About us
Climate Ed is a charity with a mission to provide high quality carbon literacy to children across the UK, and enable them, their families and communities to reduce their carbon emissions.
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Our Vision is a society where young people understand how they can tackle climate change and are empowered to act. Our 2030 goal is to make high quality carbon literacy education available to every primary-aged child in the UK. ​
Climate Ed deliver an education programme to primary schools that consists of five one-hour workshops, combining drama, knowledge sharing, conversation and games. By the end of the programme children commit to taking climate action in the family or community.
We are unique in delivering our programme through our trained volunteer network of passionate, knowledgeable and skilled climate advocates and offering it free of charge to schools. With the volunteers’ subject expertise, personal commitment and relevant background, they inspire the children and spark their curiosity in finding solutions.
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Because we know that climate change impacts vulnerable and marginalised communities more acutely, Climate Ed deliver much of our work in areas of multiple deprivation. Our aim is to uplift children, to support people who are often excluded from the climate conversation to find a voice on climate change.
‘The programme made me feel strong about what I can do to stop climate change’.
The challenge
Climate change is the greatest challenge our planet faces and will be the defining issue for our current young generation.
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Carbon emissions must fall by 50% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 to limit global heating to 1.5C (IPCC 2022). But countries’ current pledges put us on track for a temperature rise this century of at least 2.7°C (UNFCCC 2021). According to a 2022 House of Lords Report, 32% of the reductions needed in the UK by 2035 depend on us making lifestyle changes.
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90% of teachers think that climate change education should be compulsory in schools but 70% feel that they have not had adequate training to do so (Teach the Future, 2020), and the current national guidelines lack a compulsory requirement to teach climate change.
Our Young People’s Needs analysis shows there is a growing demand for high-quality climate education among young people. 8 in 10 (81%) of children said they wanted to do more to look after the environment (Natural England 2021) and a 2024 UCL report showed 87% of school children expressed concern about what the world will be like in the future because of climate change. In this study, climate change evoked many negative emotions, particularly sadness, anxiety, guilt and shame.
The Royal College of Psychologists recommends averting eco anxiety by methods core to the Climate Ed programme including listening to children and take their feelings seriously, supporting them to take action to feel more in control, hopeful and resilient and calculating the family’s carbon footprint and ways to reduce it.
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​Climate education is a recognised social tipping intervention (PNAS 2020), capable of generating a positive feedback loop where children influence their families and communities. The PNAS report confirms the role of education in social transformations and describes climate education as a ‘contagious dynamic’.
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Our Story
Climate Ed started work in November 2018. At first it was very small – just the co-founders going into a few local schools. In this early period we were testing what the children liked learning about and how best to engage them on the topic. From there we developed a complete programme for teaching about carbon literacy and registered as a charity in April 2020.
For the next four years we expanded across London, developing a strong reputation and awards for our work. Most recently we were awarded the Commitment to Climate Justice Award at the Lambeth Civic Awards 2024 and the Climate Champion Award at the Southwark Civic Awards 2024.
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In 2024 we launched our 2024-27 strategy and began a period of growth, building towards our 2030 goal of making high quality carbon literacy education available to every primary-aged child in the UK. We now operate in London, West Midlands and Thames Valley, with ambitious plans to expand to every UK region.
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Our impact
We currently deliver our programme to about 7000 children per year. Our 2024-27 strategy has a strong plan for growth, and by the end of academic year 2027 we will be operating in five regions, delivering to 18,500 children per annum, each of whom will have a plan to engage their family.
If each child and their family simply switched to a meat free meal once a week, our 2027 programme would reduce over 7,000 tonnes of carbon.
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Evaluation data shows:
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94% of children said that the programme improved their knowledge of climate change*
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85% of children said the programme inspired them to do something to help with climate change*
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89% said the programme made them feel positive about how you can help with climate change*
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Research conducted with students three months after the programme showed that approximately:
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50% of families were reducing carbon from their travel.
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50% of families were eating less meat and dairy.
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80% of families had reduced consumption/were participating in other carbon-saving initiatives.
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*a bit, quite a lot or a lot​​