Year: 2024

The coming end of the year is always a good excuse to look back at what we’ve achieved over the last 12 months.

Our home energy team has covered the length and breadth of Cumbria, giving free advice at events and visiting nearly 900 homes to install free energy saving measures. In this way we’ve helped households be warmer and save tens of £thousands. We’ve also inspired around 100 people to become trained ‘energy champions’ – helping friends, colleagues and neighbours save energy at home.

Earlier this year, we ran several events to support households thinking of renovating and retrofitting their homes, and now the cold months are upon us, our trained volunteer groups are doing free thermal imaging surveys to help homeowners identify areas of heat loss, and consider insulation and draughtproofing. We’ve been able to expand our Solar Made Easy project to new areas of Cumbria, and ran an EV Made Easy project, to expose and dispel the many myths around electric vehicles.

Our Westmorland & Furness Green Enterprise Hub has enabled us, along with several partner organisations, to support 217 businesses to decarbonise through energy audits, specialist advice, events and training and grants.

We’ve delivered 27 climate and carbon literacy courses reaching 299 attendees, giving us a five year total of nearly 2,000 participants. Climate FRESK courses were a new addition this year; a fast paced, thought provoking three hour session that has participants working in small groups, with the support of an expert facilitator, to piece together the causes and effects of climate change.

As the lead partner of the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership, we conceived and delivered the inaugural Zero Carbon Cumbria Summit – and are now planning the second Summit for next year. We’ve run numerous events to help individuals, organisations and communities make the transition from high carbon to low carbon lifestyles, from webinars for educators, to training on communication skills. It has been particularly encouraging to see stakeholders across Cumbria make commitments to reduce emissions from our shared priority areas of land use, waste and consumption, buildings and transport.

The Cumbria Sustainability Network goes from strength to strength. With the help of funding from the National Lottery we’ve been able to distribute £91,000 of Community Climate Grants to local groups for projects focused on reducing carbon emissions and building resilience, and £7,600 for Great Big Green Week events, and were proud to find that as a result Cumbria held more events during that week than any other part of the country.

Closer to home, we’ve recently recruited four trustees and four associate trustees, who will help us to steer our action on climate change with fresh expertise. We’ve also launched our Business Supporter Network and have been delighted by the number of businesses signing up for membership.

To read more about our achievements, read our Annual Report 2023-2024.

Thank you to all who contributed to these successes, from local businesses and schools to volunteers and community groups. When I look at our joint achievements it never fails to lift my spirits.

Yet there is clearly still much to be done. We know that 2024 is, yet again, the hottest year on record globally. If organisations have New Year’s resolutions, then CAfS’ is to do absolutely everything in our power to protect Cumbria from climate change.

We are delighted to be able to share with you that we have recently appointed four new trustees and four new associate trustees to our board, strengthening our efforts to fight climate breakdown.

Earlier this year we embarked on a recruitment campaign and were overwhelmed with both the quantity and quality of applicants.

Our Chair, Tracey Hart said

“We were inundated with applications from a wide diversity of brilliant candidates, illustrating the level of interest in and demand for action on climate breakdown. Candidates came from all walks of life but were united in their desire to protect Cumbria from ever more extreme weather.”

Our new board members have been selected specifically to steer the charity to meet its aim for a zero carbon Cumbria by 2037.

Kirsten Prosser, Patrin Watanatada, Joanna Howard and Harrison Stewart have been appointed as full trustees. Respectively they bring expertise in business support,  home energy service management, and integrating climate change education at university level.

Four people have been appointed as associate trustees, with Vicky Simpson, Martyn Ditchfield, Charlie Addison-Adams and Tony Ferguson bringing expert knowledge of plant-based diets and young people, rural deprivation, agriculture and environmental policy and accountancy and sustainability respectively.

Our Chief Executive, Karen Mitchell, commented:

‘We’re really pleased to be able to give the Associate Trustees their first experience of being on a charity Board and hope that they will be inspired to become full Trustees, with all the legal responsibilities that entails, in due course.’

Established in 1998, our mission is to inspire and support individuals, communities, organisations and businesses across the county to decarbonise. By 2037, we wants to see a net zero county which is socially, environmentally, and economically beneficial for all.

We win funding from trusts and foundations to bring new projects to Cumbria, ranging from helping people at risk of fuel poverty to improve their home energy efficiency and save on bills, to its Green Enterprise Hub, which helps businesses to reduce carbon emissions. It also leads the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership – the largest initiative of its kind in the country, bringing together a large number and diversity of organisations to plan and deliver Cumbria’s pathway to net zero carbon.

Click here to read more about our trustee board.

In September we heard the news that the High Court had quashed the planning permission given to West Cumbria Mining Ltd (WCM) for what would have been the UK’s first new coal mine in 30 years in Whitehaven.

Legal challenges by Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change won the day and were made possible by donations from thousands of concerned citizens and many hours of painstakingly detailed work by expert volunteers.

Whilst we greeted the High Court decision with immense relief, many people in the communities that would be directly affected by the mine have felt let down after so many years of waiting for the new employment opportunities promised by the mining company. Yet these were jobs that young people in Cumbria told us they did not want.

There are many alternative jobs to coal mining that are fit for the future, such as the improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings (including homes), more public and electric powered transport, increased recycling and reuse of waste, more renewable energy installation. These jobs deliver warmer, drier, easier to heat homes that are healthier to inhabit, more travel options for people living in remote areas, reduced dependence on private car ownership, less road congestion and better air quality to name just a few benefits. These jobs keep income in the local economy and improve the lives of people living and visiting Cumbria, rather than lining the pockets of unknown investors, causing air pollution and worsening climate breakdown as the coal mine would have done.

We wanted to know, not only how many jobs could be created in Cumbria in sectors including transport, industry, renewables and waste management, but also some of the cost savings that could be made by local businesses as a result. Our research showed that around 9,000 jobs could be created over the next 15 years and investments of £8.88 billion could put in place measures that would reduce Cumbria’s annual energy bill by £854 million. See The potential for green jobs in Cumbria report.

Friends of the Earth has also looked at employment opportunities. Its analysis shows that investing in a programme of insulating homes in west Cumbria could create 600 jobs and would also save householders £hundreds per year on their heating bills.

We’re acutely aware that what is needed now is far more than predictions in studies or numbers in tables – it’s real jobs with money behind them.

The WCM planning application now goes back to Communities Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner. Its plans have taken a further blow as the Coal Authority has refused to grant coal mining licences for the development, quoting concerns about subsidence and financial viability. So it seems highly unlikely that any coal mining jobs will be in the offing any time soon.

But this gap needs to be filled for communities in west Cumbria.  We urge the government to work with councils, industry and local people to make sure that the area gets the kinds of jobs that young people want – jobs which benefit the economy, strengthen the social fabric of the area and protect the environment from climate chaos.

Despite the rain pouring down yesterday at Basecamp North Lakes, the atmosphere at the launch of the CAfS Business Supporter Network was nothing short of upbeat.

The afternoon began with a warm welcome and a meet and greet of the friendly alpacas from Alpacaly Ever After ! We were given a guided tour of the site, where we learned about Basecamp’s sustainable practices before heading indoors to warm up, enjoy delicious cake and hear from businesses about why they came along to the launch.

Each business had its own story to tell – from reducing their carbon footprint to ensuring a more sustainable future for the next generation. It was clear that the drive for a carbon-neutral and profitable future is stronger than ever.

Join us today and be part of this growing movement for change!

Zero Carbon Cumbria has been supporting community projects to ‘do their bit’ to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since 2020, as part of the programme of activities supported through the National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund

With one year left to go, this is the final allocation of Lottery money for community renewable energy projects, or any other community-based scheme looking to cut carbon emissions or raise awareness of the climate crisis. This is your chance to make a difference and support ZCC’s mission to achieve net zero by 2037.

Up to £15,000 is available to help develop and deliver community renewable energy schemes, and up to £10,000 for other community climate grants.

For more details and to apply, click here. Don’t delay, the closing date is Sunday 24th November!