A week of climate action to keep Scotland beautiful

Every week is one of climate action for us.  But #ScotClimateWeek gives us a focus to collaborate more, to reach out to new audiences and to have greater impact.

Scotland’s Climate Week 2022 has been busier and more impactful for us that ever.  Kicking off on 26 September, we have taken the chance to further raise awareness of the global climate emergency and highlight the steps people can take to play their part.

We have been privileged to meet with and have support from four Scottish Government Ministers during the week, have worked in partnership with a range of businesses, local authorities, communities and other charities.  We have delivered Climate Emergency Training to organisations across a variety of sectors, reached approximately 16,000 young people through our week of online live lessons and delivered a free online introductory workshop on climate change to over 100 people.

Every day of the #ScotClimateWeek we ran online live lessons as part of our Climate Action Week for Schools. We offered bespoke sessions for early years to P3, upper primary and high school pupils. Thousands of teachers and pupils from schools in every local authority area in Scotland participated in the lessons and shared their learnings on social media.  The lessons included special guest presentations from author Mini Grey featuring her story The Last Wolf, Claire Herbst of Forth Valley College, and our friends at the Royal Zoological Society Scotland with a live feed from the Highland Wildlife Park.  At the final assembly we were joined by a very special guest – First Minister Nicola Sturgeon visited St Alberts Primary School and addressed all the schools through an online feed, she congratulated everyone and thanked the young people for the action they were taking.  You can find all the live lessons to watch again on our website.

In partnership with a number of other organisations including SFHA and SCVO our team has been delivering Climate Emergency Training to employees across the country online too.  Additionally, we have hosted a webinar for Parole Board Scotland as part of its Climate Week activities, and continued training for staff at Scottish Power, Grahams Construction, Museum and Galleries Scotland and people as part of our involvement with Falkirk Canal Connections.

Our CEO Barry commented, "I'd like to say a big thank you to all those partners, organisations, schools, individuals who attended events, who came along and learnt new things at training and webinars, who had a conversation about climate change and action that could be taken, who contributed by taking part in a litter pick, or who hosted a Scottish Government Minister to raise the profile of what we do.  Everyone in #TeamKSBScot has worked hard to deliver an active programme this #ScotClimateWeek and I'd like to thank them, and you, again for all you have done to keep Scotland beautiful."

In addition to our activity in schools and our training, we have also worked with others to deliver a programme covering a wide spectrum of our work.  This included:

• Delivering a free online workshop on the climate emergency to help bust the myths and explain the jargon empowering attendees to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Over 100 people attended to hear from the Scottish Government about the Scottish Communities Climate Action Network and community climate action hubs and Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, Lorna Slater MSP.
• Supporting the launch of the Scottish Government’s Marine Litter Strategy  - at the Perth Willowgate Centre, one of our Upsteam Battle campaign anchor groups with Màiri McAllan, Minister for Environment, Biodiversity and Land Reform.
• Launching our Climate Action Schools pledge – with support from teachers and pupils at Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh with Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Shirley-Anne Somerville.
• Highlighting the Clean Up efforts of Decathlon and Ismaili Civic – 50 bags of litter were removed from Sighthill Park by volunteers from the local Decathlon store and members of the Ismaili Civiv as part of their Global Day and our Clean Up Scotland campaign.
• Launching our Upstream Battle STEM the Flow Challenge in partnership with the West Partnership to encourage young people to come up with solutions to help reduce source to sea and marine litter around the River Clyde.    Our industry partners supporting this project include Scottish Water, BAE Systems and Jacobs Engineering.
• Publishing a blog by Shotts community group – Getting Better Together, one of seven communities we are working with to help develop Community Climate Action Plans
• Celebrating our partnership with Keep New Zealand Beautiful – we first established a partnership with Keep New Zealand Beautiful a year ago, pledging a closer working relationship and signing a partnership agreement committing us to share our expertise in key activity areas to benefit communities on both sides of the globe.
• Presenting at a Place Based Climate Action Event with Architecture and Design Scotland -  Our Project Officer Heather Ashworth told the attendees about the work she has been doing to support communities to take climate action and wrote a blog which was shared on their website
• Publishing the final report on Scotland’s Climate Festival which saw inspired 92% to take action, distributed almost £15,000 of seed funds to 37 groups to create local climate events, and featured nine national events online and in venues.
• Highlighting our Climate Emergency Training SCQF level 4 course via a blog published by SCQF.

Drawing #ScotClimateWeek to an end we supported the launch of the Running Out Of Time relay with our friends from FEE as it started from Sunnyside Primary School in Glasgow, with runners carrying a baton containing a message from young people to the world leaders attending COP27 in early November in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.   The relay will cover 7,200km and the baton and runners visited a number of schools and communities we work with including – Sunnyside Primary School and Grow 73 in Glasgow, Brighter Bothwell and St Andrew’s & St Brides High School in South Lanarkshire and Wallace Hall Academy and Applegarth Primary School in Dumfries and Galloway.

Scotland’s Climate Week is an annual event, which we have supported with activity since 2016. We are looking forward to scaling up our contribution to support Scotland’s ambition to become a Net Zero Nation.