Updates from Going Green Together - Issue #2

Hello and welcome to the Going Green Together newsletter. Our campaign supports VCSE organisations in the North East on their journey towards net zero.

Exciting news - we have been invited to make an application for stage 2 of the National Lottery Community Fund Reaching Communities bid!

The VCAA has been hosting roundtables to explore the challenges and opportunities for engaging specific communities and people with the climate emergency and climate action, including:

As part of the National Lottery Community Fund application we’re seeking funding for a number of next-step support activities for VCSE organisations and an allocation of seed funding for ‘partnership climate action projects with targeted people and communities’. We will be focusing on developing this element of our application in the next roundtable on Monday, November 8th, 9am-10:30am.

We hosted our launch event on Thursday, October 16th, 4:30pm-5:30pm, which you can read more about on our Medium. It was a great opportunity to meet people who are interested in taking climate action and find out where they are on their climate action journey. Going forward we’ve set up monthly peer support sessions so everyone has a dedicated time each month to talk about how they’re getting on, any challenges and help encourage each other along the journey to net zero.

It’s difficult to know how to begin to take climate action - so Going Green Together is here to help! Check out our page on climate actions that you can take from your office. Get in touch to let us know how you get on.

🔗 Going Green Together - Office

Anya Bonner from the Collective Impact Agency, has written a blog highlighting the importance of the VCSE sector taking climate action and where your organisation can begin. Read the blog and find out more.

This informal session will give everyone a chance to chat about climate action and how they are progressing with using the Going Green Together actions. We hope that by forming a peer support group, we can help and learn from each other and encourage each other to make further progress on our journey towards net zero.

“We loved the Going Green Together web tool because taking climate action has been on our to do list for a while. We didn’t know where to start but we’re looking forward to working with other organisations to support each other on our climate action journey.” - Richard Haigh, CEO of The Key

Difference North East has set up the Disabled Climate Action Forum (DCAF) - a climate action group focusing on social justice for disabled people, by disabled people.

They’re running two sessions, one on Wednesday, November 11th, 1pm and Thursday, November 12th, 6pm to mark the end of COP26. The sessions will provide an opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas and decide how to move forward together to make change.

You can register for the sessions on Eventbrite.

To find out more follow @climate_DCAF on Twitter.

Connected Voice is hosting a VCSE networking event focused on the Climate Emergency. The speakers are from environmental, climate change and green specific VCSE organisations, and mainstream organisations working to address these issues too. Speakers at the event include:

🔗 Register for the event

The COP26 Green Zone will be open to the public at the Glasgow Science Centre from November 1st to November 12th. The programme of events for the Green Zone is now live on the UK COP26 website.

Tickets for events will be free of charge and available shortly. If you are unable to attend in person you can join virtually by subscribing to the COP26 YouTube channel.

As part of activities relating to the UN COP26 conference being hosted in Glasgow in November, Carbon Copy is working with regional Energy Hubs to gather projects and case studies to be published online. This is a great opportunity for VCSE organisations to shout about what they’ve been doing in their local areas.

🔗 North East and Yorkshire Energy Hub

Join NEECCo and its partners during COP26 to discuss a range of topics and themes from the conference and climate emergency. Find out more about the different events and register on the NEECCo website.

Digital Leaders Innovation Week 2021 gives you the opportunity to hear 100 innovative talks from digital leaders online for free. Though there are lots of interesting categories, we’re particularly highlighting the COP26 talks. There’s lots to learn, from digital sustainability to ESG (environmental, social and governance) technology, head to the website and set your Innovation Week schedule.

A new £2.5m National Lottery-funded programme has launched to support communities across the UK take action on climate change

The ‘Together for Our Planet’ funding programme is offering grants of between £1k and £10k to support local community projects, covering areas such as food, transport, energy, waste and consumption and the natural environment.

🔗 National Lottery Community Fund website

Join the Going Green Together movement today – to learn, take your first steps in climate action, and share your successes with the community to help inspire others. Connect with us and others by joining our network.