Becoming a Sustainable Space
Introduction
Welcome to the Highlands & Islands Climate Hub’s Sustainable Spaces programme. We are thrilled to have your organisation on this program, dedicated to making your space environmentally friendly.
To get started, we’ve compiled resources related to a vast collection of topics to guide your sustainable transition. On this page you’ll find all the guides and information necessary to create an environmental policy and action plan to support this. Click on a topic below to jump to all the information on it.
Calculating your Footprint
Calculating your environmental footprint is not always necessary, but it can be a useful tool for understanding which areas your organisation is ace-ing and which areas need some focus.
It is helpful to be able to track your organisation's emissions. You can use the data to prove the effectiveness of your policies and to support funding applications for environmental projects.
Emission Calculators
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This is a useful guide on how to go about calculating your organisation’s carbon emissions.
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The Carbon Trust have developed a tool to help small and medium sized organisation to measure their carbon footprint. To use the tool, you will need 12 months of data on your fuel consumption, energy consumption and top ups made to air conditioning units.
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The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is an international organisation which sets the standards for measuring and managing greenhouse gas emissions. Their website is aimed at larger organisations and governments but does include some useful guidance and training on calculating greenhouse gas emissions.
SCVO Growing Climate Confidence Score Card
What to expect
The SCVO Growing Climate Confidence Scorecard is an online questionnaire that takes you through various aspects of your organisation’s operations to produce a sustainability report. We recommend it to community groups as it is not a carbon emissions calculator, but a light touch approach to assessing where your organisation is in terms of net zero.
You will be asked to complete your organisation’s details and from there will be presented with the questionnaire. Once complete, you will receive an email with a report you can access online or download into a PDF report.
What you get
As you take the questionnaire you may find that some aspects are not relevant to your organisation or are out with your organisation’s control. See the example below for the Hub having taken the scorecard. There is little that we can do to change any aspects of the buildings that our offices are in, and we really have no waste services so cannot answer those questions effectively. However, for the other elements we were given points that we could think about. After using a scorecard, you can return to it in 6 months to a year to assess your progress.
Creating an Environmental Policy
The process of creating a climate action plans and sustainability policy can sometimes be a winding path with a wealth of information and resources available. The Highlands and Islands Climate Hub’s team of Development Officers have hosted an interactive Environmental Policy workshop for community organisations, guiding them through the steps of creating these policies. It is informal and practical, giving community groups the skills to take the next steps on their environmental journey.
Watch the workshop below and find the key takeaways..
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An environmental policy is a commitment for your organisation to reduce your impact on the environment. It sets goals for your organisation to meet and a framework of how you will meet them.
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It allows your organisation to set an example for your community, as groups are regularly engaging with their local community, an environmental policy shows your goals and how you plan to reach it, this can be used to inspire other members of the community to do the same.
It gives positive engagement with your community as it shows climate action being done in the local area, it also sets your organisation up to ensure the transition to net zero is a just transition.
As Scotland works towards a Net Zero future, funders are asking to see how your organisation is taking steps towards being more sustainable. Having an environmental policy shows your goals and actions that you are taking to work towards this, which prepares you for funding applications.
Taking actions towards your environmental policy goals also helps you to reduce costs as it takes energy, heating and reuse into consideration. This also helps to set you up for reducing your emissions, environmental impact and contribute to Scotland's goal of becoming net zero by 2045.
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Get everyone involved – to create a successful policy it's important to involve everyone in your organisation, for example staff, volunteers and board members. It's important that everyone understands what you hope to achieve and is free to give input and feedback about how the organisation can reach those goals together.
Reflect on your current operations – it's important to get as much information as possible about your organisation, how to power and heat your building, how you deal with waste and how your members travel to and from the building are some examples. Once you know what point you are at you can then start to look at where you want to get to and how you are going to get there, which is where the framework planning comes in.
Act – once you have your policy and framework in place it's time to start acting on it. Ensure that everyone that uses the space is aware of the policy and that following the policy is as easy as possible for people, for example, providing plenty of bins to separate recycling or having obvious signs near light switches as reminders to switch them off.
Review as you go – over time things may change in your organisation so it's important to keep your policy up to date. Reviewing your policy and framework also allows you to see how far you have come and gives you the opportunity to share some good news stories as you meet targets.
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Engagement & Culture
Share what you are doing with your community, this can be though social media, your website or just everyday conversations. It's important for your community to see what you are doing as it helps to build habits and allow people to ask questions. Remember that the transition to sustainability should be a just one and it's important to engage your community to open the door to conversations around what barriers and concerns they may have.
Jargon Busting
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Net Zero will be reached when we are no longer adding to the total amount of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere. This happens when the amount of carbon we add to the atmosphere is no more than the amount that is being removed.
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being able to continue forever without running out of resources or causing harm. Another form of sustainability is financial sustainability, this is where something will generate enough revenue to cover the expenses and make a profit in the long term which removes the need to find further funding.
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A just transition means that as we shift to a more environmentally friendly economy, we must ensure that it is fair and just for everyone. The benefits of climate action must be felt by everyone and not allow anyone to fall behind because they cannot afford to transition.
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Greenhouse gases are gases that sit in the earth's atmosphere and trap heat like a glass greenhouse.
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Greenwashing is when companies market their products as environmentally friendly or sustainable by choosing to only market the positives and aren't transparent about what goes on behind the scenes. This can be unintentional, for example if the company doesn't look at the bigger picture of how their product is made, or intentional where companies purposely miss out on negative information about their products.
Under the Scissors CEF Project
At UHI Moray, students from UHI Moray's Hairdressing and Beauty & Aesthetic Therapies courses teamed up with their Just Transition team and external agencies to empower the hair and beauty industry to talk climate change.
A climate conversation is a peer-to-peer chat about our changing world. It can be difficult to have a conversation about climate change. Many people find it a big, confusing or anxiety-causing topic. However, just one climate conversation can help people feel less alone and feel more knowledgeable and hopeful about the future.
Flash cards with facts about climate change were created, which students could talk about with clients as they start their own climate conversations.
Buy & Sell
Banking
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Sustainable or ethical banking is quite often overlooked when it comes to being environmentally friendly. Ethical banking is more about what a bank doesn't do, such as investing in things that are bad for the environment such as fossil fuels or things that may be considered as harmful to society such as tobacco or weapons.
Like banking, it's important when employing staff or even yourself to find out how ethical they are and where their money gets invested.
Purchasing
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When purchasing something for your organisation the first thing you need to ask yourself is “do we really need it?” If the answer is yes, then the next question you should ask yourself is “can we loan or borrow it?”. Community groups are often happy to share or loan out equipment individually or as part of a community asset bank. Other places to look would be sharing libraries for tools or technical equipment.
If you do however need to purchase something permanent, then it's worth checking to see if you can purchase from a second hand/charity organisation to help divert objects going to landfill.
If you are purchasing new, look for products that have been made sustainably such as using recycled materials or from an ethical supplier or social enterprise. In rural areas it can be more difficult to find the exact product you are after so sometimes the only option is to buy online, however it is important to try and buy from local or even national suppliers to avoid adding to travel emissions.
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Who you choose as your supplier plays a big part in your journey to being sustainable, 80% of emissions come from supply chains. If you have an organisation such as a shop or cafe where you are selling products, it's important to think about where those products are being sourced.
When choosing a supplier, you want to have a look at how they measure their carbon footprint, what their sustainability goals are and how they track their progress towards those goals. It's also important to consider how their products are made, for example using fair trade products, do they use renewable energy, and how they ship and package their products.
Other things to look out for would be businesses' ethics and integrity along with their diversity, equality and inclusion.
Greenwashing
Greenwashing is when a company appears to be environmentally friendly but doesn't actively reduce their environmental impact. This can be done through using popular phrases relating to climate action that don't hold up when explored in depth or misleading advertisements about their products. This can be intentional or unintentional if the company isn't aware of other factors relating to the production of a product.
Greenwashing is hard to avoid in some instances and you can find yourself going down rabbit holes. An example could be sustainable compostable packaging which is an alternative to plastic. Compostable doesn’t always mean better as frequently these products need industrial composting which is not available in Highland.
Energy
Business Energy Scotland
Business Energy Scotland provides free and impartial support to help small and medium-sized businesses save energy, carbon and money. They offer an energy efficiency assessment which gives you all the information you need to find out how efficient your building is, how it could be more efficient and the costs and savings of upgrading the building. They also offer The Green Champions Training Course which is a free CPD Certified online training course for Scottish organisations to take part in and it gives the knowledge and understanding to improve the resource efficiency and environmental performance of your organisation. There are various other assessments such as lighting and solar panel assessments.
Buildings
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When choosing what cleaning products to stock your cupboards with it's important to look at what they contain and how they are made. Eco cleaning products are made from naturally derived ingredients which allows them to break down more naturally and reduces the number of pollutants being released into the environment, especially into water sources. They are also better for our health as they reduce exposure to harmful chemicals from traditional cleaning products.
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Sustainable facilities management is when a commercial space is actively managed to be more sustainable. This includes supporting stakeholders to implement measures that will reduce a spaces carbon emissions with the goal of reaching Net Zero. This also shows positive impacts towards the community they operate in.
Sustainable facility management also helps keep costs lower by reducing the amount of water and energy used and finding ways to reduce and reuse. Retrofitting buildings with renewable energy sources, fitting energy saving lightbulbs or installing insulation.
Travel
Active travel is something that is mentioned a lot when it comes to climate action, it’s important to encourage staff and volunteers to walk, wheel or car share when traveling to and from the workplace. Having a safe place to store bikes or setting up a means of communication for organising car sharing can help this.
Sustainable Travel Hierarchy
The sustainable travel hierarchy is used to visualise the various methods of travel and how they compare when it comes to sustainability. The higher they are in the hierarchy the more sustainable the travel option is.
“Choosing to walk or cycle just one mile to the shop and back once a week instead of taking the car will see fuel savings of £16 and 27kg in carbon dioxide (CO2) annually. This is the equivalent of charging your smart phone 3,443 times.” - Energy Saving Trust
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
When working or volunteering within a community organisation it's obvious that there are a lot of moving parts, projects being completed, events and engagement activities being run, and networks being created.
It's important to keep in mind that everything we use or have used should be reduced, reused or recycled where possible. This helps your organisation on its way to reaching net zero as it lowers consumerism and the carbon emissions related to it.
Food
Food has an impact on the climate, through the amount of carbon produced to make and dispose of. This makes it an important subject when it comes to deciding where your food comes from, the amount that will be consumed and how to sustainably dispose of the waste.
“By sending 1kg of food waste to landfill it produces the same amount of carbon emissions as 25000 500ml plastic bottles.”
Nature
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Nature-based solutions work through using the environment in and around communities to help solve issues in the area, such as natural flood defenses. Using natural solutions also means that it's sustainable for the natural environment which makes it more likely to be sustainable in the long term.
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Green spaces build resilience and equality within communities as they provide everyone with the same access to social, health and recreational spaces.
Adaption & Resilience
Adaption Networks & Agencies
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Adapting to a changing climate can mean various things to different communities. Coastal communities may be more at risk of tidal flooding whereas communities within woodland areas may be more at risk of transport disruptions from windblown trees. These physical impacts of climate change are the more obvious impacts. It's important to remember that things like climate anxiety, or changes of land use and introducing community resilience or regeneration projects also show that climate change is affecting our communities even when they aren't as obvious.
Having an adaptation plan for the community when these things happen is very important, especially for rural areas where transport and healthcare can be disrupted.
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Adaption Scotland's Routemap gives instructions on how to build resilience and prepare for the changes we will see in our climate.
The Starter Pack is part of a suite of resources and support designed to help public sector organisations develop the capabilities needed to adapt to climate change. Tasks and accompanying templates are provided to equip you with the information, skills and confidence needed to begin delivering effective adaptation work.
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The Highland Resilience Network helps communities build a resilience plan and learn more about how capable communities are to respond to emergencies.
Other Resources
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We need change on a huge scale to tackle climate change. But all our actions have an impact. Understand what you can do, now, to make a difference.
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The Community Climate Adaptation Routemap is a practical guide to help communities adapt to climate change. No matter what kind of community you are, there are actions you can take to build resilience, prepare for climate change, and make your area healthier, safer, and more comfortable for people and wildlife.
This Routemap offers clear steps for local action groups, community councils, and development trusts to build their resilience to climate change.