About Us

Overview of Carbon Literacy

The Carbon Literacy Project offers everyone a day’s worth of Carbon Literacy® learning, covering – climate change, carbon footprints, how you can do your bit, and why it’s relevant to you and your audience.

The Carbon Literacy Project is globally unique – there is nothing else quite like it anywhere. It was recognised as such by the UN at COP21, in Paris, where it was awarded as a TAP100, one of 100 worldwide Transformative Action Programs.

Carbon Literacy (CL) is aimed at three distinct audiences – Those that live, Those that work, and, Those that study. This allows us to capture all audiences in our aim to offer every citizen Carbon Literacy learning.

Infographic Descriptions

Citizens Certified

The total number of individuals that have successfully completed their day’s worth of Carbon Literacy learning – gaining their uniquely numbered CL certification.

Actions Pledged

Each learner must pledge two significant actions – one they can take on their own and one that they will do with a wider group of people – to gain their Carbon Literacy certification. This is why the number of actions pledged is always double the number of certified citizens.

In reality, many learners pledge more than two actions, but for ease of reporting, we only count two per individual.

Carbon Saved

Learners provide evidence of the carbon saving of the actions they’ve pledged – whether it saves 10’s, 100’s or 1000’s of kg of CO2e. We’ve taken an average of this data, which we’ve collated from over 12,000 of our learners, and extrapolated that to cover the actions pledged by all our certified learners. This figure is our best guess but likely a gross underestimate.

A full report on our methodology for coming to this figure is in the works and we’ll link to it here once it is produced.

We expect the real figure to be much higher than this due to:

  • our requirement that actions pledged must be ‘significant’
  • multiple actions often being pledged by learners for both the individual and group actions
  • a focus on actions being pledged in the sphere the training takes place (often the workplace – where there is the opportunity to influence much greater carbon savings than an individual could in their personal life)
  • where more than one of the ’10’s, 100’s, and 1000’s’ is selected, we record the lowest selected
  • a number of really high impact actions that we are aware of that are in themselves many thousands of tonnes
  • all the additional actions that learners go on to take, over and above their pledged actions, as a result of their newfound knowledge and skills

As such, a more material study looking into the attribution of the carbon saving of actions pledged as part of Carbon Literacy training is something we’d love to undertake. If you feel you’d be able to help us with this research piece to quantify Carbon Literacy’s impact, please Contact Us

Previous research on Carbon Literacy.

For reference: the current average carbon footprint of a UK citizen is 12.7 tonnes CO2e.

Certified Training Professionals

The total number of certified Carbon Literacy Training Professionals.

A number of those who are open to external training and course development opportunities can be found on our Trainer Directory.

Courses Designed

The total number of accredited Carbon Literacy courses.

These training materials have been through our rigorous criteria checker process and have been deemed to fulfil the requirements of the Carbon Literacy Standard.

Sectors

A ‘sector’ is officially counted when it reaches a critical mass in one of two ways:

  1. A recognised sectoral network or professional body adopts and implements a Carbon Literacy course with multiple organisations within the sector.
  2. There are multiple organisations collaborating to adopt and implement Carbon Literacy within their organisations and across the wider sector.
Toolkits

The number of sectors in which a Carbon Literacy Toolkit has been launched.

Organisations Engaged

The number of organisations with Carbon Literacy certified people.

Carbon Literate Organisations

The total number of organisations that have gained Carbon Literate Organisation (CLO) accreditation.

This is based on organisations achieving the introductory level – Bronze – and takes into account any historical accreditations.

We regularly update a list of our current CLO accreditation holders.

Nations Delivering

Nations where an accredited programme of Carbon Literacy training has been developed and delivered.

The nations included are:

  • Antarctica
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Bolivia
  • Canada
  • Croatia
  • Denmark
  • England
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Guatemala
  • Guernsey
  • Hong Kong SAR
  • Indonesia
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Isle of Man
  • Jersey
  • Jordan
  • Kenya
  • Mexico
  • Northern Ireland
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Scotland
  • Solvakia
  • South Korea
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • The Netherlands
  • UAE
  • Uganda
  • United States of America
  • Wales
Carbon Saving Per Person

Jacobs UK has found savings of between 5% and 15% to be regularly demonstrated on similar behavioural approaches to Carbon Literacy. The key to all of this is to make sure the approach to governance (accountability, monitoring/reporting systems, regularity to the comms/training) is also addressed to back up and validate behaviour changes (which is done through the Carbon Literate Organisation accreditation). That way the savings are sustained and are not just a short-lived positive change that is lost over time.

“A construction company rolled out an engagement and behaviour change pilot at their head office which achieved a 15% saving in electricity consumption, which was sustained over the subsequent year of monitoring as a result of supporting procedure and systems changes and an ongoing approach to communications. The company went on to roll the approach out at other sites, led by nominated ‘young leaders’ who were coached in delivering the same approach at their home site. These sites – which included offices, depots and combined sites – achieved between 5% and 12% reduction in electricity consumption over the subsequent 3 month period compared with the previous year.”

“The national low carbon schools programme delivered by Jacobs on behalf of the Carbon Trust demonstrated that it is possible to achieve cost and carbon savings of over 10% and in some cases as high as 20%, just through simple no and very low-cost interventions which are engagement-led and promote positive environmental behaviour, and can be supported by everyone in the school.”

Sector Toolkits

A growing range of Carbon Literacy Toolkits have been developed to maximise the ease and speed of adopting Carbon Literacy.

Using a certified Carbon Literacy Toolkit eliminates course development & accreditation time and costs as barriers to adoption. It also relieves the burden of updating training materials in line with developments in climate change science, impacts and policy.

A Carbon Literacy Toolkit is an off-the-shelf, fully accredited suite of courses that have been developed and tested by the sector, for the sector. Comprised of a slide deck, trainer manual, activity resources, and a getting started pack, these materials can be used to deliver Carbon Literacy courses even if you’re not a climate expert or experienced trainer.

With 13 courses spanning 10 unique sectors now available, our Toolkits ensure that organisations have the latest and best sectoral materials for delivering Carbon Literacy training.

All Carbon Literacy courses within our Toolkits are designed with a specific audience in mind, but the materials can be tailored, customised, and then reaccredited as a bespoke Carbon Literacy course.

Learn more about our Sector Toolkits here.

Carbon Literacy by Location

Northern Ireland

Coming soon!

Our Impact

2023 Impact Report

In 2023, Carbon Literacy saw unprecedented growth both nationally and internationally, and the Project itself grew by almost two-thirds in just 12 months:

  • 29,906 citizens certified
  • 68 Carbon Literate Organisations (CLO) accredited
  • 138 Carbon Literacy Trainers (CLT) accredited
  • 7 new nations delivering
  • 108,000 CO2e saved
  • Third Carbon Literacy Action Day held

Read our 2023 Impact Report here.

2022 Impact Report

The Carbon Literacy Project saw unprecedented levels of growth for, both nationally and internationally, on its 10th anniversary year:

  • 24,368 citizens certified
  • 73 Carbon Literate Organisations (CLO) accredited
  • 3 new nations delivering
  • 2 toolkits launched
  • 85,584t CO2e saved
  • Second Carbon Literacy Action Day held

Read our 2022 Impact Report here.

2021 Impact Report

2021 saw a year of great development for The Carbon Literacy Project:

  • 8,726 citizens certified
  • 4 toolkits launched
  • 3 new nations delivering
  • 30,000t CO2e saved
  • First Carbon Literacy Action Day held

Read our 2021 Impact Report here.

Our Awards

Founding Sponsor

Founding Sponsor

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