Climate Change

How public bodies are embedding the Well-being of Future Generations Act

Transport for Wales – embedding well-being to guide their decision making

There are currently 56 public bodies who are subject to the Well-being of Future Generations Act and who by law must carry out ‘sustainable development’, including setting and publishing well-being objectives and taking all reasonable steps to meet them. At Cynnal Cymru we’ve been working directly with several of the public bodies mentioned in the Act, supporting them to meet their well-being goals.

Our team are currently working with Transport for Wales (TfW) to develop a bespoke Carbon Literacy training course for their employees. Did you know TfW are one of the latest organisations to become a named body under the Act? This happened in June 2024, and means they are responsible for reporting their progress under the legislation. In April 2025, TfW released their well-being statement, outlining their plan to meet the goals set out within the Act and the well-being objectives they are focusing on to enable future generations to thrive. The four well-being objectives they’ve developed to guide their decision-making are:

  1. Enabling people and communities
  2. Benefiting the environment
  3. Supporting local areas and the economy
  4. Elevating Welsh culture and language

TfW are embedding this future-focused and long-term thinking approach in practice through a number of recent projects, including the development of the South Wales Metro project and an increase in the number of pioneering “tri-mode” electric trains, combined with their ambitious Network North Wales initiative launched earlier this year.

How Natural Resources Wales are helping to restore our peatlands

During our Carbon Literacy training with Natural Resources Wales (NRW), we were excited to hear how they are successfully restoring peatlands across Wales as part of the the National Peatland Action Programme (NPAP). This is an excellent example of how different organisations are working together under the Act to:

  • capture and store carbon
  • regulate greenhouse gases
  • maintain biodiversity
  • regulate water

Wales smashes peatland restoration target

“Wales continues to exceed its national peatland restoration target, restoring over 3,600 hectares of damaged peatland – the equivalent of more than 3,600 rugby fields – in just five years.

This nature-based climate action is estimated to deliver an emissions saving equal to taking 6,840 cars off the road.”

How public bodies are embedding the Well-being of Future Generations Act Read More »

two herring gulls sitting on a roof

Lessons from 20 years of being climate ready (or not) – watch where the gulls are!

Over the last 20 years I have been involved in some form of climate adaptation or resilience work, and I have found gulls a great indicator of whether we are climate ready or not. But first some other lessons.

The tools to help are just the same – we just need to choose one and use it

In 2006 I worked on the first climate risk assessment for an economic investment strategy. We used a tool called ‘Business Areas Climate Impacts Assessment Tool (BACLIAT)’. Since then, there has been an explosion of tools funded by short-term grants. This often creates barriers of confusion over which tools to use. The most successful tool I used was an online risk assessment that small businesses could use and then receive a tailored action plan. This later led to various editions of the weathering the storm guides for businesses and land managers.

Doing something new and long-term requires consistent resource – we won’t get it, so become good at passing the ball

Over the years we have had the UK Climate Impacts Programme, Climate UK running a national network of Climate Adaptation Partnerships, Climate Ready run by the Environment Agency, and a series of Climate Change Committee national climate risk assessments. Where capacity has grown is in areas where independent bodies have been able to retain or pass on the knowledge from one short-term initiative to the next. This is why the work of bodies such as Sustainability West Midlands, London Climate Ready Partnership, and the Welsh National Commission for Infrastructure are so important.

Extreme weather impacts vary – but naming them, putting lines on a map and looking back helps

Heat waves, wildfires, flooding, drought and storms. It isn’t exactly consistent when it happens or what the impact looks like. This can give the impression it is a random series of events that can’t be planned for. Initiatives such as naming storms or our Future Generations Commissioner’s suggestion of naming heatwaves all help to provide more visibility to climate impacts and planning. The conclusion of my PhD was unless you are willing to draw lines on a map, you won’t influence planners. We now have flood, surface water, water abstraction, heat island, and wildfire risk maps or zones to help make the invisible visible. Another  tool I found useful was Local Climate Impacts Profile (LCIPs). These involve a review of media reports and interviews with service providers to cover specific past dates during an extreme weather event. This then helped build up a picture of impact for future planning. My Dad is a former history teacher, so he would also argue that looking further back to where churches and wealthy houses were built is a good indicator of where land won’t flood.

Don’t buy a second home – especially not in the Mediterranean

The arguments about second homes, especially in Wales, are well known. But 20 years ago, I was presenting to a wealthy audience in Birmingham around the new development agency investment plans for the next 20 years and how we had tried to consider this new concept called ‘climate risk’. I could tell I was losing them, so I went off script and told them not to buy a second home in the Mediterranean. It immediately got their attention, and that of the local press, but not in the way I had intended. For years I had colleagues posting to me how good their holidays had been in the Med. That hasn’t happened for the last five years.

Climate impacts are unfair – but tackling them will create stronger communities

Work such as Climate Just has helped to map the multiple impacts and capacity to cope of local communities. It is no surprise that the poorest are often most vulnerable. But there is also an opportunity: by tackling the impacts of climate change we build stronger communities. I always remember a conversation at a conference hosted by the King of Sweden (who wore a name badge). A delegate asked, ‘why do Scandinavian countries have such a strong shared sense of community?’. The answer ‘If we didn’t cooperate, we wouldn’t survive a harsh winter or poor harvest. Those that weren’t willing to help their neighbours died alone.’ We are beginning to see this community response with community centres offer safe warm or cool spaces, a renewed focus on improving our public green spaces, and service providers realising their adaptation plans require a range of partners to work together to succeed.

You can’t predict the future – but there are ‘no-regret’ policies that produce multiple benefits

In work for Ashden we looked at a range of co-benefits or multiple benefits for climate change action. The good news is that often the actions required to improve the resilience of a place have many benefits, so even if the flood or heatwave doesn’t occur every year you still won’t regret the policy or activity. For example, floodplains that are kept as parks and cycle and walking routes, street trees and pocket parks, community centres able to offer a range of local services, and supply chains able to deal with a range of disruptions.

Watch the gulls – gulls are a great indicator for climate readiness

When delivering a range of workshops for 100s of small business around climate risk and resilience planning I was always on the lookout for good or bad examples. These included ‘don’t put your evacuation point opposite the exploding fuel tanks you will be running from’, ‘the hospital is not climate proof if all the access roads are flooded’, ‘get a snow plough fitting for your forklift to clear access points on the estate’, or ‘set up a reciprocal arrangement with another non-competing  manufacturer to provide a temporary production line’. But the best example was this – A business hadn’t insulated its roof properly, so it attracted gulls from miles around to enjoy the warm roof. They produced a lot of waste that then blocked up the gutters on the roof. When a storm came, the weight of the water on the roof caused it collapse stopping production for the day.

So, remember “If gulls like your roof, when the storms come your home will flood”

Dr Simon Slater, CEO of Cynnal Cymru

Living in a house, not in the Mediterranean, on a hill, near a church, in an average vulnerability rating on the Climate Just map, with no regular gull visitors.

How can Cynnal Cymru help?

Our training courses on Carbon Literacy and Nature Wise, already incorporate elements of climate resilience. Our real Living Wage accreditation process for employers results in income security and pay rises for 1000s of workers which enables individuals to have more capacity to prepare or respond to extreme weather events. We are also running a members and guest event on climate readiness and are at early stages of developing a climate readiness course.

Lessons from 20 years of being climate ready (or not) – watch where the gulls are! Read More »

3 people in a conversation

How do we talk to people about climate and nature? Here’s 5 things you can do…

It might be hard to grasp why some people don’t seem to care about nature or climate change, but for many, life is busy and already full of challenges and priorities. We have also become so disconnected from the natural world that it can be easy to forget that it’s essential to our existence. Unfortunately, just telling people why climate and nature matter, is unlikely to get them to change their mind or their habits. In fact, scare tactics have been shown to switch people off more than get them on board.  

To help you improve your approach to talking to your friends, family or colleagues, our training team have drawn on their shared experience to create their five top tips for communicating about nature and climate change. 

1. Focus on what’s possible, rather than what isn’t

Create a positive vision of a thriving future, and encourage people to share their own vision – storytelling can be a great tool for this. 

2. Appeal to people’s better self and encourage empathy

Most people want to be healthy and happy and would like the same for their family and friends – so highlight the tangible benefits of taking action on climate change. 

3. Remember the importance of listening

When communicating about climate change, what you hear is as important as what you say. Understanding why someone thinks the way they do will help you engage with them more effectively. 

4. Find some common ground

Avoid polarising arguments or rhetoric that can lead to ‘us and them’ or ‘everybody else’ thinking. Instead, highlight the things we have in common. 

5. Normalise positive behaviours

We tend to respond to things we see our peers doing, so provide some real, positive examples of how others are taking action.

If you want to know more? Check out these useful resources. 

To read: 

To watch: 

  • Colli Cymru i’r Môr – three-part series on iPlayer and S4C Clic looking at climate change in Wales and further afield. It’s presented in Welsh with English subtitles.  

To listen: 

To learn: 

You can also learn how to talk to people about climate change or the nature emergency as part of our Carbon Literacy or Nature Wise training courses.

How do we talk to people about climate and nature? Here’s 5 things you can do… Read More »

Bees and biodiversity: Why we all need to support our pollinators

This month, the Cynnal Cymru team have been sharing photos and stories about birds, bees and other wildlife encounters. It is summer, after all, and nature is in full swing! Our Training Administrator Tom also took part in the Wye Valley BuzzWatch: Bee ID and Monitoring workshop, which you can read about below.

But first, why should we care about bees?

  • Twenty percent of the UK’s cropped area contains crops which are dependent on pollinators, and the value of pollinators to UK agriculture is over £690 million per year.

We have lost 97% of our wildflower-rich meadows since the 1940s, and as the number of flowers in our countryside have declined, so too have our bumblebee pollinators, and they are in desperate need of our help!

The main threats to pollinators include habitat loss, environmental pollution, climate change and the spread of alien species.

Honey bees Vs native pollinators

There is just one species of honey bee in Britain and Europe, the Western or European Honey bee Apis mellifera. In contrast, there are over 1500 other pollinator species in the UK, including over 270 wild bee species, as well as hoverflies, moths and butterflies. Honey bees are not at threat of extinction in the UK. But there is increasing concern worldwide that declines in wild pollinators may be worsened by high densities of honey bees. For example, one honey bee hive can contain over 40,000 bees. That’s 40,000 bees competing with other wild species for food and resources, which could put a strain on the native wild bees. Honey bee hives have also been known to spread disease to wild bees, devastating local populations. If, for example, a honeybee hive was introduced into an area where a rare bumblebee species had made its home, this could result in the end of that population.

The UK has also lost 97% of its wildflower meadows in the last century, which means bumblebees are struggling to find enough food and good nesting spots to survive. The use of insecticides can also directly kill or affect the ability of bumblebees to find food and reproduce, with herbicide use killing flowering plants, a vital food source for bumblebees. Shifts in seasonal patterns and weather also disrupt bumblebee behaviour and impact survival at key life stages, such as spring emergence, nesting, and winter hibernation.

Extreme weather events like floods, droughts and storms also impact bumblebee numbers. Floods can drown hibernating queens and underground nests. Droughts can cause plant deaths, reducing the amount of nectar and pollen available for bumblebees to feed on and collect, with storms preventing bumblebees from foraging for food, as they struggle to fly in wet windy weather.

How you can help support pollinators

From volunteering to making your green spaces more pollinator friendly the Bumblebee Conservation Trust has plenty of bee-friendly ways to get involved.

Read ‘An introduction to bumblebees’, by Dr Richard Comont. The book covers bumblebee biology, their decline and conservation and what you can do to help them in your garden and beyond.

Whether you are a business, community or an individual, you can join the ‘Bee friendly’ initiative supported by Wales Biodiversity Partnership to help make Wales a pollinator friendly country

If you want to learn more about the links between human activity and ecosystem disruption and develop the knowledge to enable you and your organisation to take action for nature recovery, then signing up for our Nature Wise Eco-Literacy course might be the next step for you.

Nature Wise is a science-based, action-focused course to help you to understand the relationships between people and natural systems. It shares knowledge, builds understanding and provide the tools to motivate and catalyse action. You can sign up to our online courses at the below link.

Tom talks about what he learnt at the Bee ID and Monitoring workshop

On World Bee Day May 20th, I was lucky enough to attend a Bee ID and Monitoring workshop that was organised by Wye Valley National Landscapes and delivered by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Our expert for the day was Dr Richard Comont (Bumblebee Conservation Trust Science Manager). During the morning session Richard took us through a presentation on the benefits of bumblebees and other pollinators, and the data showing their unfortunate decline over the years. We looked at what we can do as individuals to allow them to thrive and make sure their much-needed habitats are protected. We learnt how to identify different bees and the differences between the queen, other female workers and male drones.

Fun fact: Female bees, including worker bees and queens, are the only ones that can sting. The stinger is a modified ovipositor; the organ used for laying eggs and is therefore only possessed by females. Male bees (drones) do not have stingers.

After a wonderful lunch put on by the National Landscapes team, we collected our Bee ID kit and went to Trelleck Wet Meadows for an afternoon session of bee identification.

We had a great afternoon carefully catching and identifying bees. I caught three female worker Red-Tailed bumblebees. Sadly, I didn’t get a picture of these as I was far too excited at the time. One of the other attendees caught a Brown-Banded Carder bee which was the first time one was recorded in the Wye-Valley National Landscape. 

I went away from the day with new knowledge and skills that will allow me to record and document the bumblebees that I come across, and add to the baseline data of bumblebee populations across the Wye-Valley National Landscape to allow them to focus their conservation efforts in the most important areas.

Tom Kirkton is the Training Administrator at Cynnal Cymru

Bees and biodiversity: Why we all need to support our pollinators Read More »

A group of people sitting in a room listening to speakers on the stage.

Climate storytellers in Wales explore new ways to inspire audiences with Media Cymru and Ffilm Cymru Wales

Five innovative Research and Development (R&D) projects share £100,000 of investment from the Media Cymru x Ffilm Cymru Wales Climate Stories Fund. Launched in December 2024, the Climate Stories Fund was devised and delivered by Media Cymru and Ffilm Cymru Wales to support R&D projects for feature films or immersive experiences sharing impactful climate stories that stimulate action in fresh and compelling ways. The competition was highly competitive. Media Cymru and Ffilm Cymru Wales selected five outstanding projects to progress through a 4-month R&D sprint taking place from April to August 2025

Read more here.

Climate storytellers in Wales explore new ways to inspire audiences with Media Cymru and Ffilm Cymru Wales Read More »

Making Funerals More Sustainable

Nothing is certain except death and taxes.

At least that’s what Benjamin Franklin said in 1789, which has fueled centuries of debates over taxes, but not so much on the subject of death. We all care about what happens to us after we die, whether that’s the way our funeral is handled or how our loved ones are supported. These days, as with everything else, more of us are thinking about the impact death has on the environment.

In Wales annually there are around 36,000 registered deaths, 80% of which will result in a cremation at one of 18 local authority and private crematoria across the country.

To encourage and support the transition of the funeral sector to more sustainable ways of working, Cynnal Cymru members Brendan and Carolyn Day introduced the Greener Globe Funeral Standard in 2020. Both had a keen interest in the environment, with Brendan having had a career in the bereavement sector and Carolyn having worked in insurance and compliance. It made sense, given their shared interests and expertise, to create a sustainability audit process for businesses in the funeral sector. After five years, Greener Globe Funeral Standard now has registered clients not just in Wales, but also across the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands. 

Carolyn Day and Brendan Day Directors of Greener Globe Funeral Standard present the Environmental Bronze Award to Clive Phillips at Margam Crematorium
Carolyn Day and Brendan Day Directors of Greener Globe Funeral Standard present the Environmental Bronze Award to Clive Phillips at Margam Crematorium.

Bespoke online questionnaires are provided for crematoria, funeral directors, and suppliers, with a cemetery version being released this spring.  The first step requires the funeral organisation to demonstrate that it has recognised the need to operate sustainably by adopting an environmental policy and providing  evidence that this is cascaded throughout the organisation.

The second step is the completion of the full Sustainability Audit Questionnaire covering key aspects of the business, each answer being evidenced with copies of documents or photographs uploaded to the GGFS website.

The audit generates an award – Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum – depending on the score generated by the environmental benefits/cost environmental aspect scoring matrix. In addition, a bespoke improvement plan is provided to indicate where further changes can be made to lessen the impact of the business on the environment.

It is great news to report Margam Crematorium, operated jointly by Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot Council, became the first crematorium in Wales to receive the Trusted Crematorium Bronze Award.

Margam Crematorium
Margam Crematorium

To protect the environment, crematoria must reduce their carbon footprint. Their primary fuel is gas, which results in the production of CO2. Margam Crematorium must be commended for significantly reducing its gas consumption, by working closely with its cremator suppliers, Facultatieve Technologies who have developed new software and hardware. As a result, between January – August 2024 a total cumulative gas saving of 186,000kWh was recorded. A pro rata annual reduction in CO2 of 52tons. This saving will be ongoing and can be rolled out to other sites, not only in Wales, but across the UK.

Brendan and Carolyn look forward to Margam Crematorium completing the sustainability audit and achieving a higher award.

Mark Isherwood MS, Chair of the Cross-Party Group for Funerals and Bereavement in the Senedd presenting The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) with their Environmental GGFS Bronze Award. From left to right - Phil Blatchly, NAFD Wales President; Barry Pritchard, NAFD Chair; and Mark Isherwood MS, Chair of the Cross-Party Group for Funerals and Bereavement in the Senedd.
Mark Isherwood MS, Chair of the Cross-Party Group for Funerals and Bereavement in the Senedd presenting The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) with their Environmental GGFS Bronze Award. From left to right – Phil Blatchly, NAFD Wales President; Barry Pritchard, NAFD Chair; and Mark Isherwood MS, Chair of the Cross-Party Group for Funerals and Bereavement in the Senedd.

If you know a crematorium, cemetery, funeral director or supplier who is looking to work more sustainably, please contact Brendan and Carolyn at info@ggfs.co.uk  

Our thriving community of mutually supportive members provides an opportunity to share learning, challenge thinking and mobilise action, be this through co-designed events, hosting networking sessions or simply sowing seeds for future collaborations or thought-leadership.

If you would like to talk to a member of the team about how we can support your organisation, please contact membership@cynnalcymru.com. 

Join a growing movement for positive change >>

Making Funerals More Sustainable Read More »

Storytelling and its potential to create change

This was the takeaway from our latest event, Can Stories Change Our World? , which brought together Cynnal Cymru members and other sustainably-minded businesses. We brought in three speakers to discuss how they use storytelling in their work and talk to us about the power and challenges of storytelling as change. This is clearly a topic on many people’s minds right now. It’s something we talked about in our September newsletter, and drew in a huge number of questions during this event. We discussed questions such as how you deal with apathy and depression in climate conversations, how to use comedy and positivity to tell poignant stories, and how to specifically reach Welsh audiences through storytelling style or platforms.  

Ant Green, founder of animation and illustration studio Motion Manor designed for positive change, discussed the importance of telling visual stories that imagine a fair and sustainable future.  

“In climate narratives, we’ve created a doom and gloom outlook because it’s the clearest outcome. We know what a bad outcome looks like, but we’re not so sure about the details of that good outcome.” 

Motion Manor, a Cynnal Cymru Member, have used their animations and illustrations to visualise this positive future for organisations such as the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations. While they use animation and illustration, Motion Manor ensures that their stories are rooted in reality – for Ant, that’s the key.  

“Show a snapshot of real people doing real things, even when using stories or illustration.” 

Camille Lovgreen, Cynnal Cymru’s Sustainability Advisor, echoed Ant’s sentiment of needing to situation any storytelling in real life examples, even when writing fiction. Alongside our Sustainability Strategist Karolina Rucinska, Camille wrote a series of fictional stories envisioning Wales in 2051. In their imagination, Wales had implemented all sustainability advice and was seeing a thriving environment and community. Through this set of stories, they were able to begin a conversation around what it looks like to successfully implement climate policy, as well as inspiring the hope that energises this movement.  

A similar set of stories was created by the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales (NICW), looking at Wales in 2100. The Chair of the NICW, David Clubb, was our third speaker. David stressed the importance of taking out time when thinking about long-term futures. David also discussed the need to evaluate not just how but where you’re telling your stories. NICW have recently made the decision to leave the big platforms, namely Meta and X, and move to open source versions that fit into their values. This decision comes at a time when many organisations and individuals are moving away from big name platforms in recognition of their censorship, unethical practices, and goals that don’t look out for regular people.

How do we tell our own stories? 

For Ffilm Cymru, the development agency for Welsh film and a Cynnal Cymru Member, visual storytelling is embedded into their work.  

Films such as this can be used to encourage behaviour change through emotive storytelling.

Ffilm Cymru’s work relies on the power of storytelling:  

“Stories have the power to provoke immense transformation in our society, as we’ve seen recently with ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office. They can also affect smaller personal shifts in perception and awareness that can snowball into positive change. It’s up to organisations like ours to help harness that power, and promote action on climate in creative, engaging and entertaining ways.” 

Just this month, Media Cymru and Ffilm Cymru Wales have launched a climate themed R&D content fund to support more climate stories and sustainability storytelling.

Is storytelling just for arts or cultural organisations?

Many of the attendees of our event came from organisations outside of the creative sector. The reality is that in every sector, telling your story in a way that reaches the right people is crucial.

Thrive Women’s Aid is a Cynnal Cymru Member organisation that supports women, children, and young people in Neath/Port Talbot who are affected by domestic abuse. They help survivors rebuild their lives and independence in safe communities, supporting entire families to break the cycle of abuse permanently and foster healthier, safer environments for all.

In this video, they tell the impact of their work through simple and effective storytelling.

As we look into the new year, it’s a great time to consider the stories you tell, and how and where you’re telling them.

Can Stories Change Our World? was part of Cynnal Cymru’s quarterly series of Cardiff-based events. Make sure you check out our next event coming soon, Growing the Sustainability Workforce, where we’ll hear from Future Generations Leadership Academy participant Abi Hoare and Finley Povey from Transport for Wales. The event is free for Cynnal Cymru Members, Sparc|Sbarc residents, and we have a limited number of free places for Cardiff University students. Don’t miss it!

Storytelling and its potential to create change Read More »

CLCC: A fond farewell after five years of success

In 2019, a group of representatives from registered housing associations across Wales sat down around a table with one aim: to find a way to work together to help alleviate the climate emergency.

They agreed that understanding their carbon impact, both as individuals and organisations, and being able to make informed decisions on reducing carbon emissions, had the potential to be transformative for the social housing sector and communities. Thus Carbon Literacy Cartrefi Cymru (CLCC) was born – a consortium that would provide a platform for knowledge sharing across the sector, collaborative problem solving, and peer to peer teaching to deliver Carbon Literacy training to staff across Wales.

One phrase in the meeting notes from the earliest days of the CLCC succinctly summarised what the approach would be:

“This consortium is about reaching you where you’re at and helping from there.” 

Fast forward five years, and the CLCC is now coming to a close, having achieved exactly what it set out to do. The consortium’s flagship project, a fully accredited Carbon Literacy training course tailored to the social housing sector, has been delivered to 598 people across Wales, thanks to the enthusiasm and dedication of the CLCC trainers who have passed on their knowledge to their peers and colleagues. The course has received two substantial updates and has been fully translated into Welsh. Its final iteration will continue to be used by members to certify their staff as Carbon Literate. Many of those housing associations are now certified Carbon Literate Organisations, and continue to champion carbon reduction in the workplace. As was inevitable with a large group of disparate organisations, not everyone’s time as members of the CLCC looks the same. Each had their own priorities, their own challenges to overcome. But the consortium’s ethos of looking at where each member was and guiding them to where they wanted to be played a huge role in the success of the project.

Bron Afon Community Housing was a part of the CLCC from the start, and remained as members throughout the lifetime of the consortium. Nadine Davies, Community Decarbonisation Officer at Bron Afon, said, “The CLCC has enabled us as an organisation to come together and learn about the importance of climate change and carbon emissions. It provided us with valuable skills, networks, and guidance for us to deliver the course to our colleagues successfully.”

Reflecting on her term as Chair of the CLCC since May 2023, Nadine added,

“The CLCC created a space for us to discuss and share in confidence what was going well and what our struggles were when delivering Carbon Literacy. I found the regular meetings and coming together with others delivering the course useful and it was good to listen and take on board points raised. I very much enjoyed my time as Chair of the CLCC and without it I don’t think we would have had as much success with the delivery of Carbon Literacy as we have. I look forward to continuing to deliver Carbon Literacy to the rest of our staff and the wider community to help tackle climate change.”

Fast forward another five years from now, and we hope that we will still be seeing the positive impact the CLCC has had. Consortium members are talking about rolling out Carbon Literacy to their tenants – and with more than 100,000 houses owned across the consortium, that’s a lot of people. We’ve created a Climate Essentials course to help trainers pass on key knowledge in a shorter, more accessible format, and encourage interest in the full training. For some member organisations, certified Carbon Literacy training is now mandatory for all new staff, and will continue to be delivered long into the future. For those housing associations who want customised training or advice, individually or collaboratively, Cynnal Cymru’s team can work with them to ensure that the success of the CLCC is just the first step on their carbon reduction journey.

In November 2020, when the world was coping with an unprecedented global pandemic, 29 members of the CLCC still found the time to meet, to talk about what they wanted the consortium’s future to be. Many of the initial targets had already been met, with 65 people already certified as Carbon Literate, and 83 people about to take the Carbon Literacy Train the Trainer course, at the time making it the biggest ever Carbon Literacy Train the Trainer cohort. But the world had changed since the CLCC’s inception, with training now having to be delivered remotely, collaborative working much harder than it had been in the past, and organisations rightly prioritising core business continuity and the wellbeing of their staff over less immediate concerns. It would have been very easy for Covid-19 to spell the end of the CLCC, but luckily its members were committed to keeping it very much alive. It’s thanks to them, the dedicated support of their colleagues, and the enormous enthusiasm of hundreds of people across Wales, that we can look back on the past five years and honestly say that the CLCC has made a difference – and its success will continue to inspire more and better changes to how we live. 

CLCC: A fond farewell after five years of success Read More »

Being human in the age of disinformation. On trust and climate change communication.  

Have you ever asked for advice from someone who wasn’t necessarily an ‘expert’ on the situation or topic? What made you do that? Was it that they cared about you and understood you? Was it their profession, a common background, or shared beliefs that led you to trust their judgement?  Perhaps you judged their trustworthiness based on how you’d seen them act in other situations? 

What does that mean for climate communication? Inspired by a recent pilot training, our Sustainability Strategist Dr Karolina Rucinska considers the role of trust in climate communications. 

— 

When I was in secondary school, staring at a whiteboard with mathematical equations would fill me with dread. I could not make sense of these abstract concepts at all. But when my friend sat down with me and used plenty of real examples, it would all suddenly click in my mind. In other words, by showing me how the equations mattered in my own life, I was able to truly understand them. Was that school friend more educated or credible than the maths teacher who had been teaching for decades?  Certainly not, but he found a way to relay the information in the right way for me . It took me years to realise that I just needed the right messenger for the information to sink in. A recent training by Climate Outreach cemented this idea for me.  

Trust is a big deal 

Trust is a combination of three factors: the person who seeks it, the person who gives it, and the context. Thus, trust can be interpersonal and institutional, and it is fundamental to all aspects of our lives.  According to the 2023 edition of the Ipsos Veracity Index, the top five trusted professions are nurses,  pilots, librarians, doctors and engineers, but the least trusted are politicians, government ministers, advertising executives, journalists, and estate agents. This suggests that we can trust unbiased and highly trained people with strong codes of ethics and who can help in life-threatening situations.  

But we are all guilty of asking for a second opinion. Even after a long call with an expert, like a doctor, we call our nearest and dearest before making big decisions. Don’t we?  

In times when information is distorted, opinions divided, and situations are developing too fast to grasp, we reach out to people who mirror our beliefs. And given that trust in politicians  is at an all-time low,, how can citizens trust what is being told to us?  

Trust at scale  

The good news, according to the 2023 Climate Barometer Tracker survey,is that the UK public do trusts naturalists, conservationists, charities, and NGOs. The bad news, and because climate change impacts all aspects of our lives, is that we listen to other voices too.  So, if you are an expert on climate change, pandemics, flooding, vaccinations, and people prefer to call their mums rather than trust you, don’t take it personally. Instead, find voices that resonate with the audiences you want to reach. 

The Climate Outreach research report on the issue of climate communication  found that trusted people are seen as some combination of: 

  • human 
  • sincere 
  • down to earth 
  • kind 
  • reliable  
  • honest 

Who do you think of when you imagine these qualities? Likely those people closest to you, rather than experts putting out reports on climate change.  

Earning trust in climate messages, at scale, is desperately needed. With so many conflicting messages and a deep skepticism about the media from many of the general public, there is a lot at stake. 

Take low-carbon heating, for example. You can have all the facts and figures, but at the end of the day you’ll likely make the decision because a neighbour or friend made the switch and convinces you to do the same. 

Earning trust at scale, therefore, goes beyond finding the right “already trusted” messenger or influencer such as scientists.  Earning trust at scale needs everyday messengers who can relate, convey real passion, have a deep, lived experience and are credible.  For example, a chef who runs a small restaurant with seasonal foods speaking to other chefs who are looking to diversify their menus and cut food waste. A parent who walks their kids to school speaking to parents who want to stay active and reduce petrol costs but feel alone with the challenge. But earning that long-term trust requires a few more ingredients, plus an unbroken chain of promises, and results. 

The triangle of trust 

The Trust Triangle, first coined by Frances Fei and Anne Morriss in 2020, was adopted by leadership trainers and coaches because it elegantly displays the key elements that leaders and teams need to perform. 

Now, it has been applied by Climate Outreach in their quest to communicate effectively. They advocate three qualities that communicators need to demonstrate for their audiences to trust them and be open to influence: 

  • Passion: This person really cares about this issue. 
  • Credibility: The person knows what they’re talking about. They’re not just making it up on the spot. 
  • Empathy: The person understands that people have different perspectives. They’re not lecturing or talking down to others. 

Crafting a trusted message therefore is about being authentic and knowing yourself as well as the audience. Yes, it is also about showing hard facts, but always within the context and tone of your audience. 

Trust starts with your first audience: yourself 

’One thing I have learnt from the past few years working in the field of sustainability is that to connect with others, we better know ourselves first. In climate change, where food preferences and chosen mode of transport can lead to arguments, we better know why we do what we do.   

To start you crafting a message, begin by asking yourself a few questions: 

  • How reliable am I? 
  • Do I trust myself? 
  • Am I someone that others can trust? 
  • What’s motivating me to communicate? 
  • Do I have a genuine interest in understanding where my audience is coming from? 
  • What non-climate interest makes me feel passionate? 

To find out how to use these questions, and to fully appreciate the ideas shared in this piece, and to put them all together, I recommend reading the report Beyond Trusted Messenger and to follow Tara Bryer for further updates about the training. 

If you or your organisation would like to take deeper action against climate change – including communicating with staff, customers or wider stakeholders – please get in touch! 

Being human in the age of disinformation. On trust and climate change communication.   Read More »

14th November | Carbon Literacy Action Day

Do you work for an organisation and want to know how to start tackling your effect on the climate? 

Join us on 14th November 2024 and be part of the world’s largest climate education & action training event – Carbon Literacy Action Day, coinciding with Wales Climate Week and COP29.  

What: a day of accredited training: “Carbon Literacy at Work”  

Where: Sbarc|Spark, Cardiff 

When: 14th November 2024 

Commitment: From 09:00am to 4:15pm – (Please bring your own lunch. Refreshments will be provided.) ​Join us after the training for an optional Carbon Literacy Action Day Webinar with other learners around the world (5pm-6pm)

For who: organisations of all sizes and sectors who want to develop an awareness of the carbon cost of their activities and how to start on the journey to reduce their impact 

Why: with the climate changing, all organisations need to identify their risks and know how to prioritise their climate action in line with national policies and legal requirements. 

Led by: Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales 

Ticket prices:

Cynnal Cymru MembersConditions
FREE Member (One place per member organisation)
Each Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales Member organisation is entitled to send one representative free of charge. Please e-mail us on events@cynnalcymru.com before booking to get a discount code for your free space.		One place per organisationFREE
Additional Member per person (Special discount)Cynnal Cymru Member£90 plus VAT
Non-members
Non-member (Low wage/Concession) per person£70 plus VAT
Non-member (standard price) per person£140 plus VAT
sbarc|spark Residents
FREE sbarc|spark Residents
Each sbarc|spark Building Resident organisation is entitled to send one representative free of charge. Please e-mail us on events@cynnalcymru.com before booking to get a discount code for your free space.		One place per organisationFREE
Additional sbarc|spark Residents sbarc|spark resident / organisation£90 plus VAT
*Ticket includes official certification cost with the Carbon Literacy Project

Become a member

Our thriving community of mutually supportive members provides an opportunity to share learning, challenge thinking and mobilise action, be this through co-designed events, hosting networking sessions or simply sowing seeds for future collaborations or thought-leadership.

If you would like to find out about our member benefits, including access to discounted events and training, please contact membership@cynnalcymru.com. 

Join a growing movement for positive change >>

 

14th November | Carbon Literacy Action Day Read More »

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