Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) is helping run Scotland’s Climate Festival, a Scottish Government funded project aimed at encouraging climate action in communities across Scotland.

What Is It?

Scotland’s Climate Festival supports communities across the country to plan and deliver their own local climate festivals, alongside KSB’s national programme of events.

Communities can sign up to host events (a single event or a whole festival) on a range of topics (including energy, growing, travel, and waste).

Scotland is working to become a Net Zero nation by 2045. Recognising the importance of local voices and the power of community action is viewed as essential to meeting this target. Local festivals help build public support for the ambitious changes needed to tackle the climate crisis, and are also a chance to listen to the views of local people, helping inform action at the local and national level.

The festivals are designed to help mainstream climate action across Scotland and engage people in community conversations on climate change, following COP26.

Each festival will have its own distinctive shape and flavour, drawing on the creativity, connections, skills and interests of its community, and can take place online or in-person. Festivals can be a single activity, 5 days of events, or anything in between. The festivals will provide engaging, fun and practical content designed to reach beyond those who are already engaged, to a wide cross section of the community, using a mix of practical workshops, artistic and cultural events and community conversations.

Support Available

Through their national partners, KSB can provide resources and ideas for groups, along with their own “How To” guide and Comms Kit.

Seed Funding

There is also a seed fund available with awards of £100 – £500, particularly aimed at smaller organisations and groups interested in starting a new climate event in their local community, or in getting their fledgling event to the next stage.

This can be for any climate-related community event, such as a growing workshop, a led bike ride, introduction to community energy, local forage, or a conversation or film screening.

Groups don’t need to be constituted to apply, or have a bank account; they only need to have a clear request of what the funds will be used for, a budget, and to be able to report back to KSB after the event.

Applications for both physical, in-person and online events are welcomed.

For this first wave of Scotland’s Climate Festival, KSB is considering applications from festivals and community events taking place from now until Thursday 31^st March 2022.

For further information on the seed fund, including all relevant criteria and how to apply, please visit the dedicated page.

Community Climate Action Plans

KSB’s recent support initiative on Community Climate Action Plans was very popular, and the KSB team have suggested an alternative for any groups who were unsuccessful in that application: that groups run their proposed Community Climate Action Plan through the Climate Festival.

This option would allow groups to apply for the seed fund (depending on their eligibility), and receive support from KSB, including resources and a video on running the action plan process.

For further information, including support available, please visit the Scotland’s Climate Festival page.

Alternatively, to discuss any ideas or support, contact the KSB team by email: climatefestivalscot@keepscotlandbeautiful.org