We are delighted to announce that we have been accredited as a Silver Carbon Literate Organisation by the UN-recognised Carbon Literacy Project.
This prestigious accreditation recognises our commitment to encourage our people and communities to play a proactive role in reducing carbon emissions as an organisation and work towards a cleaner, greener, safer future throughout Dorset.
Carbon Literacy is defined as, “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, ” and revolves around a day’s worth of learning and action on climate change.
To become accredited as a Silver Carbon Literate Organisation, we trained 70% of our Trustees and 60% of the Action Team volunteers running our charity organisation in Carbon Literacy. More are following!
As a result, we have pledged to cascade co-facilitation and skills development; offer bespoke, locally-focused in-person training; develop a Case Study of Carbon Literacy in Dorset to inspire further engagement; and create links with existing networks like UN Climate Ambassadors, Eco-Schools, Let’s Go Zero and the Green Schools Project and schools to engage more young people.
Underlying this is our core offer of the Carbon Literacy Community Pot funded town & parish council and community group monthly online training workshops, through which we hope to have over 100 more Carbon Literacy accreditations before the end of 2025 across elected councillors, clerks and staff and community group representatives.
Being accredited as a Silver Carbon Literate Organisation is an important achievement for us because it:
- Supports our people to collaborate in identifying and implementing opportunities for carbon reduction on an organisational scale.
- Demonstrates our commitment to maintaining a low-carbon organisational culture.
- Enables us to drive faster action on climate change.
- Sets a positive example of sustainability leadership in our county and beyond.
- Provides more scope for us to share practical solutions to our climate and sustainability challenges with community groups, parish, town and unitary councils in Dorset and beyond.