Engage Your Community

Isabelle: Hello and welcome to the Carbon Copy podcast. I’m Isabelle Sparrow and today I’m back for another episode of our series Do Something Bigger and this time I’m joined by not one but two special guest hosts. Phil Korbel, co-founder of The Carbon Literacy Project and Linda Foley, localities advocacy consultant also at The Carbon Literacy Project. 

Linda: Hello. 

Phil: Hi. 

Linda: Hi Isabelle. 

Phil: Great to have you here in Manchester. 

Isabelle: This series of the podcast accompanies Carbon Copy’s year-long campaign 25 Big Local Actions in 2025. The Carbon Literacy Project is one of our lead campaign partners alongside Climate Emergency UK and WWF UK and Linda and Phil are bringing their expertise and experience to help me unpack today’s topic, Engage Your Community. 

So as mentioned there are three of us in the room today and it’s a slightly different setup for this one. The reason being is that we have a lot to talk about around the work that The Carbon Literacy Project is doing both in terms of people engaging their professional communities and also those they’re connected to through a shared interest but also in terms of the ambition that The Carbon Literacy Project has around localities and The Localities Project. So Phil, could you please start us off by telling us what The Carbon Literacy Project is and how it all started? 

Phil: Yeah, the origin story actually tells you a lot about what we’re doing. We are in a crisis, we are in an emergency with what’s happening with the climate, something which is going to impact on everybody and everybody can contribute to minimising it. So we thought well we have to get something going that engages people with impact at scale and we went Manchester has to be Carbon Literate and everyone went ‘yep, it does. What do you mean?’ So we worked with employers and educators to create The Carbon Literacy Project which hinges on enabling anyone to devise and deliver a day’s worth of climate action training to their own people. 

So we’re a charity that does that and we enable people to train their own in a way that results in action and the thing perhaps most crucially it does is say to people whoever they are, wherever they are, what is your best climate thing that you can do? So it’s so aligned with what you’re doing of course and I think people want to know that yeah it’s there in the ether, this is something that I’d want to do something about, what is it? And this says here it is, after this day’s worth of training you will not be given a thing to do, you will devise it, you will apply your knowledge and your motivation to what you do generally in the workplace and get on and do it. So now I think we’re heading for 142,000 certified learners, 920 courses mainly in the UK but actually across 40 plus nations. So it’s happening, it’s happening at scale, it’s growing really fast and yeah we’ve got this thing that we helped get going but that community of practise, that movement is out there doing it, doing it and it reinforces itself with stories of success. 

Isabelle: Yeah absolutely, it’s an amazing journey, you’ve certified nearly 142,000 people and actually a third of those people has been within the last sort of… 

Phil: Three, if that, years. Yeah. 

Isabelle: Yeah, like less than three years. So there’s obviously been huge ramping up. 

Phil: Oh yeah. 

Isabelle: What’s the kind of catalyst I guess for that huge ramping up? 

Phil: It is an exponential growth, I mean climate people will recognise the hockey stick graph, we’ve got the good hockey stick graph in terms of our growth, but it is stories transmitting. One thing we don’t talk about in the training is polar bears because it’s not about polar bears, it’s about us and I think it’s not only creating that realisation of relevance but also what we can do but then doing it and people talking about it and every time on social media you see another person pop up say no I’ve got my certificate because I’m doing this, maybe I could and it transmits person to person. 

We absolutely insist on peer-to-peer delivery as well, so you’re being taught by people like yourself. The last thing that most people want in the room is some beardy worthy environmentalist person preaching at them, that’s terrible. You want people like yourself talking about their own experience and what they can do. So I think it’s the power of the story of success and the fact that we are landing everywhere. We heard recently that there are trainee midwives being trained in Carbon Literacy so I can now say we do births, weddings and funerals because we have wedding planners and funeral directors being trained. 

Isabelle: That’s incredible. Could you tell me a bit more about how somebody might become Carbon Literate and what the current toolkits and sectors are, what does the training look like? 

Phil: We talk about a day’s worth of learning and doing, and that can land in many different ways. Early adopters included the BBC. The BBC would lock people in a room for a day, which is brilliant, it’s impactful. You go through this emotional journey through the realisation, the ‘oh crap’ moment when the penny drops and ‘I wanted to ignore this thing and wanted it to go away by itself, it’s not going to, is it? Damn.’ That moment and you share that with people like yourself and then you come up and talk about what you can do. So that has great power in a day. On the research vessel, the Sir David Attenborough, as it chugs its way down to the Antarctic with the British Antarctic Survey, they do it an hour a day after dinner in the ship’s lounge because that’s when people get together. 

So it’s a day’s worth and it happens in all sorts of different ways. The things that you will always get, the science, this is fact, here are the scenarios we’re trying to avoid, here’s some policy that impacts on us and then what’s a carbon footprint, what’s a carbon budget, but then the really good stuff, what can we do, who’s doing it, in places, in sectors like our own and what could we do and how can we talk about it. So that’s the core content but it’s always customised. 

So normally those 920 courses are devised by organisations or communities for their own. We also have sector facing toolkits right across the public sector. So anyone in the civil service, in local government, in health, universities, colleges and emergency services, there are shareable training courses, training toolkits for them. In the private sector, automotive, digital, sport, culture, housing and I’ve definitely missed out something there but they’re coming on again with sector facing resources. To start, go to carbonliteracy.com, have a look at what’s going on there, contact us. There are open courses where people can dip their toe in the water and try out for themselves but really explore, talk to us, that’s the way to start. 

Isabelle: Jen Gale is a former vet who now spends her time working on climate and environmental projects. She’s an author, podcast host and the founder of Sustainable(ish), an online community for people trying to live their lives whilst managing eco-anxiety. Jen is also a certified Carbon Literacy trainer and is currently working with the Let’s Go Zero programme in schools as a climate action advisor. And somehow, in amongst all of that, she found the time to tell us about her journey to becoming a Carbon Literacy trainer.  

Jen: I did a Carbon Literacy course during one of the lockdowns and I can’t remember whether it was the first one or the second one but I distinctly remember sitting upstairs, my husband called it my boffice, sometimes on the bed, laptop open in front of me. And it was delivered by Pete Watkins at Speak Carbon who are doing lots and lots of wonderful Carbon Literacy training. I think he was still quite early, it was one of the first courses they were delivering. And I remember doing it and I remember thinking, I think my community, my Sustainable(ish) community, or there are elements of my Sustainable(ish) community who would really find this incredibly valuable. So I was instantly thinking, I really want to make my course for my audience. 

And then life happened and lockdown continued and homeschooling and those sorts of things. So it was at least a year, I seem to remember before actually, you know, pinning my bum to the seat to create a course and get it accredited and start delivering it. I was, I guess, quite lucky in that I was able to almost sort of test it out or soft launch it or whatever you want to call it, because I’ve got like a membership community, the Sustainable(ish) Clubhouse. And I sort of said to them, like, does anybody want to, as part of what you’re paying for the membership, come to the first online delivery? So I got, I think, two run throughs before having to then go, oh, God, I don’t know anyone will pay for this, you know, because that’s the terrifying thing always kind of creating something and then hoping that people will pay for it. But yes, I could sort of instantly see how it would be useful or, you know, there would be, and I hoped there would be an interest from a sector of my community. Yeah. 

My understanding is that, you know, in order to deliver a Carbon Literacy course, you just need to have done a Carbon Literacy course and be certified as Carbon Literate. And then there is now, there wasn’t back when I started, but there is now, I think it’s a 90 minute sort of webinar called Delivering Successful Carbon Literacy Training that they really want everybody to have done as well. That just gives you some additional kind of pointers and things. 

So theoretically, you could do a Carbon Literacy course. And then there are certain sectors where there are toolkits available that are like off the shelf designed, you know, by people with expertise in that particular sector that you can kind of take off the shelf and have there to deliver. Probably a more usual, the route that I, you know, I didn’t have my original course was for air quotes, ordinary people, like anyone who wanted to kind of do Carbon Literacy. And there wasn’t sort of anything, a toolkit available or anything. So I sat down and sort of created my own course. And I think that is, barrier is probably too strong a word, but like it is daunting, I think, to think like, oh, now I’ve got to sit down and work out. 

And they, since I created my first course, there’s now a lot more kind of support and resources and things available from The Carbon Literacy Project themselves. I mean, I was really lucky. So Pete at Speak Carbon and I said, I really want to design my own course. And he was like, here’s my slide decks, like feel, you know, and I think that that is something possibly quite unique about the project in that everybody just wants the project to spread and to for more and more people to do it. So, you know, inevitably I think that there will always be like, oh, I’ve spent a lot of time on this course and you don’t really want anyone to just literally kind of lift it and copy it. But, you know, Pete said to me, like, if you want to, I think the hardest thing sometimes is working out that flow and the sort of where you might put stuff and you’ll have your own ideas for resources and things. But he said, you know, if you want to use this as like the skeleton of yours. And so I’ve, you know, tried to sort of say to other people, you know, this is how I’ve done it. This is the flow I’ve used and that sort of thing. 

But yes, I think it is, can feel quite daunting to think, oh gosh, I’ve got to create something from scratch. But as I said, there are lots more resources out there, even if there isn’t a toolkit for your sector. I think there is now a sort of a course kit that you can sort of take and cherry pick the resources from and ideas for interactivity and those sorts of things. 

Isabelle: Do you know someone who would make an excellent Carbon Literacy Trainer? Or perhaps you’d like your workplace or community group to benefit from Carbon Literacy Training. If so, please do share this episode and make sure to check out the useful links in the show notes to help you engage your community. 

Linda, when did you learn about The Carbon Literacy Project and how did you come to be involved? 

Linda: Oh, right. Long story. I’ll try and keep it brief. So my background is I’ve worked in educational in my career, a youth community worker, so engaging with the community. Then I was a teacher, a head teacher, and my work was around turning around failing schools. So my speciality, if you like, was engaging with hard to reach communities. So I did some research at the University of Manchester, but I also was part of a school that was an environmental school. So in Bury, I worked with a partnership of other schools, colleges, universities to introduce something called the Environment and Land-Based Diploma. You might have heard of that. So my background was kind of education, community engagement, and environment, if you like those three sectors. 

And in about 2018, I started doing what’s called the NPQEL, which is the National Professional Qualification in Executive Leadership. And I went along and everyone else was saying, I want to become a multi-academy trust and I want to get a couple of primary schools to join us. And they said, what do you want to do, Linda? And I said, well, I would like to introduce environmental education into the whole education school system. And they’re all going, ‘you want to do what?’ Because at that point, most people weren’t talking about the climate emergency. So I started scoping where is a really good climate education course that I can then introduce into the schools that I work with. So I looked at UN courses and I went down to an NEU conference in London. 

I was in a workshop with a young man, he was about 17 at the time, called Joe Brindle, who started off Teach the Future, if you know that youth-based organisation. And somebody in our workshop that he was leading, when I told them my mission to bring climate education schools, said, oh, you need to do Carbon Literacy training with The Carbon Literacy Project. How bizarre that I’d gone from Manchester to London and I found out about Carbon Literacy training while I was in London. 

So I came back, I signed up and I did a course at Great Places with Andy Wilson, which was called Carbon Literacy for Interested Organisations. I did the training and I said, this is it. This is the silver bullet. I was just energised by it. Absolutely loved it. Got my certificate, immediately signed up to become a trainer, as Jen did. I was so inspired by it. And I said to Andy, look, this is what I want to do. And he put me in contact with my now colleague, Phil Korbel. 

And what we did is we formed like an alliance of allies. So the Manchester Environmental Education Network, Rachel and Lydia, we worked with GMCA, we went for some funding, do you remember that? We worked with Henry from the Green Schools Project. We worked with Matt Carmichael from the Leeds Climate Commission. In other words, we found the other allies that were interested in working in this area. And we formed a kind of a group. And really, that led to me becoming a counsellor, because I realised if I wanted to change policy around education, the way that I was going to do that was by influencing politicians. So that’s how I did my training. And it’s ended up with me here being in Manchester. 

Isabelle: I mean, you know, Manchester is a very important city for The Carbon Literacy Project. Obviously, you’ve spread way, way beyond this city. But it is also the pilot city, I suppose, for the new work around Localities. So can you tell us a bit about what The Localities Project is, and how it differs from the sort of more, I guess, traditional Carbon Literacy programme? 

Linda: What happened was when I became counsellor, I got elected as deputy executive for the elected members. And Councillor Rawlins, who was the executive member, asked me to, she knew I was a big fan of Carbon Literacy, she was a trainer. So she said, can you work with the elected members to make sure that they’re all Carbon Literate? 

So I did. Okay, so I worked with them. And they all became Carbon Literate. And around the same time, Councillor Craig is now the leader of Manchester City Council, they began to realise that Carbon Literacy was having quite a big impact on the culture of Manchester City Council. And, you know, we employ 7,000 people. And they in 2022, they became a silver Carbon Literate organisation, the first local authority in the country to do that. And they were really passionate about the impact that it was having. 

So I think one of the things that perhaps people don’t understand is, when you do Carbon Literacy, as part of training in an organisation, it contributes to the whole low carbon culture change in the organisation. And we could see that. And you can see the enthusiasm of different directorates and different groups. So I often talk about the example of the parks team, did their Carbon Literacy as a team, they actually, the trainer actually went to the park, and did it with them in the parks team, they then went off and trained bereavement services team. 

So it’s really powerful. And Manchester is now a Carbon Literate organisation. But what happened was that Manchester is really unusual as a local authority, we’ve got science based Tyndall Centre from the University of Manchester, and carbon budget, the 2038. And very unusually, Manchester have managed to stay within their carbon budget. So it has really big influence. So Manchester City Council within the carbon budget, but the actual city of Manchester, all the sectors that Phil has outlined, were not within their carbon budget. 

We’ve got a group called Manchester Climate Change Agency, which try and work with partners across the whole city, like the universities, like the NHS, in order to, you know, get the whole city. So basically, a group of people, including Dave and Phil, and Talia and other colleagues within The Carbon Literacy Project, who are Manchester based, said, well, what if we try and pull together all of these different sectors across the city? And I think we asked the question, well, if an organisation can become a Carbon Literate organisation by training 15% of their, you know, staff, if a city could train 15% of the people who live, work and study there, could we become Manchester the first Carbon Literate city in the world? And that started off as conversations with the policymakers at Manchester City Council and with politicians and with officers and with The Carbon Literacy Project. And within a year, we’ve gone from having conversations to last October, launching what is a huge ambition. 

But what is really exciting about it, Izzy, is that whatever we do in Manchester, other cities are looking over our shoulder. The other core cities from around the world are constantly looking for ideas of how they can influence behaviour, catalyse change within their communities, how they can engage their communities with this. So we’ve had interest from really small communities, like in Scotland, Argyll and the West Isles, other cities, and lots of people are looking at how we can engage the community by pulling these different sectors together. And at the heart of that is Carbon Literacy. 

Phil: It’s about hitting a critical mass, where you successfully get this as a mainstream capacity. The idea that we have people working in parks and bereavement, it’s an example of when everyone applies their nous and passion to this, how it suddenly galvanises. An issue we have as eco people is that it’s an eco badge, it’s an eco silo. That’s really damaging, because it makes it a minority concern. You can put negative labels on it as well, when actually everyone wants in, really. There’s a small minority of people that might not want to do good things. Most people want to do their best thing. And when they feel that their neighbours, their colleagues are doing stuff, maybe, what can I do? And you hit this critical mass, as Linda’s described, and then you start to move it between organisations. 

The great thing that a council can do, leading the Localities initiative, is say, do you want to see what it’s like? Come and sit in. And the city council are doing that. They say, oh, come on. The city council have been training a group of local authority people from Lagos, virtually. Just come and see. And they can do that in the city and beyond. And thus you have this brilliant cascade happening. 

Isabelle: It sort of reminds me of something that we’ve been looking at quite a lot with interest is this thing called the 89% project, in which a lot of journalists from around the world are becoming a part of. And it’s basically sharing the fact that research says that 89% of people want more action for climate and nature. But most people don’t think that other people do, essentially. So you think you’re alone in caring about this stuff. But actually, as it turns out, you are in a huge majority of people who also care about this stuff. So you’re kind of putting that into action, really, by the more people who are physically doing something, the more people will do something. 

Linda: I think it’s the concept of social contagion. So it’s this idea, Malcolm Gladwell talks about tipping point, doesn’t he? And they found with, even with things such as solar panels, what they’ve realised is if one or two houses on a street get solar panels, it becomes, oh, well, we think they’re quite good. So if they think it’s okay, then… So that social contagion thing, that’s what we’ve really found with the Carbon Literacy. 

So one of the areas I work in, not surprisingly, is in schools. And so we’ve now got the first school in Manchester that have become, they’ve got the Carbon Literate Educators Award. And since that has happened, loads of other schools have been getting in contact and saying, oh, that’s really interesting. How did Barlow do that then? Oh, can we get involved? And the power of Manchester is whatever we do in Manchester, because of their reputation, in terms of taking successful climate action as a city, they’re seen as a climate leader. Because of their success, whatever we do in Manchester, with The Carbon Literacy Project, with the sectors that we work with, it influences other cities, it influences other regions, it influences other areas. 

And we know that it’s really creative, that it’s the unintended consequences. We don’t know when we start working with a sector, what’s going to come out of that work. I mean, the Auto Trader example, that came about because Manchester City Council put into their partnership funding that we’d like your organisation to become Carbon Literate. 

Phil: This is a cascade that’s worth replicating. 

Isabelle: Well, I was about to introduce another clip from Jen, which is relevant to this, because one of the things that we talked about was the fact that when you make Carbon Literacy training a kind of mandatory part of the induction process or the training programme or whatever, you’re then reaching people who would not otherwise have self-selected for something that is related to climate or related to environment. And I know the Auto Trader is definitely one example of that. They’ve done that. So it sends a really important message to staff that this is like a fundamental part of what we do as an organisation. It’s not just the kind of, you know, for the green people. It’s for everyone. 

Phil: It sits alongside data protection, for goodness sake. It’s that basic. You join an organisation and you get your health and safety, data protection, diversity, inclusion, Carbon Literacy. It’s just there and it’s normal and everyone’s in. And the power of that is immense. 

Isabelle: Jen and I spoke about the message that it sends to staff and how it helps to push these important ideas out to people who are not just the usual suspects. 

Jen: I mean, I guess we have this constant, battle again is the wrong word, but issue within the sort of climate space, don’t we, of kind of preaching to the choir and how do we engage people outside of our bubbles and all of those sorts of things. And I think probably people who come on my courses, because they tend to be open courses, you know, for people to just sort of sign up and join that they are people who are probably already engaged, already curious, want to sort of find out what it’s all about, feel a bit more confident, all of those sorts of things. 

It can work really nicely. So like Autotrader is an example that’s sort of given a lot in that. And again, this is my understanding, which may be completely wrong, but my understanding. So they developed a Carbon Literacy course for the automotive sector and they deliver it internally. And I think they might deliver it to every, like, it’s not just who wants to come along to this, the green team come along to this. Like everybody who works there either already has had to, or will at some point have to do their Carbon Literacy training. And I think that’s actually a really powerful way of kind of breaking out of those bubbles and, you know, starting to sort of introduce these ideas and concepts and things to people within workplaces. So it’s a bit of a, you know, carrot and a stick type that, you know, should people have to do this? I don’t know, but I do think it’s a really good way of engaging people who wouldn’t choose to come and spend eight hours on a climate course. 

I think it is a really powerful statement by an organisation, be that someone like Autotrader or, you know, a local authority or whatever to say, like, this is a key priority for us as an organisation to the extent that, you know, everybody is going to have eight hours of their work time dedicated to this in the same way that, you know, they might have training on health and safety and all of those kinds of things. 

But also hopefully it might help to explain some of the decisions that the organisation are making. It might help you to understand, like, why are we choosing to do things like that when maybe it was done like that in previous organisations you worked in and things. So I think it’s a really powerful statement and a really powerful way when we talk about embedding sustainability into the culture of the organisation, like, wow, that seems such a powerful way to do it. 

Isabelle: Can you tell me a bit more about the ambition that you have for both The Carbon Literacy Project as a whole, but also the Localities work that you’re doing, and any big plans to engage even more people with Carbon Literacy training in 2026 and beyond? 

Phil: This can’t be a minority concern, it cannot stay in a niche, it cannot stay local. Even if we got the bulk of the population of the UK on board, it’s not going to help climate change, because greenhouse gases don’t respect national borders. So we’ve just got to go large. Scale really is everything for us, and it’s starting to happen. We are not restricted to English language. I’m really, really chuffed to say that we have courses in Korean, and in Welsh, and many other languages, but I think particularly if we can do Welsh and Korean, we’re really onto something there. 

So yeah, we are not constrained by English language. We’re still clocking up new sectors. We’ve got some fantastic stuff going on in logistics, for example. We’ve just got to keep growing. We’re recruiting partners to help spread the word in other countries and other sectors. So yeah, we’re just building and building and keeping that exponential growth going on, which we could not do if we were training. So we are the enablers, and we enable others to train their own people to build their own capacity, and it grows, and it grows. So we’re a good meme. 

Linda: We’ve just launched this summer the toolkit for staff in schools. So we’re just beginning that rollout, and we’re beginning that in Manchester and in other schools like throughout the country. But there are 10.5 million school-age people in this country, and what inspired me to become a counsellor was in 2019, I was out on St. Peter’s Square outside of Town Hall, having our students from our schools striking. And what we need to do is we need to give our young people the information and the tools to actually be prepared for the future. 

This is the mother of all issues. My background is all about social justice and education, but there is no issue that exists that is greater than what we’re doing. It’s about climate justice, it’s about social justice, and it’s about giving our young people hope. And that’s why the Carbon Literacy is so important. I go to these meetings and they say, you know, curriculum change is going to take us 10 years. We don’t have 10 years, whereas Carbon Literacy, we can actually deliver that now to our young people and give them hope. 

And I’ve quoted you before, Rebecca Solnit talks about hope being an axe that helps you cut down doors in an emergency. And what I’ve seen being in schools, where Carbon Literacy training has been delivered, is that it gives young people that agency. So if you’re going to try and counter the eco-anxiety that exists and all the messages that they’re getting by actually making them understand the reality and how they can act in their lives and with others to make a difference, this is a really important gift that we can give. 

So I think our ambition in Manchester is that no child will leave school at 16 to 18 in Manchester without being Carbon Literate. And that’s what we’re going to try and work towards as a city. And that is a big part of Localities. Would you agree? 

Phil: Absolutely. And the power of young people to influence others is at the heart of this. Our first primary school to go through this, the kids said, ‘yeah, we know this, but we’ve got to teach our parents.’ So we got on with enabling them to do that. And I think there are twin messages around climate action. Yes, we are minimising the impact of global heating. Absolutely crucial. But in so doing, it enables us to thrive. And I think that framing around thriving, however you define thriving, is so, so important. 

And we’re delivering this. I think this is our renewable fuel, that we are delivering this through the delivery of Carbon Literacy and what flows after us. There’s 142,000 stories of action created by people across all sectors, all locations. It’s real, it’s happening, and it continues to grow. 

Isabelle: We always ask our guests what advice they would give to people who are interested in getting involved in taking action. Obviously, this episode is called Engage Your Community. And one of the best ways to do that for your community is to become Carbon Literate. So if you’re someone who would like to get started with this, and you think that the people around you would benefit too, where do you begin? Here’s Jen with her thoughts. 

Jen: I think go on a course, like find one that feels, you know, even if there’s nothing specific to your niche or your sector or your locality, find something that feels similar and kind of go on the course. And you know, you will probably sit there going, oh, yeah, I can understand how I might be able to tailor that exercise, or I might use some different resources, I’m aware of that, and those sorts of things. So you’ll probably have lots of ideas sparking off. And then the next step really, so I did a probably two years ago now, maybe 18 months ago, I sort of started to develop a course, it was like how to write your own Carbon Literacy course and had people come on that. 

But there are so there’s an awful lot of support, as I said, available from The Carbon Literacy Project. The first thing to do is to go on the website, there’s I think along the top of this like a trainers section, and you go on there and you sort of email them and say, you know, I’m interested in creating a course for blah, and they might be able to say, oh, actually, there is already something for your sector or somebody doing something similar, you know, why don’t you guys hook up or speak to them? Or if they’re like, yeah, this is great, like we have nothing at all kind of vaguely similar. And they will there is, as I said, a sort of course kit that they can send you and put together. 

And I’m not sure if they still do it. But certainly, you know, up until sort of 18 months, two years ago, when I was advising people, you know, they would jump on a zoom with you and sort of have a chat through with you and talk through what’s going to be the best way for you to get a course. And I think just make sure that you’ve really thought about who your audience is, and all of those sorts of things as well. But there is a lot of support and resources available. So, you know, I think they’ve worked really hard on that over the last few years to try and make it a little bit less daunting for people who want to sort of start up and get delivering. 

Isabelle: In terms of the Localities work, Linda, we’ve talked a lot about Manchester, but you have mentioned that there are other places that have already been interested have contacted. So if somebody perhaps works for their local council, or is involved with something to do with their place, how do they get in touch? How do they say we want to be the next locality? Like we want to do this? How could they? How could they do that? 

Linda: So what I say is the best thing to do, and Phil’s mentioned this already, is to go onto the website where there are emails that are interested in schools, they can go to Rebecca, our school coordinator. If they’re interested in local authorities, they can go to Eleanor, our local authorities coordinator. There’s loads and loads of contacts on the website. 

But what I wanted to highlight was the amount of courses, and Phil made reference to this earlier on. We’ve now got courses for lots and lots of community groups as well, and there’s a whole sector on communities. We’ve got a course for Christian congregations, there is a course for Muslim communities, and other religious communities in development. 

And the schools course, at the moment that toolkit is free for schools. So schools can apply for that course, they can do, one person can do Carbon Literacy training. And in terms of scaling up, I talked to you already, schools can then train up their staff, their students, and schools can then reach out to their community. 

We talked about the influence of young people. Schools are the trusted organisations within their communities, they’re the hubs. So the fact that they who are trusted at communicating within their community, will then be offering Carbon Literacy to different community groups, perhaps being sponsored by local businesses. 

It’s a really exciting, I think it’s the next, we’re going to see the next big phase. And then what we’ll see is a whole generation going out into the workforce, that are certified Carbon Literate, and bringing that hope and bringing those skills into the next generation. And then we really are going to be cooking on gas. Oh, sorry. Cooking on renewable energy. 

Isabelle: Yeah. 

Phil: There’s another aspect about approaching Carbon Literacy. If you’re looking at it for the first time, you could be thinking, well, I don’t know how to train people. I don’t know how to write a course. We are absolutely there to support that. To deliver Carbon Literacy, we only require that the trainer is Carbon Literate. And we can enable access to that for the would be trainer. We have loads of material for making courses as well loads of shareable stuff. So you never have to start from scratch. And people can step up as trainers just by observing at first and then assisting and then leading the course. 

So we’re very open to building people’s confidence and skills to create the courses and deliver it as well. And you don’t have to be an expert. That’s really important. You’re taking it from your perspective, your starting point, wherever you are. 

Isabelle: Yeah, it’s a really lovely model. And it’s beautifully illustrating the way that all of this stuff affects all of us. So there isn’t really a need for you to be an expert because everybody is an expert in their own experience. And everybody’s experience is going to be impacted by climate change, by biodiversity loss. So it’s the kind of perfect model really for it. 

In this series, Do Something Bigger, we always end our episodes with a bit of a summary of what we’ve learned. In this case, it’s probably more me that has learned. But you know, I think I’ve learned that the way that The Carbon Literacy Project is working is very much about reaching people in the place where they are, in the sector that they work, in the community where they live, with the people who are like them, delivering the information to them, so that everybody feels like it is completely relevant to them. 

And I think that is such an important part of it. I mean, it’s exactly what this episode is called, Engage Your Community. And I think that kind of understanding that people don’t respond well to being told things, people don’t respond well to being dictated to. So I think that’s the most important takeaway really, for me, is that it has to be kind of peer-to-peer, like person to like person. Have you learned anything from our discussions today? 

Phil: I talk to everyone about what we do and bringing these stories in about the less expected is so important. People still have an idea of, oh, we’re the environmentalists, which is nonsense. Everyone needs to be on this and doing their best thing. And they are doing it via Carbon Literacy. So the examples are there, the stories are there, the help is there for us to enable that to happen. 

Linda: I think the thing I’d add is Erica Chenoweth, the Harvard professor about behaviour change, in the climate book, she says that any social movement has needed a significant minority, about 25% of the population. Well, you were talking earlier on about 89% of people actually wanting to see this action. We need to see that culture shift towards sustainability. 

And that’s going to come, I feel, through using Carbon Literacy to train the next generation. And what I’d love to see is the work that we do in The Carbon Literacy Projects, we tell people how important their vote is. And so we need those people who are doing Carbon Literacy to go to their politicians and say to them, we want this, you know, we want these policies. 

We can see how it’s really important to have renewable energy. These are the jobs that we want. This is the just transition that we want to see. We’ve got to empower young people, got to give them hope, so they can help create the future that they want to see. 

Phil: It grows. And once learned, you can’t unlearn it. 

Isabelle: You’ve been listening to Do Something Bigger from the Carbon Copy podcast. It was written and presented by me, Isabelle Sparrow, and produced and edited by Alex Orosa. The two guest hosts were Phil Korbel, co-founder of The Carbon Literacy Project, and Linda Foley, localities advocacy consultant, also at The Carbon Literacy Project. 

Huge thanks to both of you for your time today and for the support with our 25 Big Local Actions campaign this year. And thanks also to Jen Gale, Carbon Literacy trainer, for sharing her thoughts with us. And of course, thanks to you for listening. 

Our next episode is Create a Food Partnership, which will be hosted in partnership by Vera Zakharov from Sustain. Until then, goodbye.