Greener Kirkcaldy

In Fife, National Lottery funding is helping Greener Kirkcaldy and partners to take collaborative action on climate change.

For the last 12 years, this community led charity and development trust has been working locally to combat the climate emergency, tackle fuel poverty and food insecurity and bring people together for a more sustainable community.

And thanks to an award of £197,289 from our Climate Action Fund, Greener Kirkcaldy is working in partnership with Fife Council, Fife College and Fife Communities Climate Action network to deliver the Climate Action Fife project. Together they are piloting a range of climate related activities, engaging people from all backgrounds and sectors, tackling carbon emissions and delivering ambitious longer-term plans.

Senior Development Worker, Craig Leitch says, “Since our award we have been able to engage a Fife-wide audience on a wide range of climate issues, including travel, how we manage our homes, work, eat and holiday. We have also been able to help build capacity in our community by creating a tree planting strategy, a community cycling plan, a climate engagement toolkit and have funded ten climate action activities in Fife through our small grants fund.

“Working with local partners has been fantastic. It has allowed the project to reach a much wider audience across the whole of Fife and gives a deep pool of expertise and creativity to draw on.”

Other exciting parts of the project include a Young People’s Climate Action team which is engaging a younger audience and developing a social media campaign in the lead up to COP 26, and a four-module course signed off by the Carbon Literacy Project.

“We are very excited that we can now deliver this course in our community,” says Craig. “It will be rolled out to staff, volunteers and the general public in October and November 2021 and learners who complete it will become Carbon Literacy accredited.”

“Our Young People Climate Action Team created a carbon footprint food game that was the main attraction at a number of family fun days that we ran over the summer. Their enthusiasm has been both infectious and inspiring.”

With still much to plan, the Trust will soon be sharing their experiences to date with a wider audience. Craig continues, “Our Climate Action Toolkit is a collection of how-to guides, resources, write-ups and case studies that will allow other communities to deliver climate activities and to learn from our experiences. These will be available for download on the Climate Action Fife website.”

Craig added; “So far this project has allowed us to learn a lot about what our community wants and needs to help them take action on the climate emergency. We will use this learning to inform our work going forward and continue to build capacity across the region, through activities, workshops, sharing resources and providing training. We want to build on the momentum that’s been created across Fife and we look forward to continuing our work empowering communities to start taking action.”

The Climate Action Fife project led by Green Kirkcaldy received their Climate Action Fund development grant in August 2020.