As well as businesses and private properties, churches, community centres and schools need to be part of the climate change solution and journey towards a Net Zero world. The UK has 300,000 public buildings that contribute 3% of carbon emissions to the atmosphere, but reducing this can be a challenge because of the way traditional buildings have been designed. 

Community Spaces 
Community spaces include community centres, libraries, parks, community gardens, and more. While there is no need to worry about thermal comfort in a community garden - at least not the kind that requires carbon emissions - it is a concern for indoor community spaces of all kinds. 

Public sector bodies as well as businesses need to quickly embrace Net Zero targets since 3% of the UK's carbon emissions come from its 300,000 properties. But balancing thermal comfort with Net Zero can be tricky as old buildings are not energy efficient, nor is their general usage.

Thermal Comfort 
Of course, community spaces are crucial to the wellbeing of society, they create a place where local people can connect, communicate, plan, and resource themselves for the present and the future; but often, these spaces have inefficient energy usage for their infrequent gatherings.  

It’s important that community members are comfortable during meetings and gatherings so the buildings need to sustain their heat and lights for longer than is strictly necessary; so focusing on decarbonising community spaces is a key feature of Net Zero efforts in the UK and beyond. 

Net Zero Efforts 
In order to reach Net Zero by 2050, global carbon emissions and greenhouse gases need to be reduced by 45%. If the greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by 45% in this time frame global temperatures will remain at 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels societies in the late 1800s. 

Achieving this goal will help the planet and its citizens to avoid the worst effects of climate change, but it won’t be easy. In order to reduce emissions by this substantial margin, the world of commerce, public bodies, and individual people need to unite and support Net Zero efforts.   

Energy Efficiency 
One of the fundamentals of Net Zero efforts is energy efficiency. Every time someone switches on the heating in a home, office, or public building they are using energy in the form of heat or electricity that requires carbon to produce. It’s important that we use this energy economically. 

Community spaces are an indispensable part of local societies, but they also need to contribute to Net Zero efforts and the drive towards the UN’s 2050 target. The good news is, there are several ways that community spaces can do more to reduce emissions and save on energy.  

Partnership Projects 
Traditional buildings like churches, community centres, and schools can be hard to move to Net Zero because of their designs; that said, partnering with The Surefoot Effect and HeatHack is a practical way forward. The Surefoot Effect and HeatHack are offering a program to community operators to help them create energy efficiency practices and thermal comfort in their buildings.  

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What does future-proof mean? That is a question on the minds of business owners everywhere when faced with the looming spectre of climate change and the need to create more resilience going forward. Future-proof means your business is aligned with Net Zero protocol, supports the mental wellbeing of employees, and has the right strategies in place to handle systemic shocks.  

Net Zero Strategy 
Governments around the world are starting to put pressure on businesses to create a Net Zero strategy that supports global efforts to curb the worst effects of climate change. The last few decades have had more natural disasters globally and record-breaking temperatures in the UK. 

Creating Net Zero carbon emissions for your business isn’t straightforward; a holistic approach is needed to create a balance of Net Zero carbon that doesn’t affect your productivity or bottom line. Find out about these strategies at Net Zero week or get involved in Net Zero for Teams.      

Mental Health Support 
Health and wellbeing have always been important factors in business productivity and employee morale. In the past, much attention was paid to the physical condition of workers, the lower back and neck can become strained and lead to productivity losses, but there is more to think about. 

Mental health issues, such as eco-anxiety, are causing productivity and morale issues in the workforce, especially in companies that have a remit for climate change protocol. Future-proof your business by making sure your workforce has the mental health support they need at work.  

Future Proof Training 
If the global pandemic has taught us anything - and it taught us quite a lot - it’s that no business is immune to unexpected shocks. Coupled with the uncertainties caused by climate change and geopolitical events, there is a clear need to protect businesses using some future-proof training.    

Future-proof your business by retaining more customers, creating a Net Zero strategy that works, making your workforce more resilient by addressing eco-anxiety and other mental health concerns, and by adopting future-proof technology such as remote working conditions and cloud-based networks. Of course, there is always more to learn, but these give you foundations.   
  
Remote Working Jobs 
The global pandemic accelerated conventional business processes by around five years, according to analysts. It was expected that most businesses would switch to remote working or hybrid environments in the next five years, but these systems are now in full operation. 

Remote working jobs for employees help to future-proof the business because it reduces the need for office infrastructure and creates a flexible working environment that can sustain shocks more easily. Adopting a cloud-based network is also an effective way to future-proof a company.    

Paper Free Office 
Going paper-free in your business or organization is another way to future-proof your business. It might sound surprising, but adopting digital formats instead of using conventional documents supports Net Zero carbon and improves your bottom line. Not only that, a paper-free office means you have easy access to important data from a range of locations whenever you need it. 

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The Wellbeing Economy is a movement for transforming the existing economic systems to support the wellbeing of people and planet, instead of wealth creation and environmental depredation. This theory of change can also be a powerful driving force towards Net Zero success. Find out more about the elements of the Wellbeing Economy and why it matters.   

Circular Economy 
Until recently, the world used a linear economy predominantly, which is a system of production and waste. In the linear economy, raw materials and collected and turned into products that are sold through supply chains to consumers. When they are used, they move to landfills as waste. 

The linear economy is wasteful and carbon-heavy; it is not in line with people and planet and does not support Net Zero efforts. Although it is not perfect, the circular economy is more sustainable. A circular economy values sharing, reusing, recycling, and reducing consumption.   

Energy Efficiency
In order to reach the UN's target of Net Zero by 2050, individuals, businesses, and public organisations have a part to play; at the same time, the Wellbeing Economy needs to maintain dignity and ensure that everyone has enough resources to exist comfortably on the planet. 

When it comes to energy efficiency, it's the responsibility of governments to ensure that renewable energy and other Net Zero technologies are funded and accessible to the general public; that said, individuals and businesses can support Net Zero efforts with internal choices. 

Eco Anxiety 
Eco anxiety is a fear about the future of the planet based on what we now know about climate change and the effects of carbon in the atmosphere. Eco anxiety can affect anyone, but it's more likely to affect people with more knowledge of the climate crises and the realities facing us.

While eco-anxiety sounds adverse, it can also be used as motivation to support Net Zero efforts, sustainability, and the Wellbeing Economy. Eco-anxiety can be challenging to manage and affects productivity; that's why businesses and organisations can benefit from peer support.  

Sustainable Food 
Food is a necessary part of the economy, but the ways it is produced, distributed, and consumed have an impact on people and the planet. Large-scale food production accounts for one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions globally, including distribution and refrigeration.   

Again, creating a more sustainable food system requires structural changes like sustainable farming practices, food waste reduction, and animal welfare, but individuals have a part to play in the choices they make when they visit supermarkets to support more ethical food production.   
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Mental Health 
While eco-anxiety is part of mental health in the Wellbeing Economy, it is not the only factor. Society has unfolded in ways that support consumerism and wealth accumulation, not physical, emotional, and mental wellness. The Wellbeing Economy is about changing these dynamics.

Putting the welfare of people and animals at the heart of society is the best way to adjust priorities and create a fairer, more sustainable world. When people are valued over wealth, it changes society's mechanics, improves mental health and harmonises the people and planet.   

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Have you experienced feelings of worry and fear about the future of the planet? This is called eco-anxiety, and it's becoming more common. Eco-anxiety is a newly coined term, but it is relevant to the experience of individuals and organisations in the modern world. Find out more about eco-anxiety and why it matters at The Surefoot Effect, along with our net zero offering.

Anxiety Types
Anxiety affects everyone to some degree; some have occasional worries and fears, while others suffer from chronic and debilitating conditions. Medical professionals have separated these anxious feelings into categories that include general anxiety, panic disorders, OCD, and others.
 
But we don't have to have a disorder to suffer from anxious feelings from time to time; in fact, most people experience some worry, stress, or fear, on a daily basis. Thanks to our biological evolution, our brains are encoded to search for life-threatening dangers, even in a home office.    

Eco Anxiety
If you're feeling anxious and don't know why it could be due to the condition of the world at the moment and your fears about the future of society and the wellbeing of future generations; this is considered a form of eco-anxiety according to the American Psychology Association (APA). 
 
As with all anxiety, it affects different people in different ways, but it's clear that people with eco-anxiety have a greater awareness of the climate challenges faced by the planet and a realistic view of where we stand. As with other types of anxiety, it can range from mild to severe.  

Affected People
Climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation, thanks to a legacy of inattention and profiteering in previous decades. Today, it is hard to find anyone unaware of the impact of climate change in local communities and on a global scale. That's why eco-anxiety is growing.
 
The more information and awareness a person has about the effects of climate change, the more likely they are to experience the symptoms of eco-anxiety; these include stress, sleep disturbances, nervousness, and in severe cases, it can lead to depression and hopelessness.

Affected Business
Eco-anxiety is an existential condition arising from reflection on recent political changes,  environmental challenges, and general attitudes in society; it can lead to despair about people’s lives and future. Employees might start to question the usefulness of their roles in the company.
 
Employees affected by this kind of anxiety can be less motivated and less committed. On the other hand, if a company is committed to climate action in the form of net zero practices like green supply chains, the opposite is the case. Eco-conscious employees respond to the call.  
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Surefoot Services
Have you experienced eco-anxiety, or does it affect the quality of work in your business? It's easy to access support for eco-anxiety through The Surefoot Effect, which offers workshops and a peer support service to individuals and companies. We can only serve the planet if we have the strength, resilience, and motivation to make a difference in workplaces and communities.

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‘Carbon credits’, ‘carbon trading’, ‘cap and trade’, ‘carbon neutrality’ and ‘carbon offsetting’. The technical, complicated and distant words might have been created with noble intentions when put into plans at government and corporate levels. But one might question if the various terms come down to finding ways to keep emitting carbon and other greenhouse gases even though the ‘environmental waste bin’ is overflowing. How to find effective approaches to tackle climate change in a jungle of abstract measurements?

Photo: Pixabay.

Have you ever been offered to carbon offset when travelling or when buying things? Be aware that many of these can’t equal out the polluting effect. We have to view it from a planet view, the ecosystem we all are a part of, not through economic regulations.
“We cannot offset our way out of climate change,” states John Oliver in his satirical program Carbon Offsets. Behind the light-hearted, sarcastic approach the British-American comedian, writer, and political commentator has a serious message: Corporates can’t keep polluting with greenhouse gas emissions under the concept of offsetting. The expression ‘carbon offsetting’ is not only integrated into the corporate world, but we are now getting offers to join in on an individual level. But there’s simply not enough room on the planet for planting ‘good deeds’ like trees, elsewhere on the planet, to compensate for the way we live. The offset system puts profits over the natural world and its dynamics and functions. The equation does not add up, we have to focus on reducing greenhouse gasses.

Planetary or economic rules?
We have lived on borrowed time for a while, based on the rules of free-market economics and consumption. But how much more deforestation and climate change stoking can we do with one hand, while offsetting with the other hand via schemes often not as efficient as claimed?
As Greenpeace writes in the article ‘The biggest problem with carbon offsetting is that it doesn’t really work’ that to be serious about tackling climate change, carbon emissions need to be stopped from getting into the atmosphere in the first place. As they say, “A newly-planted tree can take as many as 20 years to capture the amount of CO2 that a carbon-offset scheme promises. We would have to plant and protect a massive number of trees for decades to offset even a fraction of global emissions. Even then, there is always the risk that these efforts will be wiped out by droughts, wildfires, tree diseases and deforestation.”
It doesn’t help that the system isn’t transparent and standardised, “… there is no standardised way to trade carbon credits and no way to verify the compensating activity behind them,” as the article ‘What’s wrong with carbon offsetting?’ in The Week points out.

Developed countries’ exploitation of lesser developed countries’ natural resources have been known about for some time. The 2014 article ‘The carbon World Bank and UN carbon offset scheme 'complicit' in genocidal land grabs – NGOs’ states that, “Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 500 million acres of land in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean was acquired or negotiated under deals brokered on behalf of foreign governments or transnational corporations.”
The article points out flaws in the UN's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme, including ‘financing REDD+ readiness activities.’ In this programme, companies in the developed world purchase carbon credits to invest in reducing emissions from forested lands. This is viewed as carbon emissions’ reductions. ”In practice, however, REDD schemes largely allow those companies to accelerate pollution [via their own industry] while purchasing land and resources in the developing world at bargain prices.” These schemes also reduce indigenous peoples’ access and rights to their forests.

Furthermore, the goal of carbon offsetting isn’t functional in practice. According to the article ‘Cop26’s worst outcome would be giving the green light to carbon offsetting’,“… offsetting doesn’t stop carbon entering the atmosphere and warming our world, it just keeps it off the ledgers of the governments and companies responsible. According to the Institute for Applied Ecology, about eight out of 10 offsetting projects rich countries relied on to meet their climate targets under the Kyoto protocol were deemed unlikely to have delivered any climate benefit. Offsetting has been tried and it has failed – to pursue this as a solution now is nothing more than greenwashing and would blow a huge hole in the Paris agreement.”

Economic aspects are often given attention in the media and on political agendas. We wish to bring focus on balancing the way humans live with the rest of the natural world, which supports us in so many ways. This could be the interwoven connectedness which is explored in deep ecology, an environmental movement regarding human life as one of many equal components of a global ecosystem. It’s not just a philosophical approach, but it’s the physical world and its laws we live with. A Global Footprint Report from WWF-UK and 3Keel’s concludes, “… the UK must reduce its global footprint by three quarters by 2030 to meet planetary limits.”
In the article ‘Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it’, the Natural Climate Solution Campaign is mentioned as a tool to draw attention to the need of revival of ecosystems in a time of climate breakdown.

Focus on reducing emissions where you are
Even though it might feel out of our hands as citizens when the frame for climate change actions needs to be set on a societal level, we can still contribute. Being critical, choosing your products and lifestyle carefully and writing your elected representatives, encouraging action, are some of the things we can each do. In Scotland the majority of people acknowledge that climate change is related to human activities, but is that always taken into account when voting? When looking into election material, the standpoint of politicians on the matter is not always clear. Could it be that MSPs and MPs need a reminder from us on why climate change is important for us and our vote?
Not only do we vote at elections. What we put in the shopping cart, our means of transportation and where we go on holiday are also choices which influence market forces, and they are directly linked to the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
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Net Zero is another term often used on a societal level. It’s “…a state in which the greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere are balanced by removal out of the atmosphere.” (https://netzeroclimate.org/what-is-net-zero/)
The Scottish Government has a goal of reaching Net Zero on a national level by 2045. There are governmental supported initiatives such as funding opportunities, but how to get to Net Zero can still seem unclear. It’s a path not yet rolled out but still in the making as we go forward.
At Surefoot, when we work toward Net Zero with organisations, the focus is on how to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions and to build resilience to thrive at the same time. Read more about Net Zero with Surefoot, or please get in touch if you want to hear more.

Please contact us, if you have a story to share about dealing with reducing greenhouse gas emissions in your community and how you strengthen your ability for resilience. On Insights we share opportunities and examples, to inspire and motivate each other in climate friendly activities. Write to gazelle@surefoot-effect.com if you have story to share.

Text by Gazelle Buchholtz, Surefoot associate. 

The European project "Breakthrough for Resilience: People, Places, and Communities" came to an end in August after 3 exciting years with our partners in Greece, Italy, and Sweden.

The partners met in Stirling for the last time. They had the chance to have a short taste of Scotland and know the work of The Surefoot Effect, the coordinator in this Erasmus+ project. In these 3 years, the project has researched 90 resilience tools and has delivered 12 workshops, 3 in each partner country for individual resilience, community resilience, and place resilience, and nature conservancy.

​You can access all these materials at the project platform: www.resilienceproject.eu

For testimonies and experiences of participants of our workshops and interviews with key resilience speakers, please see the videos that the project team has created. 
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Also Surefoot's Breakthrough for Resilience Project page gives you more background.

​If you live in the UK and want to visit a rainforest, you don’t have to catch a flight to find one. Scotland is home to its own Atlantic rainforest.
“The west of Scotland is home to one of the most important remaining rainforest sites in Europe, with its rich diversity of species making it internationally important.” Rainforest action, Scottish Government.
Last year, the Scottish Government decided to support the restoration and expansion of the rainforest and is engaging with the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforests.
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Like most natural habitats these forests are also in need of protection. Nitrogen pollution, exotic conifer plantation and other factors put pressure on the habitat including its plants and animals. Facing a climate emergency, the government also acknowledges the importance of forest and woodland capabilities to absorb more than 6 million tonnes of CO2 every year. This is equivalent to almost 10% of Scotland’s gross greenhouse gas emissions, states the Minister for Environment and Land Reform, Mairi McAllan in the Scottish Governments Rainforest Action. Furthermore, Mairi McAllan says: “As world leaders commit to end deforestation by 2030, we are planting 80% of the UK’s trees and making bold commitments like this to protect and enhance Scotland’s own temperate rainforest.
“Our ambitions do not stop there. We have increased our new woodland creation targets from 12,000 hectares a year to 18,000 hectares by 2024/5. By then, we will be planting 36 million new trees every year in Scotland.”

Photo: Inversnaid.

​Every action counts - also outside the rainforest
At Surefoot we welcome the initiative and are looking forward to seeing the outcome of the plans. There’s certainly a need to support the natural world, high biodiversity and areas with tree cover to prevent temperatures rising - in short to take care of the living beings and resources we have on the planet.
In other areas - including in our daily life - there are several ways to reduce CO2 emissions and aim for Net Zero. If you would like to know how your organisation can reach Net Zero, check out Surefoot’s Net Zero for Teams or get in touch with us.
Scottish Renewable’s Energy consumption by sector points to building heating as the highest energy consumption in Scotland which causes a large amount of CO2 emissions, so improved energy efficiency in buildings is critical. If you are involved in a community building, you can apply for free help from HeatHack and Surefoot. Read more here: Energy Efficiency in Community Buildings.

When we reuse, repair, recycle and rethink ways of handling our personal resources, we are also supporting the Planet’s capacity, natural habitats and resources. We recently ran a workshop in partnership with Transition Stirling to show how being creative (in this case with reuse) can build both individual and community resilience. For more about building resilience for your community, please see our Resilience workshops which have been informed by both our recent Erasmus+ Breakthrough for Resilience Project and National Lottery funding for a previous project.

Surefoot's Erasmus + 3 year adult education project, Breakthrough for Resilience, has helped us learn a lot about building resilience. One of the themes that became very obvious was that working creatively, individually or in groups, is key to our well-being and therefore key to building our resilience as individuals and communities.

So what better place to hold our final event than the Transition Stirling ReUse Hub where community comes together to reuse creatively?

During the day, there will be several makers on hand to help you explore a craft technique using materials that would otherwise have been discarded. And, we will be sharing the insights gained on this project about building individual, community and place-based resilience.
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So please drop in to find out more and to reuse creatively, building both your resilience and that of the community. Register here to help us gauge numbers and have enough refreshments.

Find out more and book your place >>

Join Surefoot for two FREE and fun storytelling events on Thu 22 Sep in London and Mon 26 Sep in Stirling.

Open to people working within community groups, these engaging events will showcase storytelling techniques to envision and explore positive futures and increase resilience.

About the events
An exploration of storytelling as a tool that can be effective for guiding groups into thinking about needs and overcoming obstacles.

The tools you will learn at this event can be especially useful for those at the forefront of the fight against climate change as a way to envision and explore positive futures and increase resilience in the journey through the difficulties that we all face in the present.

Covered during the event:

• About the storytelling manual developed in the project and how to use the activities it contains
• Explore the Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell as a storytelling methodology as well as the Heroine's Journey developed by Maureen Murdock
• How to open your audience to "automatic thinking" that allows for freer personal expression
• How to set up the space to work with storytelling methodologies
• Exercises for creativity
• Using the body to free the mind
• Exercises for introspection
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Please feel free to stay for the whole event or drop in when you can. Please
sign up on eventbrite so we know the numbers for lunch.

Book your place
Read more and sign up to the event in London, 
London, Thu 22 Sep 2022, 11:00-3:00 PM 

Read more and sign up to the event in Stirling
Stirling, Mon 26 Sep 2022, 10:00-2:00 PM

Project background
This initiative is part of the Erasmus+ Once Upon Your Time project .
In early 2022, participants from Iceland, Slovenia, Spain and the UK met up for a week’s training. The purpose was to create ways to support young people at risk of social exclusion. The group went through a wide range of exercises to explore Joseph Campbell’s technique Monomyth, also called The Hero’s Journey.

As a follow up, Journey to the Inner Hero, Surefoot’s participants share their experiences on how The Hero’s Journey works on body and mind, and reflect on what directions to take with the acquired skills and knowledge.

HeatHack and The Surefoot Effect are offering a programme for community groups to help plan for the futures of their churches, halls and community centres.

Tackling heat loss and energy efficiency in community buildings, Surefoot working in collaboration with HeatHack is delighted to announce confirmation of an Ingenious Public Engagement Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering.

For this project, a small team of people from across Surefoot and HeatHack will be working together to deliver a programme to help UK-based churches and community buildings to understand what a net zero future means for their premises. It will help them not just understand energy efficiency and thermal comfort in difficult buildings, but also to think about how their buildings should be used in their local contexts and how to make this change happen.

Groups will emerge from the process with a shared vision, the knowledge and confidence to work well with architects, heating engineers and other professionals, and the evidence of community need that grant funders require. 
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APPLY NOW!
We are recruiting community groups and volunteer engineers NOW for sessions starting September – December 2022.
Find out more and apply >>

More about the programme

Key elements

• It's a structured programme a group can undertake to understand how to make premises more comfortable and energy efficient.
• Consider not just how the building is used now, but what the community needs and changes that might make it more useful.
• Groups will develop a future plan for their premises, holding a community engagement event that will help justify any bids for grant funding.
• Groups will be given help with some basic thermal monitoring and checks for cheap and easy changes that will help in the short term.
• A volunteer engineer will work with the groups to understand about heating and heat loss measures to give more confidence in working with professionals.

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Please contact join@heathack.org to arrange a conversation about how you can get involved, if ​you would like to participate either by forming a group or as an assisting engineer.

The project is funded by Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious programme.

​We recently had a meeting for our Erasmus+ Sustainability, Heritage, and Health project in Athens. Looking out at the Parthenon and thinking about the ecological emergency, Euri had some thoughts:

The Parthenon is Greece’s most iconic building, and it is also a symbol of Antiquity and democracy in the world. The building was finished in 438 BC, and it is dedicated to the goddess Athena, after which the ancient city is named. For almost thirteen centuries, the Parthenon overlooked the Athenian city almost untouched. In the final decade of the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman conquest, the Parthenon was turned into a mosque in the early 1460s. It was only in 1687 when general Francesco Morosini of the then Republic of Venice invaded the Ottoman-controlled city and bombed the building, where the sitting army had stored gunpowder. One of the architectural marbles of history collapsed in a single event, and with it, a gem of human History. From 1801 to 1803, Earl of Elgin removed some of the surviving sculptures which are now in the British Museum. For most of its history, it was desecrated, forgotten, and ultimately destroyed. It only became celebrated quite recently. The Parthenon is now a symbol of democracy and Western civilisation, celebrated as one of the most important buildings in the world, with millions of tourists visiting every year. Celebrated when it is too late.
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Does nature have the same fate of the Parthenon? The WWF states that between 1970 and 2016, wildlife populations have declined, on average, by 68%. Terrestrial populations have declined 38%, while freshwater populations have declined by 81%. The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate. These experts calculate that between 0.01 and 0.1% of all species will become extinct each year. Will people look back in several hundreds of years and ponder over how could anyone be so reckless and careless as to fail to protect the wealth of the nature world, a symbol of life, unique in the universe? Will people dig up the remains of the natural world like we dig for dinosaur bones today and take them to museums, the only places where people will learn about the massive biodiversity that once thrived on the planet until the 21st Century? Through deforestation, the burning of fossil fuels, land and ocean pollution, mindless consumerism, humanity is stacking up its own gunpowder inside the ancient marvel that is nature and that took billions of years to be what it is today. As we can attest from the history of the Parthenon, it does not take very much for all of it to go away. Will nature be celebrated only when it is gone? 

​Surefoot associate Euri Vidal is working with Abrazo House on a project entitled “Biodiversity Outdoor Learning.” On a recent visit to the Laurisilva forest on the island of Madeira, the eerie forest and the ancient trees showed a picture of the resilience of nature, a resilience in which people may also find inspiration.

Laurisilva typifies a previously widespread laurel forest, a gem of the past, which covered much of Southern Europe 15-40 million years ago. The cover in Madeira is the largest surviving area of laurel forest, and it is believed to be 90% primary forest. The forest contains a unique ecosystem of plants and animals, including many endemic species such as the Madeiran long-toed pigeon, and it is for this reason that the forest is a UNESCO protected site. Not only does the forest have a unique biodiversity value, it is also visually compelling. Many of the trees contort, twist, and grow in inexplicable ways and have stood there for thousands of years.

Winds in Madeira are notorious to the extent that pilots need a special training to land on this rocky, mostly solitary island that is seven hundred miles off the coast of Portugal and that rises almost 6,000 feet into the sky. Looking at the trees in this eerie landscape, one can see how the wind has tried to uproot the trees, push them down, and make sure they don’t grow much, possibly for hundreds of years. But you can hear them whisper “This is not over yet.” The trees have managed to withstand the challenge, their roots stubbornly stuck in the ground. Some trees grow horizontally to better cope with the gusts. Or roots have grown wide and deep in case some parts of the root system became weak and died away. You almost see the trees smirking, laughing at the elements, telling the wind, “Come and get me. If you can…” I can’t think of a better way to think of resilience. Determination wins all. When hardship comes your way, be a laurisilva tree.

Please see the work Surefoot is currently doing with resilience on ​Resilience Workshops and Breakthrough for Resilience.

Surefoot’s Eco Anxious Resilient (EAR) Peer Support is a new project which aims to develop free-to-access peer support tools, materials, training and workshops for campaigners, activists and others experiencing eco-anxiety. We will share insights from people who are managing to safeguard their own mental and emotional wellbeing, while also constructively engaging in the fight against global warming and biodiversity loss.
 
Inspired by the spirit of Glasgow’s 2021 Climate Justice protest and with a £10k grant from The National Lottery Community Fund Scotland - Together for Our Planet programme, EAR Peer Support is funded through to March 2023.
 
Find out more about the EAR Peer Support Project >>>

​Besides our food-harvest, we also harvest lots of wonderful moments in the forest garden, and we get to know lots of interesting, kind and dedicated people who come and visit us to learn more about forest gardening.  

Once upon a time – around 10 years ago – I participated in the first online experimentation with Carbon Conversations facilitated by Pam Candea. That was the starting point of a journey that has changed everything in our lives.
After the Carbon Conversation-sessions I considered if I should translate the concept to Danish and started looking for a Danish organisation to team up with – and found the Danish permaculture association. I never translated the concept, and I am not a member of the permaculture association, but I became, together with my husband Steffen, completely engrossed by the concept of forest gardening, which is an integrated part of permaculture.

Carbon Conversations covers – as most readers here will know – the fields of energy in houses, transport, food and commodities. I had already worked a lot with the energy-issues both professionally and in our home, but really got caught by the food-issue. At that time, we had a holiday home in the deep forests of Småland in Sweden, where we enjoyed being so much closer to nature – plants, birds, animals, air, water – than in our city-life north of Copenhagen in Denmark. The idea of combining nature with the production of food simply caught us both. Now we have sold the summerhouse and our house in Copenhagen and bought an old farmhouse, still in Småland but a little closer to Denmark and our children and grandchildren. Here we experiment with all the Carbon Conversation-issues – and with extra energy dedicated to the production of our own food, in a plot for annual vegetables as well as in our 1000m2 forest garden.
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What is a forest garden?
A forest garden is a food producing ecosystem that imitates natural ecosystems, being rich in biodiversity and much more resilient than a traditional vegetable garden where you grow annual vegetables like carrots, potatoes and lettuce. In a forest garden you grow a diversity of perennial food crops mixed in a diverse, polyculture system with several storeys. In the top you have trees with fruits and nuts, next storey houses the berries, then comes the larger perennial vegetables and in the bottom, you have cover plants. All mixed with each other to avoid the risks and disadvantages of monocultures – exactly as in the fringe of a forest.
In a fully developed forest garden, most plants are perennial. They are part of a balanced and relatively stable ecosystem that doesn’t start from fresh every year. The plants stand stable with their roots deep into the soil where they participate with fungi in an exchange of nutrients and energy. That makes them much more resilient against heat, drought and wind.
Most plants in a forest garden are food-producing and the rest are either insect plants or nutrient collectors. Some (most) of them are very pretty as well – but the purpose of a forest garden is not to look good (like in a flower garden). The purpose is to produce food while at the same time supporting biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
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The polyculture-mixture of trees, bushes and herbs is important for several reasons. Most important is it to create lots of hiding places and lots of different food sources for many different insects. With a very biodiverse food-producing ecosystem, you get a much more resilient system, with lots of predators to balance the number of vermin. Furthermore, biodiversity is decreasing globally, and we should all do our utmost to provide living spaces and food for as many insects, birds and wild animals as possible – also in our food-production.
In a forest garden you don’t have naked soil. In a full-grown forest garden, the soil is covered with plants, and in a developing forest garden, we cover the space between plants with organic material. Naked soil is very vulnerable to drought and erosion, and life in the soil – micro-organisms, fungi and bacteria – has much better chances to live and thrive if the ground is covered with either plants or organic material. The soil stays moist and the organic material composts into humus which contributes to the life of both animals and plants. And carbon in the form of CO2 is sequestrated and stored as different carbon-connections in the stems, branches and roots of the plants and the humus in the soil.

Our experiences with forest gardening
We started developing our forest garden in 2016 and now only six years later we are harvesting lots of fruits, berries and vegetables, from early spring till late fall. We get many visits in the forest garden by people interested in a more sustainable life and food production.
You are also welcome – either if you come to Sweden some day or on our website (unfortunately so far only in Danish – but with lots of photos): ​https://gammelgaard.se/skovhave/

​By Christina Meyer​

Participants from Iceland, Slovenia, Spain and the UK met up for a week’s training through the Erasmus+ European funded project Once Upon Your Time.

With the purpose of creating ways to support young people at risk of social exclusion, the group went through a wide range of exercises to explore Joseph Campbell’s technique Monomyth, also called The Hero’s Journey. 
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Surefoot’s participants share their experiences on how The Hero’s Journey works on body and mind, and reflect on what directions to take with the acquired skills and knowledge.

To access hidden treasures within – The technique and training
A group of 23 people got together in Caravaca (Murcia), Spain in the springtime. All the participants were already engaged with teaching or in other ways with a profession supporting young people and learning processes. With the use of storytelling techniques, the training conducted by Juan Pedro Romera focused on methods to increase resilience in children and teachers.

In everyday life it’s easy to get caught up in (over)thinking and letting thoughts running in loops with fixed narratives about ourself and the world around us. To let go of a constrained mind with the purpose of letting the body “speak”, the training was not only based on writing but also included physical games, dancing and drawing self-portraits.

Joana Avi-Lorie, researcher at The Edinburgh University, Story Weaver at Scottish Communities Climate Action Network and a creative practitioner, explains the techniques as a package of creative writing exercises with different length and different prompts placed strategically to allow subconscious thoughts and emotions to emerge through the writing. Combined with the physical activities it opened up for “Working without thinking,” as Callum Arthur, a maths teacher from Scotland points out.

Keeping the pen in flow on the paper without thinking, was a core principle in the writing exercises. Euri Bartlome Vidal, associate at Surefoot where he runs international workshops about resilience and sustainability, explains some of the actual exercises,
“Shorter exercises led up to longer writing sessions. For example, a 10 minutes writing task was based on a card with an illustration of an animal. I got a card with an orca together with three words to incorporate: fertility, strength and power. We didn’t get much time to think, it was all about writing what instantly came to mind. For the final exercise, we had three hours to write a tale with a few guiding elements: The text had to be in a fantasy story, it should be about our own life journey and have a happy ending. I was surprised how many words I kept pouring out. At the end of the training week, I felt more energised and like something within was unlocked.”

The outcomes of feeling energised, unlocked, liberated, unleashed and empowered are some of the benefits echoed by the participants. To reach this point, participants also faced challenging times - mainly to be confronted with oneself. The group activities built a basis of trust to work together even though some exercises could make one feel vulnerable at first. For example, by sharing a drawn self-portrait, or reading one’s text aloud to the group.

Suzanne O’Donnell who is community educator, volunteer at Climate Ed, and from the Climate Hub Wandsworth in London (part of the Climate Emergency Centres) notably felt the inner confrontation, “When writing, things you didn’t expect can come up to the surface. It was a good surprise.” Being in a safe space with the group, to share and listen to others, gave an opportunity to grow stronger by the vulnerability, “I gained self-confidence in speaking to others, and I learned to reflect and respond in a deeper way to what other people share,” Suzanne elaborates.

“While each of the techniques we learned in the week individually helped to unlock some creativity, being able to spend most of a week working through the series of exercises allowed me to express myself in the final writing exercise in a way I have not had the luxury to do in many, many years,” muses Pamela Candea, Surefoot associate. “I used the structure of the Heroine’s journey for my final piece of writing as I feel this model is in line with my core belief that deep connection with nature and service to all beings are crucial to supporting the essential paradigm shift needed to protect people and the planet.”

Expanding the world through cultural meetings
Working with storytelling across countries and cultures adds a depth in how the methodologies work. As Joana expresses: “How who we really are is or isn’t deeply interconnected with our culture, the nature vs. nurture paradigm. It was fun to learn new things about places where I haven’t been before through the stories of their inhabitants.”

The value we put into words via the constructure of our language becomes clearer when exploring stories through multiple languages. As Suzanne illustrates, when we in English say, “I like…” it would be expressed from another angle in Spanish, “It pleases me …”.
As much as differences were explored, similarities also stood out clearly. As Callum noticed, teenagers are facing many of the same challenges across country borders.

The journey further on
Based on The Hero’s Journey training, the project Once Upon Your Time will include the creation of a manual which will be available in all four languages of the participating countries. Also, participants have the opportunity to work further with the subject, to apply and tailor it to each person’s work life.

Joana will look into including the method in the qualitative inquiry from her PhD project and to use it in her practice as a story weaver. She points out the strength of the method,
“Writing around your emotions and thoughts, dressing them with a story, in a safe and gradual way whilst ultimately being able to identify and communicate them. Being attuned with these emotions and thoughts is crucial to be able to self-regulate them as part of building resilience and they are a great fun way of building trust within a group and between children and educator, social worker or therapist.” 

As Callum underlined, the method is a different approach from his typical maths teaching. It has provided him with new tools too – both for himself and in the future for his students. The actual shape of how to use the tools is finding its ways as the project progresses including subsequent meetings with Pam and Euri from Surefoot.

Suzanne looks forward to using the new skill set when working with children in Climate Ed on climate change topics, and with people in the Climate Hub Wandsworth. It’s close to her heart to let storytelling become a tool for valuable voices to be heard.
“Some children are scared of putting down words in their homework. They can struggle with hurdles like dyslexia or confidence, which can reach into adulthood. The method is useful to provide people with new ways of expression, where there is no right or wrong. It’s connecting them with the magic they have within themselves,” Suzanne states and thereby sums up a central powerful aspect of The Hero’s Journey. Additionally, she emphasises that working this way moves the participants out of the typical fixed societal context and makes everyone equal.

Euri and Pam will add some of these tools to the techniques and tools in Surefoot’s individual, community and organisational resilience building workshops.

For videos, next steps in the project and access to the future manual, keep an eye on Once Upon Your Time on Facebook and Surefoot’s social media,
Facebook: @TheSurefootEffect
Twitter: @SurefootEffect
Instagram: surefoot_effect
Sign up for the Surefoot Newsletter

Your next step?
​Are you interested in knowing how you and your organisation can build resilience?
Check out Surefoot’s areas of expertise: workshops, net zero for teams, training and mentoring or get in contact via info@surefoot-effect.com.

The European Commission congratulates Surefoot on its significant project to support teaching and learning about the environment and sustainability.

The project, A Tale of 2 Futures, led and coordinated by Surefoot  has been selected as an example of good practice by the European Commission and featured in School Education Gateway, Europe's online platform for school education.

“The European Commission would like to congratulate you on A Tale of Two Futures, which we selected as an example of good practice in this month’s editorial of the School Education Gateway. We were impressed with your project and thought it a good fit for the month’s topic, learning for environmental sustainability.” 

A Tale of 2 Futures enables educators to train groups of people and motivate them to adopt sustainable habits in a way that was compatible with their daily lives. A collaboration between Surefoot, Dom Spain and Ziniu Kodas from Lithuania, this Erasmus+ 3-year project focuses on communicating solutions to energy issues and climate change at the local, European and national levels.

As a result, some teachers in Spain included ‘carbon conversations’ in their English lessons, created a food garden in the school, and integrated sustainable activities into their daily work as well as kickstarting environmental education projects.   

Surefoot Managing Director, Pamela Candea and Associate, Euri Bartlome Vidal, worked on the project. Pam was delighted to receive this acknowledgement from The European Commission,

"This was our first Erasmus+ project. We learned so much from our partners about Erasmus and other ways of working. We were delighted that both partners enthusiastically jumped into the world of action toward sustainable living and working, learning from the projects we found in our research and going on from there to support the start up of many sustainability projects, including a Fridays for Futures group in Vilnius​."
 
Find out more about A Tale of 2 Futures and School Education Gateway - Learning for Sustainability

Five people from Surefoot participated in a storytelling workshop as part of our Erasmus+ project, Once Upon YOUR Time.

Euri and Pam were joined by Callum Arthur, a teacher working online with learners facing barriers to accessing school; Joana Avi-Lorie, a PhD candidate working to create storytelling approaches for children dealing with climate anxiety, and one of SCCAN's storyweavers; and Suzanne O'Donnell, who works with the Climate Ed schools programme run by one of Surefoot's directors. 

​The team spent a week with partners from Iceland, Slovenia, and Spain, learning writing techniques from Juan Pedro Romera, which they will adapt for use with young people.  And watch this space as we start sharing some of the writing they each did during the workshop!

Our HeatHack project needs someone to help coordinate our activities!

A small team of people from across Surefoot and the HeatHack group of volunteers will be working together to deliver a programme that will help churches across Scotland understand what a net zero future means for their premises.  The programme combines some technical learning and engineering investigation of  heating and ventilation systems with Surefoot’s hallmark community engagement approach.   
 
If you are organised and able to work independently, using your own initiative, to complete tasks without supervision and this sounds interesting, please read the role description below.

If it seems a fit, please apply with your CV and a 1 page cover letter by 5pm 25 May to apply@heathack.org
Interviews 1 June 2022
For informal discussion of the role, contact apply@heathack.org


HeatHack Project Administrator Role 
Role Purpose: to provide administrative support to a programme that will help churches understand what a net zero future means for their premises.   

• Fixed term work available from June 2022 -  31 July 2023 
• Self-employment opportunity to supply approximately 70 hours a month of services paid at £13.50 an hour  
• Work from your own location with occasional reimbursed travel from a location in Scotland to Edinburgh/Stirling for project meetings, with the potential for occasional travel elsewhere within Scotland 

 
Applicants with an interest in community engagement practices, net zero buildings, engineering, data visualisation, or graphic design could by mutual agreement additionally contribute to the programme design. 
 
Closing date: 25 May 2022 5 pm.  Interviews will be held 1 June 2022. 
 
To apply, send your CV and a 1 page covering letter to apply@heathack.org. 
 
We welcome all applications – we hire based on merit.

Project Administrator Role Description

Key Tasks 

• communicating (mainly by email) with our volunteers and the project beneficiaries 
• helping to recruit church groups and engineers to participate in the project  
• Organising online events 
• coordinating and final compilation of project evaluation 
• compiling information for reports to funders as input to project manager’s report 
• collating project statistics and reports 

 
Required Experience/Skills 

• Experience of Microsoft office software, especially mail merges, Powerpoint, Excel, and Forms  
• Experience in using co-working or filesharing systems such as Teams/Sharepoint, Google Drive, or Dropbox 
• Experience running online meetings using e.g. Teams, Zoom 
• Highly organised and able to work independently, using own initiative, to complete tasks without supervision 
• Willing to undertake a wide range of tasks  

 
Desirable Experience/Skills 

• Experience of working within grant funded projects and contributing to monitoring and reporting to funders  
• Experience of working in a community led project and/or community engagement work  
• Familiarity with net zero principles and their impact on the built environment and government green/sustainability initiatives  
• Experience in creating, editing, or maintaining a website, for instance, using Wordpress; basic social media skills 
• Any of the following: 

• An interest in engineering 

• Data visualisation, for instance, use of PowerBI, Javascript, or Jupyter 
• Graphic design 

 
Background Information 
The Surefoot Effect CIC is a Community Interest Company that helps communities, businesses and governments put sustainability and resilience at the heart of what they do.  Our approach encourages people to explore their emotions, motivations and behaviours and to make positive changes for themselves and their communities. 
 
HeatHack is a volunteer group that has been helping churches understand energy efficiency, heating performance, and thermal comfort in their worship spaces and halls.   
 
For this project, a small team of people from across Surefoot and HeatHack will be working together to deliver a programme that will help churches across Scotland understand what a net zero future means for their premises.  The programme combines some technical learning and engineering investigation of the premises and its heating and ventilation systems with Surefoot’s hallmark approach, and consists of four small group sessions followed by a public activity for the wider community.  

Each week, the groups will read material that introduces some basic concepts, hold discussions that that explore what’s right for their community and their buildings, and carry out an exercise that will build up a profile that they can use to discuss their aspirations for the future with professionals and the wider community.  The groups will be aided by devices that capture temperature data from their buildings. 

The project will deliver the programme to 40 small groups involved in running church premises from across Scotland and produce open content materials for use more widely.   
 
For informal discussion of the role, contact apply@heathack.org. 
 
                        www.surefoot-effect.com         www.heathack.org

With the charity Climate Ed's carbon literacy programme, students, teachers and volunteers have a tool to tackle climate change challenges.

"I enjoyed it because it inspired me to do more things to help climate change. It was all amazing," says a student participating.

Chris, a scientist at Imperial College London said: "I was able to see another side to myself that I don’t get to utilise in my everyday job - so I learned a lot too."

The workshop 'Anchoring Communities and Organisations in Resilience,' part of the Erasmus+ project Breakthrough for Resilience: People, Places and Communities, took place in February 2022.

​Surefoot led participants in the use of six community resilience tools:

• The Compass of Resilience
• Pro Action Café
• Big Lunch
• Sociocracy
• Time Banking,

and lastly, one tool that has been developed by our project partner in Greece, the Crossing, the Old Ship, and the Salt of Life. These tools are available at the project website. 

Participants actively engaged with the tools and identified ways they might help in their own communities. Some of the feedback given by participants:

"I hope to use Pro Action Cafe with group setting up community garden."

"I'll share the Sociocracy ideas this very week with a community led activity centre in a disadvantaged neighbourhood nearby."

"Sociocracy sounds like an interesting alternative to consensus decision-taking, and well worth trying out. Time banking is a simple idea that I may try with church community."

Our next step is to to record testimonies of people using resilience tools and create a series of short videos. If you want to help us out by doing a short interview about your journey of resilience, let us know! Please get in touch with Euri via euri@surefoot-effect.com

If you are interested in knowing more about our resilience workshops, please contact us on info@surefoot-effect.com.

The project Breakthrough for Resilience is co funded by the Erasmus+ programme. 

A piece of blank paper. It’s taken out of a packaging which states about the content, “A4, 500 sheets, FSC®Certified EU Eco label Recycled 100%, 80 gsm, 150 CIE.” Neither does it say magic nor time machine in the description, even though clearly everything can happen on a piece of paper.

Your point of origin
If you think about an event in your life when you were 7 years old it can take you to that very moment. Descriptions of surroundings, touch, smell, taste and dialogues create the portal activating your personal time machine. How you feel in this instant can be expressed on paper with words, drawings, paintings, mind maps or with music notes. Likewise, plans and sketches of everything from gardening, video making, sculptures to the community you dream of can be a building bricks for the future on a piece of paper.

Processing feelings and creating envisaged solutions
Climate change has an unquestionable effect on our lives. Our (lost) connection to nature is not only to be decoded in state of the world information available in graphs and statistics including species loss, increasing temperatures and carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere. How to express ecological grief, climate grief, any sadness experienced due to the loss caused by environmental destruction or climate change? Artistic expression can be one of many ways to face one’s emotions.

“Our response to this crisis may vary: from measured expressions of hope through to feelings of despair. Art is one way of articulating and processing these feelings and of sharing envisaged solutions,” states the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The Trust is behind the Health and the Climate and Ecological Emergency Exhibition website which displays submissions in different media such as painting, photography, print, sculpture, performance and video.

The article, The art exploring the truth about how climate change began shows us that art can also bring insight about the causes and effects of climate change. This exhibition looks into the roots of global warming and how it impacts the developing world. It points out a link between the world's environmental issues, colonialism and slavery.

Resilient narratives and creative steps for the future
There are several creative, artistic tools available to us when wanting to go towards more sustainable living. Here’s a few on our list.
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At Surefoot we work with communities and individuals to strive towards net zero, promote low-carbon living and climate justice, build resilience and support mindful consumption. We often bring creative tools into our workshops when inviting participants to explore and share feelings and ideas. Please contact Surefoot if you would like to know more.

To decode narratives as well as creating new stories about the natural world you might find the free online course in ecolinguistics funded by the University of Gloucestershire useful.

“Ecolinguistics provides tools for revealing the stories we live by, questioning them from an ecological perspective, and contributing to the search for new stories to live by.”

The Scottish Communities Climate Action Network has created a Storyteller Collective. Please enjoy the first of a two-part short story ‘The Egg Hunter’ by Surefoot’s Gazelle Buchholtz, a story with a futuristic view into recovering what is first believed lost.
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Poems are known to evoke feelings and to make it possible to connect to oneself and surroundings. How does the poem ‘Kinship’ by Ursula Le Guin affect you?   
 
Please contact Surefoot if you would like to share any piece of magic which you find supportive in the ecological emergency.