Low Carbon Economy

Carbon Literacy

Carbon Literacy

Gain the knowledge, capacity and confidence needed to take action on climate change.

Carbon Literacy is:

“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.”

The Award-winning Carbon Literacy Project aims to ensure that every citizen receives at least one day’s worth of learning so that they understand the links between human activity and climate change while empowering individuals, communities and organisations to take action to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Carbon Literacy works on the principle of peer-to-peer learning and encourages people to learn together, sharing knowledge and experiences along the way. Evidence from the BBC and other large corporations that have embraced Carbon Literacy, suggests that the approach engenders a low carbon culture and shared set of values relevant to the challenges of a warming planet.

Course essentials

Peer-to-peer learning

Up to 15 people

Committment

A day's worth of learning

Learning options

Online or in-person

Certification

Subject to successful completion of the course

Carbon Literacy at Work

Our certified ‘Carbon Literacy at Work’ course is suitable for those in a position to lead, organise or support others. This could be senior managers and team leaders, board members or trustees, support workers or volunteers.

The peer-to-peer learning has been designed for groups or teams of up to 15 people and can be delivered online or in-person.

The climate science is pitched for beginners but the approach to enabling and identifying positive action works for all abilities with an organisation.

Carbon Literacy training is for people of all levels of understanding, from complete beginners to climate scientists !

Course options

For interested organisations

For organisations wanting to experience Carbon Literacy, individuals in a position to lead, organise or support others, can join our online open courses to understand how it can benefit your organisation.

Online open course

£130 + VAT
  • 100 + VAT for Cynnal Cymru Members
  • Price per person
  • Dedicated Tutor
  • Learn as part of a group of up to 15 people
  • Ongoing access to the course materials
  • A digital certificate unique to you (included)
  • Online only
Find Courses

For groups or teams

For teams wanting to develop a shared understanding of how their organisational activity relates to climate change and be able to design responses that are relevant and appropriate.

Private course

£1250 + VAT
  • 965 + VAT for Cynnal Cymru Members
  • Price per group booking
  • Dedicated Tutor
  • For teams of up to 15 people
  • Ongoing access to course materials
  • A digital certificate unique to each member of your organisation**
  • Online or in-person

Across organisations

For organisations and consortiums that want to take the next step to becoming a Carbon Literate Organisation, we’ll work with you to develop a custom course that can be rolled out across your organisation.

Custom course(s)

£1750* + VAT
  • Discount for Cynnal Cymru Members
  • *Prices from (does not included accreditation fees)
  • Discount for subsequent course delivery
  • Dedicated tutor
  • For teams of up to 15 people
  • Ongoing access to course materials
  • A digital certificate unique to each member of your organisation**
  • Online or in-person

Bespoke courses unique to you

For larger organisations and consortiums that want to take the next step to becoming a Carbon Literate Organisation, we can help you to design an accredited Carbon Literacy course specific to your organisation or sector.

We can also provide you with the coaching and support to deliver your course to your first pioneer cohort who can then become internal trainers.

Please get in contact with training@cynnalcymru.com for more details.

Upcoming online courses

Member benefits and discounts

Discounted services

As a Cynnal Cymru member you can benefit from discounted prices on all our training.

Free annual training

Each year you can benefit from one free place on our accredited Carbon Literacy training course.

Find out more

Topics covered

  • What Greenhouse Gases are, and their relationship to weather and climate
  • How our actions impact on the amount of greenhouse gases produced and the impact that they have
  • How climate here and elsewhere is likely to change, and how we know this.
  • How changes in the climate are likely to affect us in the UK and in other parts of the world.
  • What we are already doing locally, nationally and internationally.
  • What we can do to reduce our impact and the benefits and disadvantages of taking action.
  • Where we can go to get help. What help is available to us.
  • How we can motivate others to take action, including gaining the confidence to express our Carbon Literacy to others.

Learn how to make positive changes in how you live, work and behave in response to climate change.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, you’ll be able to:

  • Locate and use information to explain global warming and climate change
  • Describe and analyse the consequences for you, your organisation, or community
  • Identify personal and group actions that you can take to make a positive difference
  • Know where to go for further help

Certification

On successful completion of the course, you will be awarded a certificate from The Carbon Literacy Project which will be unique to you.

**For group and organisation bookings, certificates fees are £10 per person and help to support The Carbon Literacy Project – a self-funding non-profit organisation.

Your course tutors

Bethan Harvey

Training Officer

Bethan Harvey is a Training Officer at Cynnal Cymru. Bethan has four years training experience both in a community setting and at A-level and a Professional Graduate Certificate (PGCE) in Adult Education & Training.

Carbon Literacy logo

About the Carbon Literacy Project

Carbon Literacy is a concept created in Manchester by Cooler Projects Ltd. and its partners. It is governed by the Carbon Literacy Trust.

The Carbon Literacy Project offers everyone a day’s worth of Carbon Literacy learning, covering – climate change, carbon footprints, how you can do your bit, and why it’s relevant to you and your audience.

The Carbon Literacy Project is globally unique – there is nothing else quite like it anywhere. It was recognised as such by the UN at COP21, in Paris, where it was awarded as a TAP100, one of 100 worldwide Transformative Action Programs.

About Cynnal Cymru

Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales is the leading organisation for Sustainable Development in Wales.

Cynnal Cymru is the official partner in Wales for the award-winning Carbon Literacy Project. 

In April 2020, Cynnal Cymru was further recognised as a Carbon Literacy Training Organisation – the first in Wales.

Get in touch

training@cynnalcymru.com

029 2043 1746

We typically work Monday -Thursday, 9-5pm

FAQs

Frequently asked questions

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The Carbon Literacy Project

The Award-winning Carbon Literacy Project aims to ensure that every citizen receives at least one day’s worth of learning so that they understand the links between human activity and climate change while empowering individuals, communities and organisations to take action to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Official partner of the Carbon Literacy Project in Wales

Cynnal Cymru is the official partner of the Carbon Literacy Project in Wales and our principal trainer, Rhodri Thomas, was also the first resident Welsh certified Carbon Literacy trainer in Wales. To date he has trained over 450 people and has seen the concept take hold across Wales.

We have been working with the Carbon Literacy Project since 2017 to help accelerate action on climate change, by providing organisations with the training and support needed to reduce their carbon emissions.

Our achievements to date include:

  • Training the Sustainable Development forum of Museum Wales, supporting initial efforts by the whole museum sector to develop bespoke Carbon Literacy training.
  • Co-founding Carbon Literacy Cartrefi Cymru – a consortium of twenty seven housing associations and overseeing the training of around 140 staff including a ‘Train the Trainer’ programme as well as the development of a dedicated Carbon Literacy course for the social housing sector. Our partners in the consortium are launching a cascade of peer to peer training using their own course.
  • Funded by National Resources Wales, we worked with Manchester Metropolitan University and Great Places Housing group to train over 200 leaders and influencers from the organisations that make up the five Gwent Public Service Boards.
  • Trained the whole cabinet and executive management team of Newport City Council.
  • Developed an introduction to climate change e-learning course for Denbighshire County Council staff that will accompany their Carbon Literacy training.
  • Designed a Carbon Literacy for Engineers course in collaboration with the Flexis programme.
  • Trained and supported Cardiff Council colleagues and cabinet members enabling them to apply for the Bronze Carbon Literacy Organisation accreditation.
  • Regularly provide training for staff at The National Lottery
  • Trained the environmental champions of Sinclair Group
  • Continue to run monthly open courses online for people from all over the world.

We are aiming to develop Carbon Literacy courses for new sectors such as finance and law. This September we launch our ‘Train The Trainer’ course to enable people to run their own courses and an e-learn “introduction to Climate Change” that will support an organisation’s Carbon Literacy programme.

The Carbon Literacy Project

The Carbon Literacy Project is wholly owned by The Carbon Literacy Trust, a registered charity (No 1156722) established in 2013 to take responsibility for The Project in perpetuity, for the public good.

The Project delivers no training directly, but works with a host of people and organisations from all walks of life, that all deliver training that is accredited against the Carbon Literacy Standard. The Project then assesses participant’s and certifies successful candidates with their own uniquely numbered Carbon Literacy certificate.

Due to this ‘crowdsourced’ approach, working with everyone, from all walks of life, The Carbon Literacy Project is globally unique – there is nothing else quite like it anywhere. This was recognised by the United Nations at the UN climate negotiations, COP21, in Paris in 2015, where the Project was awarded TAP100 status, – one of 100 projects worldwide recognised as Transformative Action Programmes, that could materially change the way we deal with climate change.

Climate Change – the Facts

Optional for All

To begin, if you have not already seen it, please watch Climate Change- The Facts.

This one-hour documentary, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, will provide an introduction to climate change as well as an overview of how communities and ecosystems across the world have been affected by climate change over the past few years. 

Once you have watched the documentary, please move to the next activity.

A Guide to the Well-being of Future Generations Act

It will make the public bodies listed in the Act think more about the long-term, work better with people and communities and each other, look to prevent problems and take a more joined-up approach.

Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales is the leading organisation for sustainable development in Wales. Our mission is to make Wales the first Sustainable Nation. Cynnal Cymru’s overall focus is on developing and promoting a sustainable, resource-efficient and low-carbon society through engagement with enterprises, the third sector and communities. We connect local and national organisations together from across Wales to help each other develop more sustainable solutions and deliver on the Well-being of Future Generations Act. This will help us to create a Wales that we all want to live in, now and in the future.

To make sure we are all working towards the same vision, the Act puts in place seven well-being goals.

Sustainable Development Principle and Ways of Working

The Act puts in place a ‘sustainable development principle’ which tells organisations how to go about meeting their duty under the Act.

There are five things that public bodies need to think about to show that they have applied the sustainable development principle. Following these ways of working will help us work together better, avoid repeating past mistakes and tackle some of the long-term challenges we are facing.

Why do we need this law?

Wales faces a number of challenges now and in the future, such as climate change, poverty, health inequalities and jobs and growth. To tackle these we need to work together. To give our children and grandchildren a good quality of life we need to think about how the decisions we make now will impact them. This law will make sure that our public sector does this.

More information

For a summary of the Act see a copy of the booklet ‘The Essentials’.

You can find out more about the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act on the the Welsh Government website.

Sustainable Academy Spotlight Event Recap

Thank you to everyone that attended our Sustainable Academy Spotlight last week (03 December) in partnership with Renewable UK Cymru and to our past award winners Meleri Davies, Paul Allen and Grant Peisley and our headline sponsor, Sarah Williams, who all shared their progress over the past 12 months and insights into future ambitions and projects. 

Sarah Williams, Wales & West Utilities – Headline sponsor of Sustainable Academy Awards 

Sarah Williams shared Wales & West Utilities sustainable plan for the future, including four key business areas that Wales & West Utilities is currently developing: 

  1. Investing in green gases – hydrogen and biomethane
  2. Delivering a net-zero ready gas network by 2035
  3. Committing to zero to landfill by 2035 
  4. Increasing electric vehicle use

The organisation is keen to speak to any partners that would like to form a green panel. Please email sarah.williams@wwutilities.co.uk if you’d like to be included.

Meleri Davies, Partneriaeth Ogwen – Winner of Sustainability Champion 2019 

Last year’s Sustainability Champion winner, Meleri Davies shared details of her hometown in the beautiful Ogwen Valley and the Partneriaeth Ogwen enterprise which seeks to bring together the economy, language and culture, the environment, society and sustainability. 

Over the past twelve months, the project has grown in strength and size, taking over the community library where various sustainable measures are in place, including edible plants on the land, utilising renewable energy and the use of an electric car.  

She shared more about Ynni Ogwen, which is a project that produces electricity from hydroelectric power from Afon Ogwen and finally, ideas for developing a future plan for sustainable tourism in the area. 

Learn more about their work here: www.partneriaethogwen.cymru 

Paul Allen – Centre for Alternative Technology – winner of the Special Award 2019 

Winner of the Special Award 2019 for his dedication and work with the Centre for Alternative Technology, Paul discussed the cycle of demand for renewable energy and the policies and measures that could be put in place for people to understand and action zero-carbon solutions.

He touches on the importance of Carbon Literacy training to all people in leadership in Wales and also the importance of citizen engagement with local Councils on the declaration of a climate emergency and related action plans. 

Click here to find out more about CAT’s work and Zero Carbon Britain. 

Grant Peisley, YnNi Teg – winner of Outstanding Renewable Energy Project 2018 

Our 2018 winner of Outstanding Renewable Energy Project, Grant Peisley, Director of the community wind turbine project YnNi Teg delves into the success of the project over the past 12 months. 

He shares that 2000 tonnes of Co2 has been saved since 2016 and that a total of 16,000 tonnes will be saved over its lifetime. Also, Grant shared the organisations latest campaign ‘pants powered by wind’ which received the away for Best Community Energy photo of the year.

YnNi Teg’s current goal is to develop more similar projects across Wales, starting with the Bretton Hall project which is in the works for 2023. Grant is working on raising £30million in order to complete the plan for building a solar farm. 

It was great to see so many faces to celebrate action towards a more sustainable Wales. We hope that next year we will be able to hold the Sustainable Academy Awards again. If you would like to keep up to date with the awards, please visit www.sustainableacademy.wales and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn for regular news and updates.

Over 400 People Carbon Literate in Wales!

What is The Carbon Literacy Project?

The Carbon Literacy Project offers everyone a day’s worth of Carbon Literacy learning, covering – climate change, carbon footprints, how you can do your bit, and why it’s relevant to you and your audience. The Project divides ‘everyone’ into three distinct audiences – those that live, those that work, and those that study. This allows every citizen to be offered Carbon Literacy learning in a way that has immediate meaning for them.

The Project delivers no training directly but works with a host of people and organisations from all walks of life, that all deliver training that is accredited against the Carbon Literacy Standard. The Project then assesses participant’s and certifies successful candidates with their own uniquely numbered Carbon Literacy certificate.

There is nothing else quite like The Carbon Literacy Project. This was recognised by the United Nations at the UN climate negotiations, COP21, in Paris in 2015, where the Project was awarded TAP100 status, – one of 100 projects worldwide recognised as Transformative Action Programmes, that could materially change the way we deal with climate change.

The Carbon Literacy Project has always been a massive collaborative project. It involves people and organisations from all sectors and walks of life working together and contributing time, materials and funding to advance understanding and action on climate change.

The Project is wholly owned by The Carbon Literacy Trust, a registered charity (No 1156722) established in 2013 to take responsibility for The Project in perpetuity, for the public good.

Where did it all begin?

A cross-sector collaboration developed a carbon reduction plan to make Manchester carbon neutral by 2038. The plan was backed by the local government, the Mayor of Manchester, businesses, universities, and community organisations who quickly recognised that in order for the plan to be successful, they needed a method of learning that enabled every individual in Manchester to take positive action in reducing their emissions. That solution is Carbon Literacy.

Where do we come into it?

We discovered the need for Carbon Literacy in Wales in 2016 after meeting with Claire Raisin, the then Director of Size of Wales, and Dave Coleman, the co-Director of The Carbon Literacy Project.

Exactly a year later, we delivered our first certified Carbon Literacy course for the Sustainability Hub of Public Health Wales and since then we have delivered Carbon Literacy training to over 400 people from all sectors and all parts of Wales.

In the three years that we have been delivering Carbon Literacy training, the project has grown enormously to become an international movement with over 16,000 individuals being trained across ten nations.

As the official partner of the Carbon Literacy Project in Wales, and the only Carbon Literacy training organisation that we are aware of, we’re immensely proud to be part of this movement but we also humbly recognise that the ethos of Carbon Literacy is one of sharing and co-operation.

The main course that we run is called “Carbon Literacy in the Workplace” but we also have a certified course for engineers and are developing ideas to engage more general communities whilst exploring the possibility of developing a course for unions as well.

Our approach is to engage with people largely on a sector basis, training some initial pioneer cohorts and subsequently supporting clients to develop their own courses for delivery in-house via a peer to peer cascade.

We proudly helped National Museum Wales start their journey to develop a dedicated course for the museum sector and connected them with museums in Manchester. 

Our biggest success however is enabling a consortium of 27 social housing providers to design Carbon Literacy training for their own sector which replicates what has been achieved in greater Manchester.

With support from Linc and the Carbon Literacy Project, we trained a pioneer cohort of 63 individuals and supported a course design team. A further 70 colleagues are now undergoing “train the trainer” with Manchester Metropolitan University and in January, the members will start cascading Carbon Literacy training to colleagues.

It’s an amazing achievement for 27 companies to agree to work with each other like this and there have already been reports from the consortium – known as Carbon Literacy Cartrefi Cymru or CLCC – on the impacts the training has had.

For example, Wales and West Housing reported that they are upgrading their fleet to electric vehicles as a direct result of its senior colleagues receiving Carbon Literacy training from us.

While we have been busy in Wales, the core organisation in Manchester has been even busier. It received funding from the UK Government’s BEIS department to develop a range of courses for public sector professional disciplines. It has already launched the Local Authority Toolkit, and Cardiff Council – who received initial training from us – is preparing to use it to train its staff.

Tim Gordon (Head of Communications and External Affairs at Cardiff Council) attended our carbon literacy training in 2019 and responded with: “A thoroughly fascinating and informative course which will open your eyes to the climate change debate – even if you thought you already knew all about it. It will really make you rethink the way we live life today”.

Tim and colleagues are currently receiving and analysing responses to the public consultation on their draft One Planet Cardiff Strategy: the Carbon Literacy training of all staff is an integral part of the One Planet Cardiff proposal. 

Meanwhile, Denbighshire County Council is training their senior management and elected members and we are helping them to develop a Carbon-lite e-learning course.

Newport Council and Monmouthshire Public Service Board are also preparing to initiate Carbon Literacy training with our support.

What’s next for us?

This month we will be running a session for Sustainable Development Co-ordinators Cymru, the network of sustainability professionals in public bodies across Wales. This group will be the first to use our new online learning platform as we convert to a more Covid proof model of learning.

The new website now enables anyone around the world to enrol themselves on any of our courses and undertake a combination of self-directed study with online tutor-led sessions. We will be adding dedicated client-focused courses to the site with a closed enrolment as well as continuing to add open courses that anyone can join.

Our experience with Carbon Literacy has led us to consider the parallels between the climate crisis and the nature crisis and explore whether the same learning approach can be applied to raise people’s awareness of the decline in biodiversity. 

The concept of ‘eco-literacy’ is not new but we think we are the first to apply the principles of Carbon Literacy to the challenge.

With the blessing of the Carbon Literacy project, therefore, we have designed a course that addresses the nature crisis following the Carbon Literacy criteria. The course enables group learning and problem solving with a focus on positive action while not hiding the severity of the threat posed by the erosion of natural systems and the extinction of species worldwide.

Participants will be aided in finding local, collaborative solutions to a global problem and to recognise the value of individual action. We aim to pilot the course in the new year and are pleased to have the support of a wide body of biodiversity professionals and interested groups.

Just like Manchester, Wales has its own carbon reductions plans and targets. With support from us, everyone who lives, works or studies in Wales can now become Carbon Literate and play their part in our national story of revival and renewal.

If you’d like to join our next open Carbon Literacy course please email training@cynnalcymru.com

The Carbon Literacy Project

The Carbon Literacy Project offers everyone a day’s worth of Carbon Literacy learning, covering – climate change, carbon footprints, how you can do your bit, and why it’s relevant to you and your audience. 

The Carbon Literacy Project offers everyone a day’s worth of Carbon Literacy learning, covering – climate change, carbon footprints, how you can do your bit, and why it’s relevant to you and your audience. 

The Project divides ‘everyone’ into three distinct audiences – those that live, those that work, and those that study. This allows every citizen to be offered Carbon Literacy learning in a way that has immediate meaning for them.

The Project delivers no training directly, but works with a host of people and organisations from all walks of life, that all deliver training that is accredited against the Carbon Literacy Standard. The Project then assesses participant’s and certifies successful candidates with their own uniquely numbered Carbon Literacy certificate.

Due to this ‘crowdsourced’ approach, working with everyone, from all walks of life, The Carbon Literacy Project is globally unique – there is nothing else quite like it anywhere. This was recognised by the United Nations at the UN climate negotiations, COP21, in Paris in 2015, where the Project was awarded TAP100 status, – one of 100 projects worldwide recognised as Transformative Action Programmes, that could materially change the way we deal with climate change.

The Carbon Literacy Project has, from its inception, always been a massive collaborative project. It involves people and organisations from all sectors and walks of life working together and contributing time, materials and funding to advance understanding and action on climate change. The Project is wholly owned by The Carbon Literacy Trust, a registered charity (No 1156722) established in 2013 to take responsibility for The Project in perpetuity, for the public good.

Public Health Wales and Orangebox save 134 tonnes of C02

Public Health Wales has embraced the three pillars of sustainability – environmental, economic and social sustainability and so this was incorporated in to the brief produced for furnishing the building. In order to achieve the retrofit PHW took a new and innovative approach to procuring office equipment, furnishings and flooring using as much reused and remanufactured equipment and products as possible.

As an organisation dedicated to improving public health and well-being, PHW felt that this should be central to activities, including procurement of goods and services, and the refit was identified as an opportunity to demonstrate this approach.

They already had a large number of quality furniture and fittings in their existing offices across Wales and it was felt that these items, with some cleaning, refurbishment and re-design, could be repurposed for use at the new office space in Cardiff Bay instead of being sent to landfill, and could be combined with other new or re-used items in a cohesive and functional style appropriate for the new office space.

It was also important that plans took in to account the sustainability challenges for the public sector in Wales including the Wellbeing of Future Generation Act 2015.

So PHW wanted to ensure the use of existing stock, including those which may need re-designed along with sourcing additional refurbished and pre-owned items. Sourcing of new items would only occur where absolutely necessary preferably using recycled content and eco design principles.

PHW took an innovative approach to finding the right supplier. A supplier day was arranged to brief potential suppliers who were given the opportunity to meet representatives from PHW and gain an understanding of the requirements. This new approach meant moving away from traditional procurement scoring where cost is usually given the greatest weighting to one where sustainability had the greater weighting taking up 70% of the scoring requirements.

The tender was awarded to a consortia made up of three companies, Rype, Greenstream and one of our premium members – Orangebox as their bid demonstrated the most sustainable approach.

The Outcome

The bulk of the furniture for the new office was either reused/re-manufactured from existing furniture or sourced from elsewhere. Many of these items had they not been reused would have been destined for landfill. In the refit 1,143 individual items were reused, these items were recovered and cleaned, in addition a further 1,270 pieces were re-manufactured (where parts are repaired, reconditioned, or replaced). Desk tops were repaired and chairs and soft furnishings being recovered with new fabrics. Around 2,563 items were used for the office refit overall with 45% of the items being re-used, 49% being re-made and only 6% of the items were brand new but encompassed sustainability credentials.

Our premium member Orangebox provided approximately 550 remanufactured office chairs for the project as part of their Remade programme. Orangebox Remade involves chairs that are near or past their warranty being returned to Orangebox and then collected by a local social enterprise, who remanufactures the chairs to as good as new condition. Each remanufactured chair saves 32kg of CO2, a 60% reduction in total compared to the new chair. 98% of parts are recyclable; components removed are either kept for reuse or returned to Orangebox’s locally based suppliers for reprocessing into new parts.

A mix of new and reused carpet tiles were used to carpet the offices floor areas. The flooring was designed to be accessible to all users with a number of the walkways designed with bespoke colour contrasts meaning that a greater percentage of carpet tiles needed to be sourced from new stock to meet the design needs. Although the ratio of recycled to new was lower than first anticipated the use of reused tiles, supplied and fitted by Greenstream, made a significant contribution to the project as it aligned closely  with PHW’s overarching aims and objectives of extended community benefits.

In total the project saved around 134 tonnes of C02 – the equivalent to traveling around 400,000 miles by car, or taking 41 cars of the road for an entire year.

Orangebox – is one of the UK’s largest office furniture manufacturers. Their in-house design team are committed to ensuring their growth comes from products and services that are as environmentally smart as they are commercially successful. This has included the design of the first office chair in Europe to be ‘Cradle to Cradle’ accredited, the set-up of an in-house recycling (take back) service and more recently, an Innovate UK supported project looking at adapting the business toward Circular Economy thinking. Looking forward their aim is to encourage their organisation, customers, distributors & suppliers to adopt a more holistic approach to product life-cycles and reduced environmental impacts.

Networking Lunch and Learn with BIPVco

In January 2019 we held our monthly networking lunch in partnership with Cynnal Cymru member BIPVco. Guests enjoyed a short presentation before being given an exclusive tour of the factory in Newport, where they got to see first hand the different manufacturing stages of their innovative thin film technology.

The visit provided a great opportunity to see the different range of innovative products designed and produced in-house by BIPVco and MIPV, with the opportunity to ask questions about the technical capabilities and potential applications from buildings to mobile applications.

About BIPVco and MIPV

BIPVco is a Newport based manufacturer of innovative and leading edge building integrated photovoltaic systems.  BIPVco is committed to factory incorporation of PV functionality to the building fabric to drive quality, value, holistic / aesthetic  integration and superior performance. Collaborating with major building envelope substrate and component manufacturers, BIPVco is able to offer sympathetically integrated solar powered roof and wall solutions for residential, institutional and industrial buildings. The products are ideally suited for the UK climate with excellent low light performance. The adopted thin film technology also has the advantage of being light weight, flexible and able to take the building form. It also has inbuilt design features to avoid disproportionate loss of power under partial shading. Turning buildings into power stations without making them look like one.

MIPV is a Newport based manufacturer of thin film flexible solar panels specifically sized to suit a range of mobile applications ranging from leisure vehicles such caravans, motorhomes and boats, service vehicles such as ambulances, police cars and vans to transport fleets including trucks, vans and refrigerated containers. The light weight flexible modules can be easily integrated onto the body of the vehicle without spoiling the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle nor adding significant weight. The highly efficient modules can provide trickle charge, eliminate idling times (and associated pollution), provide cooling function to refrigerated vehicles and enhance mpg by reducing alternator load or extend battery range of EV vehicles. The uniqueness of the MIPV technology is that unlike conventional crystalline cells, the flexible thin film solar cells do not crack and fail prematurely in dynamic mobile applications.

Find out more about BIPVco on their website.

 About our Networking Lunches

Cynnal Cymru works in partnership with our members to provide a range of networking lunch experiences throughout the year. Each lunch is unique and takes place in a different venue, to give our members the chance to showcase their work to a new audience. Last year we were delighted to partner up with Ballet Cymru, WWF Cymru, WCVA and Constructing Excellence in Wales.

If you would like to find out more about our membership or would like to co-host one of our future events, please get in touch.

Cardiff Council Transport and Clean Air Green Paper

From January to July 2018 we worked intensively with Cardiff Council on their Transport and Clean Air Green Paper. We were tasked with conducting research to inform the drafting of the paper, and helping with consultation once it was published.

Desk-top research looked at reports compiled within the last five years, emerging trends in transport, and the activity in other cities around the world. Seminars and conferences included Cynnal Cymru’s 2016 “Future Car:diff” event, “Car Futures Wales”, and the Innovate UK “Transport Challenges” workshop. Interviews took place with Innovate UK’s Transport Systems Catapult, Arup, Jacobs, The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Living Streets, and Cardiff Civic Society.

As drafts progressed, a team of Council officers and Cynnal Cymru staff was formed under the leadership of Cabinet Member for Transport, Councillor Wild. This team began to blend existing Cardiff Council transport research and strategies with new information gleaned from the research. The team included representatives from the Transport department, Economic Development, City Services, Shared Regulatory Services, Research and Customer Services, Policy, and Operations, and was chaired by the Director of City Operations. The end result ensured innovative practices from other cities was combined with existing strategic and policy commitments and an awareness of emerging trends to meet the specific needs of Cardiff.

Following publication, we worked with the Transport Team, Customer Services, The Cardiff Research Centre and FOR Cardiff to undertake a variety of consultations events and communications. These included an event for businesses and targeted engagement of specific locations.

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