Evolution of Carbon Literacy

The Carbon Literacy Project was born in Manchester with a bold vision: to equip everyone with the knowledge, motivation, and skills to act on climate change.

During the creation of Manchester’s 2009 climate action plan, Manchester: A Certain Future, it became clear that for climate action to succeed at scale, people first needed to understand and feel empowered to act on climate change.

This led to the coining of the term Carbon Literacy, envisioning a cultural shift where every individual has access to a day’s worth of climate learning. By 2011, a dedicated working group developed a framework for its delivery – the Carbon Literacy Standard, ensuring training was impactful, adaptable and action-focused.

With support from Manchester City Council and founding sponsor Westford Mill, the first pilot training sessions ran in 2012. The project was officially launched on October 30th 2012 at Manchester Arndale, where the first 50 Carbon Literacy certificates were awarded – marking the start of a growing global movement.

Over a decade on, The Carbon Literacy Project has grown significantly, reaching new sectors and gaining national and international recognition.

2013: Manchester Metropolitan University became a key partner locally, pioneering an award-winning peer-to-peer training cascade model.
2015: At COP21, The Carbon Literacy Project gained worldwide recognition, being awarded as a TAP100, one of 100 worldwide Transformative Action Programs, by the United Nations.
2019: A landmark partnership with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (previously BEIS) enabled the creation of Sector Toolkits, facilitating the widescale roll out of Carbon Literacy training for the UK public sector.
2021: The first annual International Carbon Literacy Action Day was held in November 2021, coinciding with the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.
2023: Carbon Literacy reaches Antarctica – the seventh and final continent – when training was delivered on the RRS Sir David Attenborough.
2024: In July 2024, the Project announced that 100,000 learners had formally been certified as Carbon Literate across the globe.

The continuing exponential growth of Carbon Literacy sets us on track to certify one million individuals as Carbon Literate by 2030. We invite you to get involved with the rapidly growing movement! If you’d like to discover how Carbon Literacy can work for you and your organisation, find out more and get started.