy course for Welsh social housing.
- October 2020 – Phase III: Each member organisation will have at least 2 members of staff trained as Carbon Literacy trainers by Manchester Metropolitan. They will be trained to deliver the courses developed in Phase II.
- 2020 – onwards: Member organisations use their trainers to deliver Carbon Literacy training internally to staff and embed Carbon Literacy into their induction process. Cynnal Cymru are supporting this with facilitated Community of Practice sessions for trainers providing a space for cross organisational learning, support and Carbon Literacy course development.
- March 2022: Following feedback from consortium members and trainers, Version 2 of the Carbon Literacy course is completed in both English and Welsh, incorporating updated examples and a more streamlined and user-friendly format.
- The future: CLCC are exploring collaboratively funding other projects to support decarbonisation, such as self-evaluation carbon footprint tools and a rollout of Carbon Literacy training for tenants
Journey of Carbon Literacy
- Deliver Carbon Literacy course
- Trainer facilitates achievable but ambitious actions
- Learner evidence forms are sent to The Carbon Literacy Project
- The Carbon Literacy Project assesses whether a learner is Carbon Literate based on their evidence form
- Carbon Literacy Champions within CLCC organisations should follow up on actions
- Organisational behaviour change on climate change is accelerated
If you would like to know more please contact:
Fiona Humphreys, Carbon Literacy Cartrefi Cymru (CLCC) secretariat: fiona@cynnalcymru.com