Our impact
We measure Carbon Copy’s impact by the effect of our communications on collective behaviour change for climate and nature.
Climate Action Stories
Carbon Copy is now one of the largest searchable collections of climate action success stories in the UK, a vital free resource not just for local communities, councils and businesses, but also for researchers and central government departments compiling evidence of the breadth and impact of local climate initiatives.
There is enormous diversity across the organisations and groups who’ve shared their stories. The initiatives may be big or small in reach, but there’s always something that is (or could be) transformational.
Our publishing platform is proven and purpose-built for local. It’s free to use, open access and non-commercial. From the feedback received from project owners, the hub works really well for people looking to share their high-impact, low-carbon initiatives as well as for those who want to copy great ideas.
Hundreds of organisations have now published their climate action initiatives with Carbon Copy and we’ve made over 100,000 connections between different people.
In 2025, we continued to manage and invest in this national self-publishing platform; to make it more easily accessible and searchable, so these stories build a groundswell of collective local action through the inspiring example of others.
Placemaking
Carbon Copy’s interactive map of the UK, with 380 local area pages, provides easy access to key information about local ambition and action plans that address the climate emergency. By connecting people with the places they love, we encourage groups and organisations to work together in shaping the world around them. Recent additions to this useful resource include:
co-creating the latest local climate warming stripes for every UK county, producing a visual pattern of climate change in each local area;
collaborating with mySociety to automate the publication of all the latest local climate action plans and plans for nature that are in the public domain; and
working with Climate Emergency UK to connect the plans we publish to their evaluations, so it’s easier to check how local councils are performing in tackling the climate and nature crises.
To date, we’ve had around 50,000 visitors and 2,500 direct actions from people visiting this Carbon Copy placemaking resource.
Carbon Copy Podcast
From its early days as an exciting collaboration with Planet Pod, the Carbon Copy Podcast has grown in audience and established itself as a voice of big-thinking local action for climate and nature in the UK. Through powerful stories from the people behind the projects, the pod inspires, moves and motivates listeners to take action in their own local communities.
There is a real power in words and expanding from written to spoken word through podcasting reflects the challenge (and opportunity) to connect with people who are busy with daily life. Delivering content through audio means we can reach those who are on the go and the longer form (vs social media) enables us to deliver more high-quality, detailed and useful information.
In 2025, we covered 25 different kinds of big local action in a year-long podcast series, Do Something Bigger. Covering themes from renewable energy to rewilding, and working with high-profile guest co-hosts such as Joanna Yarrow and Daniel Webb, the series generated a high level of audience engagement with nearly 500 podcast downloads on average per month.
According to the latest figures, the Carbon Copy Podcast is now in the top quartile of all podcasts worldwide, based on the number of downloads achieved within the first week of releasing new episodes.
25 Big Local Actions
Carbon Copy launched an ambitious full-year campaign in 2025, building on the successes and partnerships from previous years. Twenty-five different kinds of collective action were promoted across CC media channels, connecting with people through the topics and themes that matter most to them.
Incredibly, this campaign ran continuously for 52 weeks with the spotlight on a different big local action every two weeks.
In each fortnightly pulse we highlighted different stories from across the UK and action-oriented resources, through social media content, videos and podcast episodes.
The campaign included contributions from over 100 people representing community organisations, councils, businesses, charities, social enterprises and political groups; sharing their thoughts, experiences and advice about the power of collective local action.
25 Big Local Actions supported the continuing growth of our national collection of climate action stories, saw over 5,000 podcast downloads and over 50,000 engagements with our content on social media.
The practical impact has been overwhelmingly positive: 89% of survey participants found Carbon Copy’s online resources useful in taking collective action for climate and nature.
Running Out Of Time
Over three years, Carbon Copy raised awareness and engaged different people in local climate action through culture – with a particular focus on sport and on mass participation events – and enjoyed an incredible and high-impact partnership with The World Relay.
Approached by The World Relay at the start of 2022, Carbon Copy teamed up to help organise the longest ever non-stop relay. Over 7700km from Glasgow (COP26 host city) to Sharm El-Sheikh (COP27 host city), in the name of climate action. No one had done anything this big before – that’s why it’s now a world record. The event was called ‘Running Out of Time’.
Running Out of Time linked amazing projects along the route and generated huge media attention for their local climate and nature work. We followed up in 2023 with a GB mass event from Ben Nevis to Big Ben (‘Ben to Ben’), breaking through to new audiences and shortlisted for Campaign of the Year at the Sustainable Sports Awards.
In 2024, over 20,000 relay participants ran, walked, wheeled, swam, paddled and cycled different parts of the 2400km journey from Ben to Ben. Over 80% claimed that Running Out of Time wanted to make them do more to address the climate crisis, and two-fifths pledged to take a local community action for climate and nature.