September’s Going Green Together peer support session
As part of Going Green Together’s Think Green Together programme, we hold monthly online peer support sessions. These informal discussions allow VCSE organisations in the North East and Cumbria to share news and opportunities, and discuss challenges they are facing, regarding their journeys to become more environmentally sustainable. You can register for future sessions at our Meet Up page.
This month, we began by sharing upcoming events and opportunities at Going Green Together. The list of September events which you can register for is as follows:
- Become Green Together in South Tyneside, Monday 12th September, 10–11am
- Become Green Together in Northumberland, Friday 16th September, 11am-12pm
- Climate Reality Check Webinar, Wednesday 21st September, 10–11am
- Climate Reality Check Webinar, Monday 26th September, 3–4pm
Applications are also open for Become Green Together, our opportunity to provide you with a year of environmental support and training, and will close on Friday 30th September.
We discussed funding opportunities, including the Newcastle Building Society Community Fund, and other resources, including the sustainability audit and policy templates on the Going Green Together resources page. We also shared news from attendees, including the restoration of Cresswell Walled Garden.
At this session, we highlighted how difficult it can be to work around limits to infrastructure when trying to make environmental change happen, and how best we can minimise our carbon footprint while we wait for systems and policies to be put in place.
Examples included the importance of safe bike storage to encourage active travel, with the recommendation that any organisation with a building should try and offer secure ways for bicycles to be stored; how to make up for a lack of local food waste collection with creating composting schemes at your workplace, with specific compost bins shared; and the importance of carpooling and making a cost-benefit analysis of when you need to travel by car, particularly in rural areas, as well as ensuring any locations you use for meetings and events is as accessible as possible.
We also discussed the cost of living crisis and the challenges in setting up warm hubs, particularly from a funding perspective. This is an enormous obstacle for our communities, and adds further pressure to organisations in trying to become more environmentally sustainable while competing with other priorities and increasingly limited resources.
We discussed the importance of keeping the climate crisis on the agenda, and also how an environmentally sustainable approach can help make your energy usage more efficient. Information about a non-electric slow cooker was shared to help reduce energy usage from cooking hot food, and Going Green Together welcomes information about any further resources and funding opportunities for us to pass on to help the organisations we work with tackle the cost of living crisis and climate emergency. You can get in touch with us at hello@goinggreentogether.org.
Our next peer support session will be on Wednesday 5th October, at 4pm, online.
