News

£90k Community Grants Awarded to Tackle Climate Change in Cumbria

Community groups across the county have been awarded a share of over £90,000 of National Lottery funding to deliver a diverse range of projects to help tackle the causes of climate change and bring multiple benefits to their local area. The projects being funded include local food growing, waste reduction, low-carbon transport schemes, and community solar energy installation and connecting hydro power to the national electricity grid. A shared objective of all the projects is to highlight the actions that everyone can take to help prevent climate change and protect nature. Castle Hill Trust, in partnership with Friends of the [...]

By |2025-01-17T10:30:15+00:00January 17th, 2025|Homepage, News, Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership|

Our CEO takes a look back at 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 [...]

By |2024-12-23T09:27:00+00:00December 25th, 2024|Homepage, News|

Job – Programme Manager | Home Energy and Communities

The Home Energy and Communities Team lies at the heart of CAfS' operations. Their mission is to enable both individuals and communities to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, while creating positive impacts on people's everyday lives and economic wellbeing. The team has two key strands to it's work: Home energy: Our flagship Cold to Cosy Homes programme supports eligible households across Cumbria with energy efficiency measures. Our growing Retrofit Service supports households with more comprehensive retrofit measures – delivering Home Retrofit Plans and ongoing bespoke advice to households to help them implement improvements. Working with communities: We have [...]

By |2025-01-16T19:09:27+00:00December 18th, 2024|Homepage, News, Vacancies - Jobs|

New trustees to help accelerate climate action in Cumbria

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 [...]

By |2024-11-13T09:17:14+00:00November 13th, 2024|Homepage, News|

Jobs for the future, not coal from the past

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 [...]

By |2024-11-07T16:37:06+00:00November 7th, 2024|Homepage, News|

Launch of the CAfS Business Supporter Network: Building a carbon-neutral, profitable future together

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 [...]

By |2024-10-29T11:09:34+00:00October 10th, 2024|Homepage, News|

£50k up for grabs for community projects

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 [...]

By |2024-09-12T14:07:16+01:00September 12th, 2024|Homepage, News|

Education settings to have climate action plan for September 2025

It has been a long time coming, but the deadline for education settings to have their sustainability actions in place is looming. The September deadline is a key initiative in the Government's sustainability and climate change strategy - and it states: “By 2025, all education settings will have nominated a sustainability lead and put in place a climate action plan. This includes early years settings, schools, multi-academy trusts, colleges, and universities." It is vital that this is put in place with a 'whole setting' approach - the buildings, curriculum, staff knowledge, pupil voice and decarbonisation all form part of the [...]

By |2024-10-23T11:54:15+01:00September 11th, 2024|Homepage, News|

Support for community organisations to reduce climate impacts

We're working with Cumbria CVS on a new project to support community organisations to address their climate impacts and ‘go green', and we're looking for your views to help us shape the support on offer. So, are your village hall energy bills huge? Do fuel costs frustrate your community bus service? Do you need a carbon action plan to win a contract for your charity? Help us to help you by completing this short survey to tell us the challenges facing your organisation, so that we can shape the support on offer, and you can also register your interest. All entries [...]

By |2024-09-04T13:28:05+01:00September 4th, 2024|Community energy, Homepage, News|

Thinking of retrofit? The whole house approach.

The Whole House Approach is the latest blog from our home retrofit team. Find their other blogs here.   What is the Whole House Approach to Retrofit or Renovation?  If you are thinking about improving your home in any way, it may link to other aspects of your home now, or as you might want it to be in the future.  Windows, doors, draught-proofing / air tightness, insulation, heating, cooling and ventilation are all linked to each other in various ways.  You might be trying to sort out an issue – a room might be too cold or too hot, [...]

By |2024-09-03T12:52:33+01:00September 3rd, 2024|Homepage, News, Retrofit|
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