​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. Join us on the 20th of August in Stirling for our free event Creativity Builds Resilience to find out how creativity can build both individual and community resilience.

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 workshops on Thu 22 Sep in London and Mon 26 Sep in Stirling.

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

About these workshops
These workshops explore storytelling as a tool that can be effective for guiding groups into thinking about needs and overcoming obstacles.

The tools you will learn in this workshop 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.

At the workshop, you will learn:

• About the storytelling manual 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

Book your place
Read more and sign up to the workshop in London, 
London, Thu 22 Sep 2022, 10:00-2:00 PM 

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

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. 
​
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.

​
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.
​
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.
​
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.
​
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.

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.

To change the future we need to change the present, but to do that we need to have the right conversations. That’s exactly what Alan Heeks and Pamela Candea understand when they work with local people using Future Conversations. Recently, Pamela worked with people from the Uist community, using Future Conversations to help outline a community-led local energy plan.
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Local Energy Plans
To address the looming spectre of climate change and meet net zero targets it’s no longer enough to address the issues at an individual level. Of course, it makes an impact if we reduce our carbon output and eat less meat, but to make leaps forward collaboration is needed.

One form of collaborative action on climate change is a Local Energy Plan (LEP) which is a community-led and government-backed process for helping people to identify areas of action in their local communities. Focused action for local climate change targets can then be made.

The Island of Uist
The Island of Uist is located in the Outer Hebrides off the North coast of Scotland, it is known for its natural beauty, but it’s also the place where local people from a variety of community groups are building a (LEP) with support from Community Energy Scotland and The Surefoot Effect.

Surefoot trained a group of facilitators from across Uist to enable them to help local groups identify their needs and make changes to benefit the region and contribute to climate targets. A structured series of sessions, called Future Conversations, created by Alan Heeks, founder of Seeding our Future, was used as the basis for workshops for the facilitators to run with local community groups.

“The changes to decarbonise the energy and travel infrastructure will be complex to implement,” said Pamela Candea, a facilitator and Managing Director of The Surefoot Effect, "but the good news is the Scottish government is encouraging groups to create these Local Energy Plans and has agreed to support the implementation.”

“Often the changes needed in a local energy plan require large-scale infrastructure like wind turbines; however, the Scottish government is currently interested in supporting these initiatives and helping to ensure local people benefit from them. It’s a key step forward,“ she said.

Local buy-in to infrastructure changes starts with including local people at the initial stages of planning and the workshops being run on Uist do just that.

Future Conversations
Future Conversations is a series of six workshops that train facilitators and empower local people to think about their energy needs for today and tomorrow. These can be adapted to local circumstances and requirements as was done for the project on Uist.  This conversations series has been used in several communities across the UK, and more recently in online sessions.

Community Action
At the heart of a Local Energy Plan in collaboration with Future Conversations is a community spirit that strives to improve the planet by improving its local area. Measurable outcomes are achieved and new perspectives are developed through creative activities and local interactions.

In this example, an area of Scotland, armed with a Local Energy Plan of their own, can then lobby the Scottish Government for the funding it needs to make practical changes.
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The road to Net Zero is not straight and predictable, but if there’s one thing we can do it’s to empower local people to communicate, organise, and lobby governments for the actionable changes that fit their requirements so they can move to low carbon sustainable future.
By James Bollen

James Bollen is a digital writer and content creator. He writes articles and blogs in a wide range of niches including business and technology but has a particular interest in conscious living practices, nature appreciation, and creative pursuits. He lives in Glasgow with his partner and sibling cats, Hansel and Gretel.

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Saturday morning, after a night scattered with awakeness I’m trying to fall back to sleep. It’s not happening. Instead, one thought meshes into another, and in no time I’m back on the worn track, “What am I doing wrong in my life?”

Mentally and physically, I keep aiming for healthy ways to tackle challenges and to maintain an openminded and accommodating approach. But even though I’m fortunate to work in a field supporting environmentally friendly living, I surprise myself by occasional grumpiness when encountering bumps in daily life. They all add up into a draining pile of complaining feelings of not fitting into the big scheme where planning, executing and reaching goals run at a speedy pace. Above all this hovers a fundamental question, “Why can’t I crack the code to fix my issues, get rid of feeling inadequate and overwhelmed and take action in full speed?”

Finally, I find a stick to poke into my self-propelled thoughts. Not yet out of bed I let the mind drift out in nature and take a wander in the inner landscape. How would nature deal with my questions?

A mighty, old oak appears. I admire the thick bark on the wide trunk, and my gaze moves up at the gnarled branches where I spot only a few acorns and notable distance between the leaves. I would never kick and yell at the tree to produce more acorns, more leaves and more energy. Instead, I admire the strong survivor standing before me.

​The size of the trunk signals a life spent through countless years, including wartimes and the formation of urban settings. Today, the old oak deals with pollution which the nearby road drags along. In the landscape transformation since it was a tiny sprout, it must have lost many surrounding individuals in the forest which once was. But the oak still upholds life. No matter how big or small a portion of oxygen it produces, it goes to the pool of breathable air. With age it has grown deep furrows which host insects and is a snack bar for birds. In the treetops birds and squirrels run their families, and below in the ground roots are connected to other species in a web of life.

With gentleness I will look at fellow beings and myself as we were oaks. Appreciating whatever actions we are capable to carry out must be a keystone for this earthly journey. May the oak be with you.

At Surefoot we run activities with space for people to explore and share emotions, motivations and behaviours. With positive changes for people and communities we aim to move towards a sustainable future. See more about how Surefoot can support you.

By Gazelle Buchholtz, Surefoot Associate

​The Allerton Oak in Calderstones Park in Liverpool. The tree is estimated to be around 1,000 years old.

As part of tackling climate change Scotland has set a goal of becoming Net Zero by 2045. Net Zero can sound technical and seem an abstract goal. We will reach Net Zero when the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we put into the atmosphere are equal to the amount we take out of the atmosphere. In short, aiming for Net Zero is about engaging in climate friendly activities - which often are not only healthy for people and planet, but also for the economy, for example when saving energy in your organisation. Our programme Net Zero for Teams will support your journey towards Net Zero.

Net Zero for Teams in your organisation
Starting or accelerating your transition to a carbon neutral business may seem daunting. What does operating as a Net Zero business look like for your organisation? Rest assured, with Surefoot’s Net Zero for Teams, your decision-making and transition will be quicker, smoother and more straightforward than you think. As with all successful strategies for change, it starts with you and your team using your expertise to decide what is right for your organisation.

How it works
Surefoot’s Net Zero for Teams workshops are a mix of information sharing, identifying areas for change and an exploration of possible solutions. In between the workshops, Surefoot supports your team to help finalise the actions needed to achieve their chosen objectives. See more here.

Please contact us if you would like to know more.

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Making changes to your business and turning the tide of climate change can seem like a daunting task, especially when you don't know where to start. The Surefoot Effect offers a series of courses, training programs, and workshops to help businesses equip themselves for a more sustainable future. Read on to find out how to make your business more planet-friendly. 

Carbon Conversations
Chances are you have a carbon output for your business that contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, but it's not as if you can flick a switch and your business becomes sustainable. It takes time and careful planning to work towards Net Zero by mid-century - this is the global aim.
 
With Carbon Conversations, you can begin to discuss the issues at hand and work out how to integrate progressive thinking into your business model. Carbon Conversations at The Surefoot Effect is a series of guided discussions to help you with sustainable business planning.    

Climate Conversations
The future starts today! That's because the choices we make in our present time and our lifestyle practices echo down through the ages. People's choices in the past have caused the climate crisis today, but now, we have an opportunity to build a better future. 
 
The Surefoot Effect offers a series of workshops on the subject of future conversations. These workshops aim to equip businesses with the foresight to implement changes that lead to progressive outcomes."Future Conversations" is the smart way to make a difference. 

Team Engagement Training
Net Zero by mid-century is the target and the way to get there through sustainability practices. The next decade is crucial to the success of maintaining a 1.5°C rise above pre-industrial levels; to achieve this, businesses must change their paradigms and balance their carbon outputs. 
 
Again, this isn't an easy task, especially if you lack qualified persons in your management teams; but, thankfully, there's an easy solution. The Surefoot Effect offers a Team Engagement programme that provides the tools needed to help businesses operate more sustainably. 

The Surefoot Effect 
It is worthwhile to think about our individual contributions to climate change, but it won't be enough to turn the tide and reach Net Zero by mid-century. For that, we need commercial interests to pull their weight as well. The Surefoot Effect is here to help - use their workshops and courses to equip your business for a more sustainable and prosperous future. 
By James Bollen

James Bollen is a digital writer and content creator. He writes articles and blogs in a wide range of niches including business and technology but has a particular interest in conscious living practices, nature appreciation, and creative pursuits. He lives in Glasgow with his partner and sibling cats, Hansel and Gretel.

Our first workshops of the year is about fostering resilience for a flourishing life, community, and the places where we live and enjoy.
You might already have experienced our resilience building workshops during 2021. Whether you have already participated or not, you are most welcome to join the next pair of workshops in February. The workshops are free but please sign up via Eventbrite: 
Anchoring Communities and Organisations in Resilience in February.

At the workshop we will work with resilience tools as:
- Compass of Resilience
- Time Banking
- Community Land Trust

The workshops are part of the project Breakthrough for Resilience: People, Places and Communities.

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We’ve all sat in the cinema eating popcorn watching the latest Hollywood disaster movie. The characters have to contend with a giant city-levelling wave, a twister that threatens a small town or a story of future scarcity with humanity living on the brink of extinction. Unfortunately, these scenarios have become too realistic in the face of climate change, now we are the protagonists.  

What is Net Zero?
​Anthropogenic climate change is the rise in global temperatures as a result of human activity. Most scientists agree that this began in the 19th century (around the 1830s), right at the start of the industrial era. However, evidence is emerging that earlier human activity also had an effect. 
 
Humans need energy for heat and light which comes from fossilised carbon. Over time, the earth absorbed carbon from the air and stored it in ground deposits, humans now release it back into the air. Net Zero is the balance between carbon emissions and carbon absorption.  

The Paris Climate Agreement
​In 2015, 196 parties signed up to the Paris Agreement, also known as the climate accord, at COP 21. The parties agreed to a climate change target; global temperatures should not exceed 2°C by mid-century with a target of 1.5°C rise temperatures in relation to pre-industrial levels.
 
The Paris Agreement works in 5-year cycles; each cycle has increasingly ambitious targets leading to a reduction in carbon output and stabilisation of temperatures. For this to happen, countries and industries are expected to make adequate changes to their carbon emissions.
  
Make Your Company Planet Friendly 
Multi-national companies such as Amazon and Microsoft have made ambitious pledges. Amazon says it can reach Net Zero by 2040, and Microsoft aims to do it by 2030. It remains to be seen how realistic and authentic these pledges are, but every business needs to change.  
 
It’s not only global giants that are expected to implement changes to reduce emissions; businesses of all sizes can contribute to carbon neutrality. Regardless of your company size, the task is to measure your “climate shadow”, including past emissions, and work towards Net-Zero.   

The Upside of Company Changes
When it comes to business, it’s all about the bottom line, so when managers and CEOs hear about climate change policy, the first thing they ask is, how much is it going to cost? There’s good news, becoming Net Zero involves efficiency changes that ac increase your revenue.
 
Cost reduction and increased efficiency are two of the upsides of Net Zero targets, but there’s more. The next ten years are crucial to turning the tide on climate change, and everyone knows it! Customers are likely to respond to companies making genuine efforts towards Net Zero. 

The Surefoot Effect 
Every business is different, and achieving Net Zero requires focus and creativity. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, which is why The Surefoot Effect Net Zero programme help your business to build the Net Zero infrastructure it needs. Contact The Surefoot Effect today and learn more about the dynamic and proven strategies they use to cut carbon in your company. 
By James Bollen
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James Bollen is a digital writer and content creator. He writes articles and blogs in a wide range of niches including business and technology but has a particular interest in conscious living practices, nature appreciation, and creative pursuits. He lives in Glasgow with his partner and sibling cats, Hansel and Gretel.

Image credit: www.unsplash.com

Are you talking about climate change in your business? Perhaps it’s been kicked down the agenda in favour of growth strategies or commercial processes; if so, it’s time to re-think your priorities. The effects of climate change are becoming more obvious every year and it’s affecting local and global communities. People, nations, and businesses must adapt to survive. 

What is Net Zero and why do we need it? 
We are living in the Anthropocene, an epoch of earth characterised by the dominance of humans on the planet. Humans have impacted the planet significantly, changing the landscapes dramatically and increasing the presence of poisonous gases in the atmosphere.
 
Human existence is only possible because the earth absorbed these poisonous gases and trapped them underground making photosynthesis possible and therefore oxygen. Today, industrial activity is releasing these gases into the air. Find out more with Carbon Conversations.    

How can I make my business sustainable? 
At one time (not too long ago) commerce was all about growth, but that was before the realities of climate change started to take effect. Now businesses and customers realise the importance of long term strategies that limit carbon output to Net Zero while maintaining productivity.
 
Commercial sustainability is the path to Net Zero and a carbon-neutral planet - that is a planet that does not produce more carbon than it can absorb. Every person and business has a part to play but it isn’t always straightforward. Learn how to meet Net Zero targets at The Surefoot Effect.

How can we overcome eco-anxiety? 
Eco anxiety refers to the feeling of fear we get concerning environmental destruction and our societies of the future. Eco anxiety can affect people on a personal level, but it can also affect companies - how is it possible to plan for the future when it is so uncertain and perilous?
 
There’s good news! Although eco-anxiety can make us feel powerless, one of the best ways to cope is to take positive action. Understanding the theory behind eco-anxiety and teaching practices to alleviate this is what The Surefoot Effect does best -  see their Resilience Workshops. 

What is a company’s “climate shadow”?
Much is made for our carbon footprints nowadays, everyone is encouraged to calculate how much carbon they use in their daily lives and to make changes to reduce that number; while this practice is admirable on a personal level it is somewhat misleading and doesn’t go far enough.
 
The carbon footprint was thought up by major oil companies and directs attention away from the real problem. The “climate shadow” is a more useful idea, it reclaims the language of climate change and offers a more holistic measure of carbon consumption for people and companies. 

The Surefoot Effect 
The Surefoot Effect works with communities and businesses on a range of climate change issues. Through workshops, courses, mentoring, and team engagement, you can learn how to equip your business to meet the challenges of climate change. The challenges are both psychological and practical, but they require the right conversations to build a better future. 

By James Bollen
​James Bollen is a digital writer and content creator. He writes articles and blogs in a wide range of niches including business and technology but has a particular interest in conscious living practices, nature appreciation, and creative pursuits. He lives in Glasgow with his partner and sibling cats, Hansel and Gretel.

How to create an off-grid organic permaculture farm in a semi-arid region of rural Africa with focus on sustainability, equality, community and independency? Get the answer with the 5-minute video tour in Kenya where Selina Nkoile will show you around the 2.5 acre off-grid homestead Bomanoma.
The construction of Bomanoma began in December 2019. Now, it’s a flourishing place running 100% on solar energy and collecting enough rainwater to maintain a diverse collection of crops and other plants with diverse functions, for example natural tissue paper and perfume. Everything is farmed on the principals of organic permaculture. As stated on Bomanoma’s website, it’s a place “Where Traditional Nomadic Culture Meets Modern Regenerative Agriculture and Ingenuity” www.bomanoma.com
Enjoy the video trip through a traditional and authentic Maasai homestead embedded in community spirit and surrounded by a sustainable rich and varied garden. The place is open as a learning demonstration site for everyone: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEBelPUM8tA