In spring 2023 Student Hubs delivered Carbon Literacy Training for six members of our staff team. The purpose? Two fold. Firstly we wanted to skill up our team so that they can effectively support and uplift students who are interested in environmental issues, in line with our mission as an organisation. Secondly we wanted to spark more internal conversations around our organisational commitment to tackling climate change, encouraging all colleagues to challenge our work.
Guest writer and Student Hubs staff alumni Jay Chard didn’t join our internal series, but has attended Carbon Literacy Training with other trainers in the past. We reached out to Jay to reflect on the importance of the programme, alongside what more institutions should be doing beyond the initial training phase.
Carbon Literacy Training (CLT) is taking over sustainability training provision and seems to be the way organisations in the UK and beyond are introducing their staff to environmental sustainability. In 2023, nearly 30,000 people were certified as Carbon Literate and the growth of the programme looks set to continue. The below graph, from the Carbon Literacy Project’s 2023 Year in Review, puts the numbers in context compared with previous years:
what is ‘Carbon Literacy’?
What does it teach us, how should we use it, and, most importantly, how should we follow up on Carbon Literacy Training to meaningfully embed environmental sustainability into organisational operations?
Student Hubs has delivered Carbon Literacy Training to its own staff, and supports, through the Cambridge Hub, a student initiative at the University of Cambridge to deliver CLT on a peer-to-peer basis. This sits alongside the facilitation of Student Hubs’ own environmental programmes: Engage for Change in Cambridge and Climate Action Bristol. I’ve personally completed CLT twice, on both occasions delivered by universities as part of their sustainability provision to staff. These experiences give us some insight into what CLT is, what it does well, and the important aspects of environmental consciousness that it doesn’t quite reach.
Carbon Literacy is defined by the Carbon Literacy Project as:
An awareness of the carbon costs and impacts of everyday activities and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis.
Carbon Literacy Training
The training consists of 8 hours of ‘accredited learning’, which can be delivered in a number of ways (e-learning, facilitated workshops, directed self-study, for example) and across a range of timescales (in one 8 hour session, two 4 hour sessions, or four 2 hour sessions). To gain accreditation, learners are expected to demonstrate their carbon literacy and make two ‘pledges’, one individual, one group or organisational, to reduce emissions.
CLT begins by developing a basic understanding of the role of carbon (and other greenhouse gases) in driving climate change. This is a reasonable starting point which can reinforce trust in the scientific consensus around anthropogenic climate change and provide learners with the confidence, and the talking points, to communicate their understanding of the mechanisms causing climate breakdown. Feedback from our staff at Student Hubs highlights that they found the training engaging, that it made the scientific basis of climate breakdown clear, and that it empowered them to think about ways to reduce their personal emissions.
But this framing can be limiting as well. The focus on carbon footprints, for example, can cement an individualist, consumerist understanding of our role in society and leave learners seeking to solve this global crisis by reducing their personal emissions. This isn’t to say that individual actions to reduce emissions aren’t important, but promoting an understanding of the value of these actions, of why it’s important, is fundamental to fostering a sense of agency that goes beyond consumer actions and empowers people to address the political, economic and social structures which drive environmental breakdown.
One important thing to note with CLT is that it is franchised out and can be delivered by anybody. This makes the programme scalable, and The Carbon Literacy Project provides resources and guidance on how the training should be delivered, but the quality control process to ensure the training is delivered to the Carbon Literacy Standard leaves a lot of space to the facilitator. This results in inconsistent delivery and can leave the training reinforcing some unhelpful or inaccurate narratives. In one training session I attended, the facilitator didn’t adequately explain the difference between ‘productive’ and ‘consumptive’ emissions, leaving learners with an incomplete understanding of national emissions contributions and associated questions of responsibility. For example, roughly 20% of China’s emissions are associated with products exported to the West. Who we think is ‘responsible’ for these emissions is an important conversation that needs to be handled with care if the training is avoid reinforcing popular tropes.
None of this should be taken as criticism of CLT when implemented well and for its intended purpose – as an introduction to the role of greenhouse gases in driving climate change – but rather as a warning that the provision of CLT alone shouldn’t be considered adequate environment education. Focus on Climate Justice and the human impacts of environmental breakdown and consider how changes to the local and global environment will affect your staff and your organisation. Make space for open conversations, offer stakeholders an active invitation to contribute to sustainability policy and ensure sustainability is at the heart of your organisational strategy moving forward.
The Climate and Ecological Emergency is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. It’s important and urgent that we embed sustainability at the heart of organisational strategies and empower staff (and students, within the HEI sector) to act, not just as individuals, but as our full selves: as influential friends and colleagues; as engaged employers or employees; and as active citizens with the power to make change beyond our own individual behaviour.
Delivering Carbon Literacy Training at Student Hubs was a success in the sense that it developed a renewed interest and engagement in sustainability issues amongst our team. The energy since doing the training when it comes to our sustainability initiatives has been higher, and we’ve been able to have a number of impactful conversations across the organisation. We are most excited to be exploring our own sustainability delivery and what we can, and should, be offering as a standard part of our medium and long term Projects. Supporting our vision of a society in which every student participates in social and environmental challenges during their education, and is ultimately supported to become active citizens for life.