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Sharing is caring

By |2020-01-31T17:01:19+00:00January 31st, 2020|Community energy, Electric vehicles, Homepage, News|

A community share offer will be opening soon for Charge My Street, an enterprise that funds the installation of community-owned electric vehicle (EV) charge points. In the coming year, Charge My Street will be installing 200 charge points throughout the north of England, working with a range of partners, including CAfS. It's all part of a programme funded by Innovate UK. The aim is for the charge points to be funded through a public share offer run by Charge My Street. Communities and individuals who make an investment will therefore own a part of the expanding charge point [...]

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Meet the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership

By |2021-10-12T15:21:22+01:00January 30th, 2020|News, Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership|

[Article updated October 2021] More than seventy Cumbrian organisations are working together to drive down the county’s carbon emissions, co-chaired by Karen Mitchell from CAfS. Here’s our at-a-glance guide to the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership, and what it aims to do. What’s the partnership for? The Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership includes a wide range of organisations with a key role to play in decarbonising the county at the pace and scale required by climate science, and ensuring that Cumbria benefits from the opportunities this brings. The purpose of the group is to plan and oversee a radical programme of [...]

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MPs join CAfS for Big Energy Saving Week 2020

By |2020-01-24T17:09:35+00:00January 24th, 2020|Draughtproofing, Home energy efficiency, Homepage, News|

It was a meeting of old friends and new on Friday as CAfS’ Cold to Cosy Homes officers teamed up with local MPs to spread the word to shoppers. This was in aid of Big Energy Saving Week 2020, a national campaign to help people cut energy bills with the support they need. This was very fitting for Andrew and Tina who have celebrating energy saving week for a few months by this point. At Morrisons in Penrith, Neil Hudson, the new MP for Penrith and the Border, spent just under an hour with Tina and Gemma from [...]

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CAfS catches up with Natural Cumbria

By |2020-01-24T14:37:08+00:00December 20th, 2019|News, Plastic-free|

Have you come across Natural Cumbria yet? It's an online directory of sustainable businesses in the county. Emma from CAfS attended their first business network meeting last month, in the appropriately candlelit, wooden-floored surrounds of the Lancrigg Hotel. Natural Cumbria are very kindly raised funds for CAfS and the environmental charity Another Way at their sustainable Christmas market in Ambleside on 7 December 2019. Amy from Another Way gave a powerful talk on climate emergency and the need to take action. It was great to meet the fantastic range of businesses there.  There were health and wellbeing providers (from [...]

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Kieran Macfadzean, CAfS TV

By |2019-12-20T12:21:45+00:00December 20th, 2019|News|

Well, hello there. I’m Kieran Macfadzean. You may remember me from such TV channels as That’s Cumbria. Dated Simpsons references aside, I’ve joined CAfS at the very tail end of 2019 to be given just enough time to learn where the teabags are kept before I’m sent away for my Christmas holidays. Once the tinsel is taken down though, I’ll be getting to work on the project to install electric vehicle charging points across the North West of England. I’ll also be supporting Jaki in the day-to-day running of the website as well as helping out in the [...]

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Meet our new CEO!

By |2019-12-20T12:41:14+00:00December 20th, 2019|News|

We were very excited to welcome on board our new chief executive, Karen Mitchell, this month. Karen is now settling into her position at our helm, while her predecessor, Hazel Graham, gets busy in her new CAfS post, bringing some of the most influential organisations in Cumbria together to tackle climate change. Watch this space to hear more about what Hazel's been doing in the new year. Meanwhile, Karen shares her thoughts about the challenges and opportunities ahead for CAfS... I’m delighted to be writing to you as the new CEO of Cumbria Action for Sustainability. I have long [...]

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Tips for a sustainable Christmas

By |2020-01-24T17:05:23+00:00December 20th, 2019|News, Plastic-free|

With just a few days left for those Christmas preparations, here are our last-minute tips for celebrating this festive time of the year, without costing the Earth! Still looking for last-minute presents? There’s a big trend this year for buying experiences instead of physical gifts. Vouchers for local restaurants, theatres, cinemas and other venues are a great way to support your area’s businesses and they don’t come in wasteful packaging. If you’re wrapping physical gifts, try using some nice cloth material – it’s two gifts in one, as your recipient can reuse it. You can use narrow strips of [...]

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Ambleside to zero carbon – the story so far

By |2019-12-20T10:49:35+00:00December 5th, 2019|Ambleside to Zero, Community energy, Home energy efficiency, News, Renewable energy|

Could Ambleside become a zero carbon community? That’s certainly the goal of the town’s sustainability organisation, Ambleside Action for a Future (AAFAF), and CAfS is helping to make it a reality. In 2019, we began a package of support for the town, thanks to support from South Lakeland District Council and the Space to Connect fund. Here’s a quick guide to what’s been happening. All in the plan What would it take for Ambleside to become carbon neutral? That’s the big question, and we’re helping to answer it. We’re creating a detailed, costed programme that would lead AAFAF towards [...]

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Calling all teachers & young people!

By |2019-12-05T09:32:18+00:00December 5th, 2019|Homepage, News, Youth|

Are you a young person or a teacher who'd like to take action on climate change in Cumbria? Please could you spare a few minutes to fill in our survey on how we can help you! We are planning to set up a programme of support for young people. There are grants out there that would make it possible for us to do this, but we need to show that there is a real need for our help, and an appetite to take action. That's where our surveys come in. There's one for teachers, and one for young people. By [...]

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Whitehaven coal mine – what’s happened so far & next steps

By |2019-12-11T09:48:36+00:00December 2nd, 2019|Climate politics, Fossil fuels, News|

Efforts to prevent a new coal mine in Cumbria suffered a blow in November after the Secretary of State decided not to ‘call in’ the county council’s decision to approve the mine. We asked one of the campaigners against the mine to share an overview of what’s happened so far, and what the next steps might be in the battle to prevent it. Our thanks to Maggie Mason for contributing this guest post for us and sharing her unique insight, as a retired minerals planner at Cumbria County Council. CAfS strongly supports the views of campaigners that the new [...]

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