Sustainability Training for Teams

If you’re able to spare some money, then consider donating to one of the world’s most important organisations that’s working to bring about an end to climate injustice: the global legal charity, Client Earth.

If you’re able to do so, then make a commitment with yourself to travel more sustainably, and to avoid flying unless it’s absolutely necessary. You can find out more about low carbon travelling here.

Politics is shaped by people, and we can all influence it by supporting the right campaigns and movements.

If you have a bank account, open a new account with a bank that doesn’t invest in fossil fuels. Here’s a list of banks that do invest in fossil fuels. While you’re at it, write to your current bank to let them know why you’re moving your money away from them.

Encourage your institution to take a small but impactful first step in their canteens and commit to #NoBeef or Meat Free Monday. Or go all the way, and pledge to Plate Up For The Planet and receive recipes, tips, inspiration and motivation while you’re at it.

Heading down to Farmers’ Markets or Greengrocers’ rather than a supermarket is an easy way to find food that’s organic, in season and (importantly) varied. If you’re in the UK, you can find a farmers’ market near you using this website. EUFIC has created an interactive fruit and veg map to help you choose food that in seasonal and grown locally.

Did you know that the tomatoes wasted at home every year have the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of 51,000 cars? Love Food Hate Waste have compiled an enormous list of ingenious (and delicious!) leftover recipes and tips for planning, freezing and making your food last longer. Apps like Too Good To Go and Olio let you rescue perfectly good food that would be wasted from cafés, restaurants, shops and supermarkets, so that it gets eaten by you and your organisation instead.

Sign the International Ecocide petition, working to make the destruction of nature an international crime.

Support conservation organisations like Rainforest Trust whose Rainforest Climate Action Fund seeks to protect the world’s most important tropical forests or our friends at Re:Wild and SOS Orangutans who work to conserve endangered species. If you’re in the UK, help to locate and protect its last remaining temperate rainforests.

If you have a garden, or some outdoor space, consider giving some (or all?) of it back to nature! Take a break from mowing your lawn (or a section of it) and resist the urge to weed. The RHS and Rewilding Britain have both compiled useful lists and tips for cultivating a wilder garden to get you started. Friends of the Earth have a guide on bee-friendly plants for every season.

Get started with growing your own food to make space for more of nature elsewhere in the world. Foodprint has planning tools, seed shopping resources, growing guides and more.

Get in touch with the Soil Association to find out more about how your organisation can support systems change from the ground up.

If you have an energy provider, then switch to one that sources all of its electricity from renewable sources. Don’t be fooled into thinking that “biomass” counts as renewable though… Gas heating is a tough one, as gas is a fossil fuel, but it’s also very expensive to replace a gas heating system. If you can afford to switch to an electrical heating system though, do so.

If you have a pension or any investments, make sure that none of your money is invested in fossil fuels. If you’ve never checked, or if you’ve invested in large funds, then it’s very likely that your money is invested in fossil fuels. We can’t give you any advice here, as we’re not qualified to do so, but Ethical Consumer’s guide or Make My Money Matter are good places to start.

One of the biggest places where energy is wasted around the world is heating up and cooling down buildings, and most of that energy is coming from burning fossil fuels. If you own a home, then getting it insulated is one of the most positive things you can do to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

If you’re in a democratic country, then only vote for politicians who recognise that the climate and nature crisis is the greatest emergency the world has ever faced. Make sure they have a good plan to do something about it. If you’re too young to vote, try to convince people who can vote. Also, if you can, join the growing number of political rallies and community groups that are uniting behind the science.

Climate Science lays out the key information about the climate crisis with clarity and simplicity.

Carbon Brief’s Tipping Points Explainer and The Potsdam Institute’s “Tipping Elements” both beautifully lay out the reality of our planet’s tipping points.

If you’d like to know more about the rising level of CO2, then you can see an interactive historic chart at The 2 Degrees Institute, check out the original CO2 levels measurement called the Keeling Curve, or get more detail at Our World in Data.

This BBC article explains how to spot Eco-Anxiety, and what to do about it. If you’d like to speak to someone, the Climate Psychology Alliance offers over-the-phone active listening and one-to-one Counselling or Psychotherapy to help manage the impact of climate breakdown on wellbeing.

Consider attending a local climate café. These are open and inclusive community-led sessions, often at cafés, for people to get together to talk about climate change.

Copernicus has made a Global Land Cover Map to compare land cover changes between different areas or years.

The World Soil Museum (based in the Netherlands) offers information, exhibitions, virtual tours and ‘monoliths’.

Check out Waterbear's ‘My Octopus Teacher’ and ‘The Serengeti Rules’ from Science Sandbox and Tangled Bank Studios.

Nature4Climate are the global hub for demonstrating the breadth and untapped potential of nature-based solutions to the climate crisis - in terms of their societal, environmental and economic benefits.