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:
Enabling people and communities
Benefiting the environment
Supporting local areas and the economy
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:
“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.”
Carbon Literacy Cartrefi Cymru (CLCC) was a consortium of Welsh registered housing associations, which ran from 2019 until 2024. During that time, more than 30 RHAs were members, over 140 Carbon Literacy trainers were certified within the consortium, and a fully accredited Carbon Literacy training course was delivered to 598 people in Wales.
Carbon Literacy is defined as a day’s worth of learning around the causes and consequences of climate change, empowering learners 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.
Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales was 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.
CLCC history
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 organizations, 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 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.”
Five years later the CLCC was brought 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, had been delivered to 598 people across Wales, thanks to the enthusiasm and dedication of the CLCC trainers who passed on their knowledge to their peers and colleagues. The course had received two substantial updates, and 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 between May 2023 and the consortium’s closure in October 2024, 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.”
CLCC members in 2023
What next for the CLCC?
Although the consortium has now closed, its positive impact will continue long into the future. Many former members are planning to roll out Carbon Literacy to their tenants – and with more than 100,000 houses owned across the consortium, that’s a lot of people. For some member organisations, certified Carbon Literacy training is now mandatory for all new staff. Cynnal Cymru also 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 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.
The relationships that were built through the consortium, and the knowledge that was gained and shared, will continue to provide the foundation for Carbon Literacy and a greater awareness and understanding of the impact we all have on the world around us.
If you would like to know more about the CLCC please contact: Shwmae@cynnalcymru.com
If you’re interested in Carbon Literacy training for your organisation or a collaborative project, please contact our training team: training@cynnalcymru.com
For over two years Cynnal Cymru worked with the Welsh Government and the former Commissioner for Future Generations, Peter Davies, to help develop and grow Wales’s biggest National Conversation on ‘The Wales We Want’.
The Conversation was launched on 18 February 2014 with the support of award-winning Welsh actor and UNICEF supporter Michael Sheen at a high profile event in held in Cardiff.
In the first year we organised 20 events, 3 launch events, recruited 150 Futures Champions, helping to bring together 6474 individuals, who took part in over 100 conversations across Wales resulting in almost 1000 responses in the form or reports, videos, postcards, drawings and surveys.
Putting People at the Heart of the Campaign
‘I want a Wales where….’ campaign video featuring our first Futures Champions and ambassadors for the campaign.
Working closely with the Welsh Government, Cynnal Cymru identified the need to develop and strengthen the brand identity, placing people at the heart of the conversation. To enable the conversation to reach as wide an audience as possible, a network of Futures Champions was established – identifying key champions and influencers to represent different geographical areas and communities of interest. As part of the recruitment strategy, Cynnal Cymru was able to recruit new champions through its own networks and contacts.
This approach proved vital in helping people to relate the campaign, and take ownership of the conversation and brand. Many also took it to the next level with spin-out Conversations such as The Llanelli We Want and the Carmarthenshire We Want.
Working with a design agency Hoffi, we developed the campaign website, where the primary focus was to encourage people to take action by signing up as Futures Champions or sharing their views online.
Throughout the campaign Cynnal Cymru was responsible for developing a number of milestone events, including the launch of final report in 2015, held in Cardiff and Llandudno. The report was the culmination of a year-long conversation with the people across Wales, attended by the Minister for Natural Resources, Michael Sheen, Iolo Williams and other notable speakers. This high profile event was supported by a successful social media campaign #futurecymru which trended on Twitter with over 1500 tweets during the launch day.
ColegauCymru is a membership organisation that represents the interests of further education institutions across Wales. In recognising the collective need to embrace sustainability, ColegauCymru joined Cynnal Cymru seeking advice and networks towards creating a more sustainable future.
Challenge:
Like many other organisations, they have become increasingly aware of their need to coordinate actions on emerging sustainability trends, goals, and regulations, and to be able to set a positive example. As a result, the team approached Cynnal Cymru seeking support on how best to proceed.
Our approach:
Instead of making a series of recommendations on a report that would have gone unnoticed, we proposed creating an “ah-ha” moment.
We were fortunate that the team who spoke with us said, “We think everyone in this organisation should be part of it” ! It was music to our ears. After all, as we often say, everyone, no matter what title they hold, can have insights and expertise about sustainability.
So, on a rainy Monday morning, we turned, for a few hours, an entire organisation into researchers, system thinkers and consultants!
ColegauCymru have mapped out their operations to better understand their positive and negative impacts across the value chain and have outlined the key pillars of action. In doing so, the entire team appreciated how their organisation fits into the world and what they must aim for.
Impact:
As one of the participants said, “Perhaps our vision then should be about sustainability…?”
When we heard it, we knew the workshop created an “ah-ha” moment. How come? At Cynnal Cymru, we firmly believe that a tick-box approach to sustainability will not be able to address the challenges facing organisations and will most definitely not help societies and nature to meet their most basic needs, let alone thrive. So, to lead by example, organisations must embed sustainability into their DNA rather than have a separate, official version, vision, mission and strategy.
ColegauCymru Director of Policy and Public Affairs, Rachel Cable, said,
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 since 2017
Cynnal Cymru are the official partner of the Carbon Literacy Project in Wales are we are immensely proud to have brought Carbon Literacy to Wales and to have made it into the huge success it is.
In 2017, led by our Rhodri Thomas (our former principal trainer) we began our partnership with The Carbon Literacy Project and delivered our first accredited Carbon Literacy course. Rhodri was also the first resident Welsh certified Carbon Literacy trainer in Wales and in April 2020, Cynnal Cymru was recognised as the first Carbon Literacy Training Organisation (CLTO) in Wales.
In 2020, in response, to the Pandemic we launched our first distance learning Carbon Literacy course – and we have since delivered online Carbon Literacy training to a wide range of organisations reaching as far as Australia.
In February 2024 we hit a new milestone with over 1000 learners certified Carbon Literate.
To date we have also:
Trained the Sustainable Development forum of Museum Wales, supporting initial efforts by the whole museum sector to develop bespoke Carbon Literacy training.
Co-founded and coordinated 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
Took part in the 3rd annual Carbon Literacy Action Day in December 2023 – with 14 organisations joining us at Cardiff University’s Sbarc|Spark building here in Cardiff!
Continue to run monthly open courses online for people from all over the world.
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.
This week NICW has launched a new climate research project run by Cynnal Cymru to explore how climate change is communicated to communities. Over five months, the research team will analyse current trends and meet with communities to ultimately help public bodies engage better with the public to manage long-term climate risks.
Climate change is a serious issue that will transform landscapes worldwide, including Wales. The impact will be particularly significant here in Wales, where 60% of the population and the infrastructure we depend on are located in coastal areas. Many communities in these areas are situated below the high tide line, and rising sea levels and increased storms will gradually erode coastlines at a rate of 20-67m every 100 years. This rate is expected to increase to 82-175m depending on the level of carbon emissions.
However, rising sea levels are not the only change that the people of Wales will experience. Prolonged heat waves, heavy storms, and droughts might become the new norm, posing significant challenges to everyone. Therefore, it is essential to consider these impacts when maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure, which is often over 200 years old.
It is also crucial to recognise that the likelihood and severity of these risks will increase in the coming decades. Public bodies, the Welsh Government, and other important stakeholders must make critical decisions on responding to this risk, which may require responding to this risk and ensuring that communities are also engaged in the difficult decisions around planning and investment.
About the project
The new project launched on November 6, 2023 and is set to end in March 2024. Its main objective is to help public bodies make better decisions and engage with the public to manage long-term climate risks. This learning will be applied to other climate threats as well. The project will focus on engaging those who are directly or indirectly affected by the risks, as well as the wider public, who may be affected in the future by the use of our nation’s infrastructure assets or in their homes.
To accomplish these goals, the project will analyse current and emerging data about climate threats and ways to communicate these threats through interviews with stakeholders, including the NICW. Additionally, the analysis of the call for evidence, which is currently open, will be considered. Ultimately, this is a scoping project that aims to assist NICW in establishing a wider research program for 2024/2025 and provide recommendations on governance.
Cynnal Cymru, a sustainable development charity, was chosen to run the project due to their innovative approach to how the public, including policymakers, can act in the face of uncertainty.
Cynnal Cymru
“We are excited to contribute to this important initiative by providing direct insight on climate, engagement, and decision-making to those whose decisions will directly impact the well-being of communities in Wales”.
Helen Armstrong
“We commissioned this project because we wanted to be pushed and challenged about how we think and communicate climate change with the public and decision-makers in Wales.”
Steve Brooks
“Climate change affects us all, but its effects vary across Wales and we want to ensure diverse voices are part of our strategy.”
About the National Infrastructure
The National Infrastructure Commission for Wales (NICW) was established in 2018 as an independent, non-statutory advisory body to Welsh Ministers. Its key purpose is to analyse, advise and make recommendations on Wales’ longer-term strategic economic and environmental infrastructure needs over a 5-80-year period. Welsh Ministers have recently set the NICW a new remit for this Senedd term which includes investigating and making recommendations to the Welsh Government on climate change resilience.
About Cynnal Cymru
Since 2002, Cynnal Cymru has paved the way for sustainable development in Wales. We aim to help organisations create a fairer and more secure future for all through training, consultancy, research, and facilitation. A fair and secure future is sustainable and climate literate, which is why we provide training and consultancy as a partner of the Carbon Literacy Project and across other sustainability areas. Our Fair Work team help businesses create fairer working practices as the Welsh accreditor of the real Living Wage.
Mental health charities are increasingly interested in issues around climate change and are eager to know what role they can play and how they can positively contribute to the sustainable development goals, and the seven wellbeing goals here in Wales. However, as with many other organisations, local Minds in Wales do not always have in-house experts, sustainability professionals, or the appropriate capacity to help them integrate sustainability into their operations. As a result, there is often concern and worry about not knowing where to start and what to do.
The challenge was to create a shared understanding of what sustainability means to local Minds in Wales, so that as a federation they are all on the same page. Local Minds in Wales are in the process of implementing their Network Strategy for 2023 to 2026, where plans around environmental sustainability feature within implementation plan tasks, and they have reached out to us for help.
The session came about from interest expressed by local Mind leaders to find out more about this subject area.
Our approach
We find that the best way to approach such complex challenges is to make their everyday impacts relatable within our clients’ own experiences and areas of operation. Their concerns and frames of reference need to shape what we are delivering and have space to be aired and explored. That way the priorities or solutions that emerge are tangible and relevant rather than theoretical or out of touch. In this case, we chose to show Local Minds that the current crises their clients are facing are only going to be exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. Since Local Minds are specialists in mental health, we approached the challenge by referring to emotions and lived experiences. That said, rather than showing statistics, we asked them to imagine what it is like to live in spaces affected by climate change and inequalities such as housing, access to public transport, costs of living, community spaces, and job insecurities – the structures that they and the people they work with are already having to navigate.
The CEOs of local Minds in Wales already knew about the importance of green spaces, such as the role they played during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our presentation widened this understanding to the connection between the wider environment and mental health. Attendees left with a full understanding that the challenges that climate change poses to mental health are unlike any experienced to date. Some of the impacts of the climate crisis are already being experienced by Mind clients and people new to the organisations are also accessing their services due to climate anxiety. They also understood that they have a key role to play in society in advocating for climate action as a necessary component of preserving and protecting public mental health.
The impact
The local Mind CEOs have already committed to integrated sustainability into their network strategy so that together they can take actions to lower their footprint on the environment, and make decisions that ultimately benefit the communities they operate in, their staff; their suppliers and contractors, and the environment.
They also decided they needed another session with Cynnal Cymru to support them do achieve this.
It was great to have Karolina join us to provide her expert knowledge, understanding and expertise into environmental sustainability and its connection not only to the third sector and our work, but also the prominent links to mental health.
We have made a commitment to developing plans around environmental sustainability as part of our Strategic Plan, and will very much look forward to working with Karolina and the team at Cynnal Cymru to realise these plans. Simon Stephens, Head of Networks (Wales), Mind Cymru
To find out more about the local Mind network and how you can access support through one of our 18 local Minds in Wales, visit the Local Minds web page.
In February 2023, Cynnal Cymru was delighted to join a project funded by the SMART Innovation team at the Welsh Government and led by Office of the Future Generations Commissioner to review a Future-Proofing toolkit aimed at the private sector.
What is the Well-being of Future Generations Act and why does it matter to business?
The Act, passed in 2015, is one-of-a-kind legislation as it places a legal duty on the 44 public bodies in Wales to think about the long-term impact of their decisions, to work better with people, communities and each other, and to work to prevent persistent problems such as poverty, health inequalities and climate change from occurring, rather than just dealing with their consequences. The Act is unique to Wales, attracting interest from countries across the world as it offers a huge opportunity to make a long-lasting, positive change for current and future generations.
Although the Act does not apply to the private sector, here in Wales large organisations such as Welsh Water began to align themselves with its overall purpose of improving Wales’s well-being in the broadest sense. They saw the Act as a framework for talking about sustainability to stakeholders and wanted to show the public sector how they too can contribute to the seven Well-being Goals that the Act sets out. After all, the private sector supplies goods and services to the public sector, so it is important to demonstrate shared values. Moreover, given that the Act reflects the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), businesses in Wales, who have been working on the SDGs, understand the Act’s relevance.
Can the Act be a guide for all businesses?
Last year we got a chance to explore this much further. In partnership with the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner we held a series of interviews with large organisations with a presence in Wales, as well as business networks who said thatbeing able to “speak” the language of the Act would be of value to the private sector. However, in the absence of a readily available, comprehensive, and peer-reviewed guide to the Act and a framework to align with, businesses turn instead to global frameworks and the SDGs, which are more familiar to the private sector. The link between the SDGs and the Act in Wales is therefore missed.
On the back of this research, we suggested a framework for businesses to help them start making sense of the Act, which we are now trialling with larger companies. As further research we also ran a workshop with board members of Hafren Dyfrydwy (a subsidiary of Severn Trent Water) to help them realise how to contribute to the Act’s Goals.
Future-proofing smaller businesses
While our research addressed the challenge that large businesses face, we felt that there was also an opportunity to engage smaller organisations with fewer staff and resources.
Over the last two decades, we have noticed that small-profit and not-for-profit businesses want to contribute to sustainability but lack time, people, knowledge and money to take action. They want to sustain their operations and provide employment opportunities without causing damage to the environment, communities and economy for years to come. But they feel overwhelmed by the information about sustainability and confused when this is often presented as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘must-have’ like HR, health and safety or finance. They are in need of clear advice and want to talk to someone with an understanding of their challenges. We also often hear that businesses want a one-stop shop where they can read and enquire about sustainability and find solutions that are relevant to their size or sector. And because most business owners feel that they are on their own, being part of a community is important to them too.
This is why we were excited to join Matt Appleby, Annabel Lloyd and Jonathan Tench in a project commissioned by Business Wales in conjunction with the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner to review the existing Future-Proofing toolkit and expand it to make it more relevant and helpful to SMEs.
The toolkit aims to support businesses to play their part in Wales’s journey to the Act’s seven Well-being Goals. It is free of charge, available in the public domain and most importantly, is written from the perspective of businesses and their sustainability priorities.
We recognise, however, that to increase its relevance and effectiveness, the toolkit can be enhanced with more tools, examples and case studies to help businesses future-proof their operations. This is the next stage of our work and we are excited to use the knowledge and insights we have gained from working with our members and others to inform this.
We hope the toolkit will act as a guide to sustainable development as described in the Act, and as a hub of knowledge for businesses seeking ideas and solutions.
Can you help test this toolkit to meet business needs?
If you are an SME and you’d like to help test this toolkit, please get in contact.
Cynnal Cymru’s consortium model for Carbon Literacy training was first developed with the formation of the Carbon Literacy Cartrefi Cymru (CLCC) consortium of Welsh registered social landlords (RSLs) in 2019.
The CLCC’s aim was to increase Carbon Literacy within the member organisations, pooling money and resources to increase training capacity and knowledge across the consortium. Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales continues to provide secretariat, mentoring and expert training support for the CLCC, which currently has 22 members across Wales, representing 113,236 homes.
Consortium model for Carbon Literacy training
The benefits of a consortium
There are multiple benefits to delivering Carbon Literacy training via a consortium. The model provides a coordinated structure through which:
A course can be tailored for your sector or industry
A Carbon Literacy training course that is tailored to the industry can be designed and accredited
A network can be developed and nutured
A network of peer-to-peer trainers, knowledgeable about the organisation and industry, can be developed and nurtured
Knowledge is widely shared and understood
A platform for sharing knowledge across member organisations can be supported
Capacity can be increased
Carbon Literacy training can be delivered to all staff within an organisation, with the economic and operational benefits conferred by having a Carbon Literate-staff base
Costs can be shared
A central fund, to which each member organisation contributes, can be allocated by agreement to any further projects aligned with member needs
The structure and scope of a consortium are by its nature flexible; organisations looking to create a consortium for Carbon Literacy training can agree a model that fulfils their individual requirements.
This may include:
Structured planning and progression
Consortium-wide meetings on a monthly, quarterly or biannual basis to review progress and identify any further needs;
Continuous improvement
Regular Community of Practice (CoP) meetings to provide support, guidance and continuous improvement to trainers;
Collaborative communications
A communications team drawn from across member organisations creating joint content for social media, press releases and communications campaigns;
Collaborative success
A design team drawn from across member organisations working with Cynnal Cymru and the Carbon Literacy Project to ensure that the training course is industry-appropriate and fully accredited within a set timeframe;
Dedicated support
Any additional bespoke work agreed with Cynnal Cymru to support the core proposal.
Member organisations would determine the model during the initial phase, when a proposal would be drafted and agreed. The details of the creation, launch and ongoing management of the consortium would be agreed by the members, but would follow a similar process to the one detailed below:
Interested in creating a consortium?
Please get in contact and we will be happy to help you find the best approach for your needs.
The foundational economy community of practice started in July 2020 as part of the Welsh Government’s Foundational Economy Challenge Fund. Its aim was to share learning and innovation, build relationships and encourage collaboration.
The Challenge Fund provided support to projects looking to try out new ways to address challenges – some emerging, some age-old – faced by foundational economy businesses or those relying on their services.
These included:
the recruitment, retention and skills of the workforce
the delivery structures and design of services
the recruitment, retention and skills of the workforce
the delivery structures and design of services
The aim was to explore a range of solutions that could potentially generate viable, adaptable models that could be scaled up and spread to strengthen local economies and community wealth-building.
Staring in 2019 with an initial 52 projects, it was always expected that some experiments would not succeed and conditions were made even more challenging by the impact of the pandemic.
A community of practice was also however put in place to help capture some of the rich learning and insights generated by all the projects taking part. The examples in the case studies below give a flavour of the projects supported by the Fund – their successes, challenges and above all learning, about how best the foundational economy in their area or sector can be supported. The Fund closed in March 2021 but, at the request of members, the community of practice has continued. Its role continues to be to share learning, encourage and expand dialogue and facilitate collaboration.
