The first Great Big Green Week - how National Lottery funding helped make it happen

Author: Fiona Dear, Head of Campaigns at The Climate Coalition

The National Lottery Community Fund supported us with £100,000 to help make the UK’s first Great Big Green Week happen this year. Here’s how it went.

2021 is an important year for climate change in the UK. This November the UK will be hosting the biggest international summit our shores have seen in a generation. Known as COP26, the event will see world leaders and negotiators from around the world descend on Glasgow, with the outcomes decided there playing a critical role in tackling climate change over the coming decade and beyond. This is a huge opportunity for those of us in the UK to call for faster and more decisive action to tackle climate change at home and abroad.

To face this challenge we had to figure out a way to create a ‘big bang’ that showed how much appetite there is in the UK for action on climate change. We wanted everyone to be involved, but how could we create a moment that linked community action with international politics; that sent a strong message to leaders whilst reflecting the concern of those that won’t take

action; that worked for seasoned campaigners and those that are newly concerned?

The answer lay in the incredible, creative, committed activity that’s at the heart of our local climate movements. We learnt from the brilliant SustFest St Albans, Winchester Green Week and others. The clear and simple recommendation was to embrace the diversity of action that people are taking on climate change, by starting with where people are.

And that became the core principle of the Great Big Green Week. We asked people to organise whatever they wanted to during the week of 18-26th September. To strengthen and broaden networks, we invited keen campaigners to organise local green weeks - and we provided local grants to take away funding barriers.

What we saw was a reflection of the wonderful diversity of the climate movement, with many National Lottery funded projects getting involved too. Football clubs encouraged fans to walk or cycle to matches. Friends of local parks groups brought communities together for litter picks. Black churches made their grounds more nature friendly. Guided bike rides helped people discover new parts of - and people in - their community. Students visited nursing homes for intergenerational chats about climate change. Businesses offered big green discounts. Communities gathered for huge picnics - and to make cider. School children marched in Leicester. An electric van toured projects and events in Wales, a Climate Fringe Festival saw hundreds of events in Scotland and a young activist organised a Climate Craic festival in Belfast. Green lights illuminated the Wembley Arch, the BT Tower, the Deep Aquarium in Hull, bridges in Bedford and a walkway in Hastings. And celebrities helped to raise the profile of this activity from Pru Leith hosting a low carbon cooking demo, to well-known children’s illustrators providing posters and colouring-in sheets.

Politicians got involved too. The Prime Minister himself tweeted a video encouraging people to join in, and #GreatBigGreenWeek was a top hashtag used by MPs for three days. So it was something that elected representatives wanted to be part of.

I could go on all day telling you about the brilliant events that happened as part of The Great Big Green Week. There are just too many stories, so I’ll move on to some numbers. An estimated 5,000 activities took place, with a whopping 200 local festivals coordinating anything from 3 to 100 local events.

New people got involved: an impressive 45% of activity organisers had not previously organised a climate-related event, for 40% of those that took part, this was the first time they’d taken part in a climate activity. This was better than we’d hoped.

Participation in the Great Big Green Week was more ethnically diverse than previous coalition events. Our surveys told us that 91% of activity organisers and around 86% of those that took part identified as white - which is the same as the UK population. There’s a lot more to look at here, and we’re looking into how we can help non-white ethnic groups to become an established part of the climate movement.

So we know that the Great Big Green Week was a success because it tapped into the brilliant energy, enthusiasm and creativity that exists in local communities. What did local networks get out of it?

Well the Great Big Green Week seems to have helped groups form lasting relationships: results from our survey, that we ran thanks to National Lottery funding, shows that 88% of activity organisers feel more connected to other groups locally and, excitingly, 94% organisers plan to continue working with partners that they met through GBGW.

And a clear message that we got back from local event organisers, including those that have been running weeks like this for years, was that they valued the overarching sense of purpose that being part of a national week provided.

Whether we shifted the narrative is a trickier question. Although the Net Zero and other strategies have been released, there’s still a big gap between targets and action – that’s where GBGW helps: encouraging everyone and anyone to get involved and help tackle climate change locally in their community. We hope to see a step up in global ambition at the upcoming COP26 climate summit, and to see COP inspire more people to take community action, but whatever happens, we know that tackling climate change is not now or never, it’s now and forever.

So what next? Another Green Week of course.

We’ve had overwhelming enthusiasm to host another Great Big Green Week, so it’s on for September 2022, get planning!