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On Thursday 14th July 2022, we held our third Carbon Literate Organisation Awards at The Whitworth art gallery. After three long years since our last awards, due to COVID-19, we were joined by over one hundred delegates who came together to celebrate the Carbon Literacy successes in their organisations.

The evening was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the 71 organisations, from across a range of different sectors of society, receiving awards from Bronze to Platinum.

There was lots of hustle and bustle on the evening, with attendees conversing over drinks and canapés before the ceremony began. The ceremony, which was hosted by Dave Coleman and Phil Korbel, Co-Founders and Directors at The Carbon Literacy Project, started with a warm welcoming address, while acknowledging the organisations who weren’t able to join us on the evening. Then it was over to Tom Rumboll, CEO of SYNETIQ, who sponsored the event, to talk about their experience of Carbon Literacy as an organisation so far, and their journey to Silver accreditation.

We were delighted to be joined by two excellent guest speakers, who took to the stage to inspire our delegates at intervals between the awards. Firstly, we heard from Keisha Thompson, Creative Director at Contact Theatre, who talked about the role of the arts within the climate crisis.

Later we heard from Sam Black, co-founder of Ergon Theatre who inspired us with a video snippet about their most recent production, The Wicked Problem, which involved the audience participating as the jury in the world’s first ecocide trial.

As the awards were being held at the Whitworth Gallery, an iconic arts venue in Manchester, we felt it important to highlight the strong connection between communicating climate change and the arts. This can be seen in the way that the message can be shaped and conveyed to different audiences, tackling the emotional content that comes with the topic of climate change. It was something we also saw highlighted at events in the green zone at the recent COP26, including one we attended and reviewed – Arts and the Imagination.

During the awards ceremony, we played some excellent videos, which showcased organisations that have achieved CLO accreditation from across the different tiers. In these videos, organisations shared the message of how Carbon Literacy has positively impacted their organisation, the journey they took to successfully implement it, and what led them to become accredited as a CLO. These videos were inspirational and allowed other attendees to visualise how Carbon Literacy can work for a wide range of organisations, no matter who they are and what they do.

Want to catch up with the CLO showcase videos? Watch Bronze here, Silver here and Gold here.

The awards were presented by Dr. Ali Abbas, Chair of The Carbon Literacy Trust. Towards the end of the evening, a Special Contribution award was presented to Beechfield Brands for their consistent support of The Carbon Literacy Project, since its inception in 2011, without which much of The Carbon Literacy Project’s work would not be possible.

It was an honour and truly inspiring to bring together organisations representing such a range of different sectors of society, including healthcare, arts, automotive, local government, finance and many more. Every organisation awarded has demonstrated a true commitment to tackling climate change, by supporting their Carbon Literate staff in taking action, and sharing knowledge and best practice around Carbon Literacy within their sector or locality.

In the 2022 CLO Awards, the following organisations have been accredited as:

Carbon Literate Organisation

Bronze:

• Aberdeen University Students’ Association
• Adra
• Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales
• Autoglym
• Avison Young (UK) Limited
• Balfour Beatty
• Beechfield Brands
• Broadacres Housing Association
• Cambridgeshire County Council
• Cardiff City Council
• De Montfort University
• Denbighshire County Council
• DRH AMRE Consultants
• Dumfries and Galloway Council
• Electricity North West (Construction & Maintenance)
• Elevate GM Limited
• Fife Council
• FourNet
• Halton Housing
• High Peak Borough Council
• High Speed Two (HS2) Ltd.
• Lancashire County Council
• Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (De Montfort Enterprise Partnership)
• Leith Community Crops in Pots
• Mason Infotech ltd
• McLaughlin & Harvey
• Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
• Monmouthshire County Council
• North Somerset Council
• North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust
• Nottingham City Council
• One+All
• Peel L&P
• Protect Our Winters UK
• Reigate & Banstead Borough Council
• Rolls-Royce & Partners Finance
• Scottish Veterans’ Residences
• Shropshire Council
• South Hams District Council & West Devon Borough Council
• South of Scotland Enterprise
• Staffordshire Moorlands District Council
• Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
• Swinburne University of Technology School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship
• The University of Queensland, Business School
• Transport for Greater Manchester
• Unity Trust Bank
• Warrington Borough Council
• West Sussex County Council
• Winchester City Council
• Wirral Environmental Network
• Wyre Council

Silver:

• Anthesis (UK)
• BASF UK and Ireland
• Dacorum Borough Council
• Electricity North West Ltd
• Galliford Try (Building North West)
• ITV Studios – Coronation Street
• Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust – Estates & Facilities Department
• Manchester City Council
• Studio 91 Media
• SYNETIQ Limited

Gold:

• Auto Trader
• Greener Kirkcaldy
• Groundwork Greater Manchester
• Manchester Museum, University of Manchester
• NHS Salford CCG
• Peel Media

Platinum:

• EAUC – The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education
• Great Places Housing Group
• Northwards Housing
• Speak Carbon Collective

Special Award:

• Beechfield Brands

We were very proud to bring together all these organisations and individuals in one room to celebrate their achievements. Thank you again to our hosts, the Whitworth, and our sponsors, SYNETIQ for making the evening possible. We can’t wait to hold the next CLO Awards in 2023, where we will be awarding many more organisations. To find out more about how your organisation could become a CLO, please visit our website, and/or contact us for more information.