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Job: Community Carbon Literacy Coordinator
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Date posted: 27 February 2020
Closing date: 5pm, Wednesday 25 March 2020

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CORONAVIRUS UPDATE:
Due to the current situation with Coronavirus, we are suspending the recruitment of this post for the time being. If you were interested in applying but had not yet done so, please send an email to [email protected] by the deadline of 5pm on Wednesday 25 March 2020 to express your interest in the role. We will keep your details on file and contact you when we resume the recruitment to invite you to apply then.

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Details about the post – for reference only at this stage

HOURS: 15 hours per week (0.4 FTE)
START/END DATE: Fixed-term contract to end February 2021 (with potential to extend subject to additional funding)
SALARY RANGE: £21,000 – £24,000 a year (full time equivalent)
LOCATION: Eden Rural Foyer, Old London Road, Penrith, CA11 8ET

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Our new Community Carbon Literacy Training Coordinator will take overall responsibility for our new Community Carbon Literacy project. It’s a hugely exciting project for us – a widespread programme of events on climate science and solutions, including open home events and carbon literacy training courses across Cumbria. You’ll recruit and train community volunteer trainers and coordinate and support them to deliver training in their communities. The postholder will also coordinate volunteer open home hosts to deliver five open home events.

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Application & Interview Process

As noted above, recruitment for this post is currently on hold due to the Coronavirus situation.

Please follow the instructions above to register an interest and we’ll get in touch when recruitment opens.

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Job description

THE EMPLOYER: Cumbria Action for Sustainability (CAfS)

LOCATION: Eden Rural Foyer, Old London Road, Penrith, CA11 8ET

REPORTS TO: Zero Carbon Development Manager

HOURS: 0.4 FTE or 2 days a week = 15hrs per week

SALARY RANGE: £21,000 – £24,000 per annum (full time equivalent)

DURATION: Fixed term contract to end February 2021 (with potential to extend subject to additional funding)

CAfS ROLE AND PURPOSE:

Our vision is a zero carbon Cumbria and we strive to bring about a better way of life, in balance with our environment. Our mission is to empower and enable people, communities and businesses to live and work more sustainably by sharing our knowledge, practice, skills, networks and practical experience.

ABOUT CAFS:

We manage and deliver events, advice, training and practical projects across the county as well as providing specialist consultancy services to enable individuals, communities, businesses and local authorities to drive a shift towards a zero carbon Cumbria.

Our team of fourteen highly skilled staff work with a pool of 25 specialist contractors and 30 volunteers to deliver around 20 major, transformational low-carbon projects each year. CAfS is the leading organisation in Cumbria showcasing low carbon living, energy efficiency improvements, renewable technology and reduced use of fossil fuels, both on a domestic scale and in the community. The charity is driving the shift towards a zero carbon Cumbria and provides information, advice and motivation through events, site visits and practical projects. Now celebrating our 21st year, CAfS is the first point of reference in the county for information on sustainability.

CAfS is a dynamic, pro-active and responsive organisation, continually striving to deliver effective projects that make an impact and which create a ‘shift’.

BACKGROUND TO THE COMMUNITY CARBON LITERACY PROJECT

This project will develop, recruit and train a brand-new network of twenty community trainers, to run a widespread programme of events on climate science and solutions, including open home events and carbon literacy training courses across Cumbria.

A training package of information and interactive exercises will be developed and the network of community trainers will be supported to deliver this training to those they wish to influence, including businesses, councils, schools, churches and other organisations. All community trainers will receive an induction, a full day of training as a group, one-to-one support, opportunities for additional training and learning and opportunities to socialise and support each other.

Individuals will also be supported to become open home hosts to showcase sustainable living, renewable energy and other solutions to support community knowledge sharing. The project is funded by a grant from the Emergence Foundation.

Project Outcomes
- 20 community trainers and 5 open home hosts will report improved quality of life, reduced feelings of helplessness about climate crisis and increased sense of purpose, confidence, empowerment, and agency.
- 20 communities-of-interest report that their community has been enhanced through stronger networks, reduced feelings of isolation, increased opportunities to socialise, shared learning across groups and peer support.
- 400 individuals (trained by community trainers) report shift in consciousness, increased knowledge of climate science and solutions, and ability to make positive changes. Increased agency, sense of purpose and responsibility.
- 400 people (trained by community trainers) make substantive pledges to benefit the environment through taking action to reduce emissions and tackle climate change in their own lives and in their workplace or community.
MAIN PURPOSES OF ROLE:

We are seeking a Community Carbon Literacy Training Coordinator to take overall responsibility for CAfS’ new Community Carbon Literacy Project. Specifically, to:
- Recruit and train community volunteer trainers and coordinate and support them to deliver training in their communities.
- Coordinate volunteer open home hosts to deliver 5 open home events.
This is an outstanding opportunity for an individual to make a real impact in increasing awareness, confidence, agency and knowledge of climate science and solutions in Cumbria. Every opportunity should be taken to ensure this work is integrated into the other work that CAfS delivers so that benefits are maximised.

TASKS WILL INCLUDE:

Volunteer/community trainer coordination and support
- Ensure that 20 training events are run by community trainers and 400 people are trained by community trainers within one year
- Recruit and induct 20 volunteer community trainers
- Develop clear offer for community trainers
- Complete volunteer agreements with community trainers
- Ensure all community trainers attend full day accredited carbon literacy training
- Coordinate 3 or 4 focused one hour training sessions (which will be delivered by the Zero Carbon Development Manager) for community trainers
- Support community trainers to move on to join our pool of professional trainers if they wish, and if they show capability
- Direct community trainers to further opportunities for learning and development
- Coordinate opportunities for community trainers to socialise and support each other
- Ensure that community trainers represent a diverse range of groups, reflective of Cumbria’s population
- Manage enquiries about training courses and direct to community trainers
Supporting development of, and leading delivery of (a small number of) training sessions directly:
- Mentor and support community trainers at the first session they deliver, if needed
- Update and improve training materials as needed
- Support community trainers with answers to queries
- On occasion, deliver short one hour sessions on climate science and solutions
Open Homes event programme coordination
- Coordinate and attend five open home events
- Liaise with marketing to team to promote open home events, manage bookings and donations
- To recruit and liaise with event hosts
- To attend and introduce events where needed
- To be responsible for ensuring that a risk assessment is completed for every event
Administration
- Administer trainer expenses claims, manage room bookings, refreshments, etc.
- Negotiate partnerships and free venues and refreshments wherever possible
Project Management
- Manage project budget
- Develop monitoring and evaluation approach
- Ensure that community trainers complete all required monitoring and evaluation
- Liaise with and report to funder
General
- Provide updates for CAfS Zero Carbon Development Manager as required
- To be a conduit for information to individuals on wider CAfS projects
- To contribute news articles, web content and other information about the project to the Marketing Team for publicity and CAfS profile raising
- To contribute to the on-going work of CAfS generally including attending appropriate networking meetings, team meetings and training sessions and carry out other tasks or projects required from time to time, as directed by the manager or trustees
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Person Specification

Essential skills and attributes:
- Confident knowledge of climate science, sustainable living and low carbon solutions
- Experience of volunteer coordination and support
- Highly organised with experience of planning, scheduling and delivering projects and events
- Ability to host and attend events and speak confidently in front of small groups
- Experience of delivering training sessions or presentations
- Ability to work flexibly including evening and weekend working
- Highly motivated and independent worker requiring minimal supervision
- Ability to work cooperatively as part of a small team
- Good knowledge of Cumbrian geography and the ability to travel independently throughout rural Cumbria, although many elements of the role could be completed from home or the CAfS office
The following are desirable but not essential:
- Experience of managing grant-funded projects
- Knowledge of, and contacts across Cumbria’s network of sustainability groups
- Experience of managing budgets
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27 February 2020
Focus group informs EV project

In last months newsletter and on our website, we put out an appeal for electric vehicle owners and non-EV owners alike to lend us their experiences and perceptions and the response we received was heartily enthusiastic!

Dozens of respondents told us how they would happily give us some insight into their views on EVs, so we asked them to do exactly that over a pizza and a pint at Kendal’s Brewery Arts Centre.

Because we had a wealth of respondents to choose from and only a small amount of space, we sent out invites to those who lived fairly locally so it would be easy enough for them to attend. That’s not to say that we’re completely done with consultations though, so Eden respondents may still have a chance to shape our direction at some point!

The informal focus group was intended to give some insight into the mind of an EV-driver for a team from Mirales Data who are working on their ChargeBetter software for EV chargepoints.

Topics of discussion included the current challenges around adopting EVs, the ideal home situations for making the switch and the smart charging technology being trialled by some companies for future implementation.

The evening was a huge success with each participant contributing enthusiastically to the discussion from a whole range of perspectives for far longer than we could reasonably have asked them to.
Those from Mirales headed home with a greater sense of what the world looks like from an EV driver’s point of view and some optimism from the non-EV drivers who all reinforced their interest in making the switch from petrol and diesel.

Anyone interested in the wider EV project that we and Mirales are working on can find out more on its dedicated page on our site.

27 February 2020
EV chargepoint share offer under way

About a month ago, we mentioned that we would soon be supporting the launch of a unique community share offer that aims to change sustainable transport in the North West.

Well, the launch has been and gone and the Charge My Street share offer is NOW OPEN as anyone who follows our social media should already be well aware. We’ve tweeted and Facebooked about little else since the offer went live on the 24th. We’re like a new mother or Piers Morgan after a Greggs vegan pastry reveal.

It closes on 31 March so you can expect to hear more about the progress being made in the campaign to increase the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) in the rural North West.

As previously mentioned, Charge My Street are raising £130,000 worth of shares in their community benefit society to help fund the installation of 100 EV chargepoints in Cumbria and Lancashire. These chargepoints will be owned by the Charge My Street shareholders and placed in public locations where they can be an asset to EV drivers who don’t have their own driveway to charge in.

Over a third of UK residents don’t have their own driveway so it’s a big ask for a flat-sharer in Carlisle or a villager in Troutbeck to switch from a system where they know they can quickly grab petrol at a station in town to one where if a car is parked at the one chargepoint for miles around, they’re out of luck.

More public chargepoints in convenient locations are what is needed to solve this problem and build people’s confidence to switch to the cleaner and cheaper EV technology. Following the moving of government targets earlier this month, this is going to need to start to happen sooner rather than later to clean up our air and slow the rate of climate change.

We’ve been flat out here at CAfS spreading the word about the share offer to those who might be interested with only the weather stopping us from physically climbing onto the roof of the office and shouting it at passersby.

You can find out how much has been raised so far and, dare I say, even invest yourself by going to the Charge My Street website.

27 February 2020
Sunny side up for Ambleside

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Sixty per cent of Ambleside’s annual domestic energy consumption could be powered with solar PV systems. That’s according to a study done by Alex Boyd who came into the CAfS office recently to present his findings to a wide-eyed audience of our staff.

Alex’s aim was to produce a workable methodology to create large-scale assessments of roof space for solar panels using publicly available data. The lakeside town was chosen as the guinea pig for this study as part of the Ambleside to Zero programme, but the method was designed to apply to any town on the map.

Using LiDAR (basically RADAR but with light) data from satellite images, Alex was able to identify all roofs big enough for solar panels.

He then eliminated various sites from consideration using a dizzying array of parameters. Any roof that was too small, too steep or too shaded was cast aside for only the most prime rooftop real estate.

After combining this information with Ambleside’s admittedly modest record of sunshine, he managed to calculate a total potential energy output of 3.5 GWh. That’s the equivalent of brewing 175 million cups of tea which, coincidentally, is also how Alex got through the process of calculating all this data.

While the findings from the study have exciting implications for the future of renewable energy sources in Cumbria, it also suggests that we as individuals needn’t simply wait for change to happen. Just over sixty per cent of the total output came from roofs that produced less than 3000 kwh (that is, residential homes). This suggests that individual homes do have the capacity to change our overall energy habits for the greener.

Alex has recently graduated from the University of Lancaster with a master’s degree in physics, astrophysics & cosmology, so it’s hardly surprising that the CAfS staff felt like they had just walked out of a NASA briefing when he wrapped up!

Alex’s work is one of the projects that CAfS is undertaking to support the Ambleside to Zero programme, a whole-place approach to cutting emissions in the town. The programme is being run by the community organisation Ambleside Action for a Future (AAFAF), supported by South Lakeland District Council. Have a look at the AAFAF website to find out about the programme overall. We’re excited to be playing a part in it – watch this space for more updates soon.

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1 February 2020
Calling all EV drivers & wannabes!

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Do you drive an electric vehicle (EV) or do you want to? We’re looking for drivers to take part in a focus group about life as the owner of an EV.

In particular, we’re looking for people who own an EV but can’t install a charger at their home. Maybe you live in an apartment or terraced home without a driveway, for example. We would love to know how you manage!

Maybe your workplace has EV chargers. Perhaps you’re extremely good at time management. Maybe you’re Elon Musk and have just moved to a terraced maisonette in Staveley.

However you do it, we want to hear it.

We’d also love to hear from you if you’d like to buy an EV but haven’t yet made the switch. What aspects of EV life are proving a barrier? What would it take to tip the scale?

If any of the above applies to you and you’d be willing to help build our understanding about EV use, please get in touch with [email protected]. It’s all part of our support for a new programme to install 200 charge points around the north of England, led by Charge My Street and funded by Innovate UK.

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31 January 2020
Sharing is caring

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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 network that will help to fuel the use of EVs in our region.

The vision of Charge My Street is for all homes without a driveway to be within five minutes’ walk of a charge point, so that no matter where you live, you can help drive forward the EV revolution!

Investors will benefit from full SEIS and EIS tax relief. Charge My Street will release details of the share offer shortly, and it’s likely to run only until the end of March, so you’ll want to get in quick. We’ll keep you posted on our social media and website when it goes live. Watch this space!

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31 January 2020
Meet the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership
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[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 action that will enable Cumbria to become a carbon neutral county and to mitigate the likely impact of existing climate change.

Who’s on the partnership?

The member organisations include the county’s local authorities, businesses, local sustainability groups, schools, the NFU, NHS, police, Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), national parks, Natural England, the Environment Agency, Electricity North West and United Utilities and many more.

Who runs it?

Karen Mitchell from CAfS co-chairs the group with Angela Jones, executive director for economy and infrastructure at Cumbria County Council. Tim Gale is the ZCCP manager, based at Cumbria County Council. The group reports to Cumbria Leaders’ Board, Cumbria Chief Executives’ Group, Cumbria Local Authority Officers’ Group and Cumbria Sustainability Network.

What’s the partnership doing?

The group’s in its early stages, but has already made some big strides forward, laying the groundwork for moving towards a zero-carbon county. We need to understand what the county’s carbon footprint is currently, and the sources of our emissions, so that we can prioritise action. The partnership commissioned a baseline carbon audit for the county from carbon footprinting expert Mike Berners-Lee of Small World Consulting, and this has now been published.

See Cumbria’s baseline carbon audit >

Next steps
- Define a clear definition for carbon neutral for Cumbria
- Propose a target date for reaching this target
- Identify leadership for developing action to tackle key sources of emissions. The partnership is currently developing sector leads and working groups.
- Establish a programme of action by key partners
- Lead joint campaigning to encourage wider public awareness and action
A huge stride forward

The Zero Carbon Partnership marks a sea change in the scale of focus on decarbonisation in Cumbria. We’re hugely excited by it at CAfS – after all, a zero carbon Cumbria is our vision.

We’re extremely optimistic that the partnership will be successful in its aims. Here’s why:
- It is diverse, community led, genuinely cross sector – from the largest organisations to small, very local sustainability groups, embedded in their communities.
- It does not stand alone, shouting at people about a single issue from the outside – it is embedded in existing structures and focuses on co-benefits.
- Partners are fully committed – they are sending senior staff and budget holders and committing staff time and resources.
- Our ambition is high but based on evidence.
- We have attracted significant funding for a programme of work.
Getting such a range of partners together to do this, and to jointly fund the baseline report, has been a huge achievement itself. It speaks volumes about how much of a priority climate change has become.

As a partnership, we have acknowledged that, in the context of climate crisis it is a mistake to think that if everyone does a little we can achieve a lot. If everyone does a little, we will collectively achieve only a little.

The days are gone where we can congratulate ourselves for taking a step in the right direction – if that is where we stop. We have to act at the pace and scale required by science.

And that is what the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership aims to do.

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30 January 2020
MPs join CAfS for Big Energy Saving Week 2020

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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 C2C as well as our CEO Karen. They spoke with shoppers as they went about their day on how the scheme is reducing energy costs and wastage across Cumbria.

Neil said: “This is a fantastic project. I think it really helps people improve their homes, makes them more energy efficient and, very importantly for us, helps people support our environment and work toward a much more sustainable future for all. I’m really happy to lend my personal support to this great initiative.

I think we’ve got to encourage people to look after the environment and part of that is what people can do in their own homes to make us more energy efficient.

This initiative is great because it gives people the support if they’re struggling to pay for it”.

Cold to Cosy was very much an appropriate label as the CAfS team stood in the supermarket foyer in between gales of wind and the heated store entrance. This didn’t put people off though and Penrith locals were more than happy to park their trolleys and have a natter about tariffs and radiator reflectors.

Not allowing our South Cumbrian friends to miss out, Andrew spent some time at Hallgarth Community Centre in Kendal before heading over to Booths supermarket to meet up with Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale as well as South Lakes Housing.

The team fielded scores of questions from curious residents, many of whom believed they couldn’t qualify for the help because they lived in a rented home. In fact, renters can greatly benefit from the scheme as they are often eligible for draught proofing (with the owner’s permission, of course).

Tim was an enthusiastic promoter of Cold to Cosy Homes and spoke of its benefits to many shoppers.

The Cold to Cosy Homes service has been running throughout the Winter period and there’s still time to get involved and see if you could save on your energy usage. If you think you might know anyone who our team could help them don’t hesitate to point them our way!

If you’re feeling really helpful, why not book on to our last Cold to Cosy Homes Champions training day in Carlisle where you can learn the skills needed to refer those who need the support most. It’s totally free, only takes a couple of hours and there may even be biscuits if you’re lucky.

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24 January 2020
CAfS catches up with Natural Cumbria

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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 yoga to skincare and healing), cafes and hotels, ethical financial investment, authors and creative businesses from all over the county. We made some great new contacts. It was particularly interesting to see that there’s lots of interest in growing food and in low-carbon menus for hotels and cafes.

The directory is a great resource if you’re trying to find products and services that are environmentally friendly, and from suppliers who are actively interested in operating in a more sustainable way. And, if you’re a business who’d like to be listed, do check out their website.

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20 December 2019
Kieran Macfadzean, CAfS TV

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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 writing and posting of communications material across all of CAfS services.

As mentioned, those in Cumbria with either a marked interest in local news or a faulty television remote may have watched me as the lead presenter of the That’s TV Cumbria news bulletin on channel 8. During my time at the programme, I’ve travelled the length and breadth of the county to uncover stories and interview the people making things happen throughout the region. If your church crowdfunded a new roof or a hotel threatened to collapse, I was probably stood nearby with a microphone and a dream of bagging an interview with a councillor.

As I’ve found out while looking at Cumbria through a camera lens, it’s fairly green (both in an activism and very much literal sense). There is no shortage of people in our region working to mitigate the impact of the climate emergency and it’s been my pleasure to pick the brains of dozens of them during the last year. I’ve even produced news pieces on CAfS’ Cold to Cosy scheme and the Cumbria Climate Survey 2019 which, at the very least, meant that I knew where to turn up to on Monday.

I’ve always found the work of anyone fighting to maintain the balance of our world admirable and necessary. My induction at CAfS has left me looking forward to getting started on helping with that work and I hope that I can, in some minute way, contribute to the sustainability of the beautiful and verdant surroundings I’ve grown up in.

That’s all from me. I look forward to engaging with the CAfS community in the near future but in the meantime, have a splendid Christmas and a smashing New Year.

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20 December 2019