First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced on 20 February 2017 the award of £9.97 million for 113 community-led projects in the 23rd round of grants from the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund.
ELREC was awarded £108,687 from Keep Scotland Beautiful Climate Challenge Fund to run the Communities for Conservation Project.
Ethnic minority communities take action on Climate Change.
Communities For Conservation is a project run by Edinburgh and Lothians Regional Equality Council (ELREC) to empower ethnic minority communities in Edinburgh and Livingston in initiatives related to energy saving, cycling and food growing. Project activities include home energy advice visits to help householders reduce energy use, carbon emissions and move out of fuel poverty. The project will also offer bikeability classes, food growing workshops and events to mainstream the topic of climate change.
Congratulation to the ELREC board, staff, volunteers and partners and everyone who took part in the #communitiesforconservation project.
“The First Minister said:
“Scotland is making huge progress in delivering our climate change ambitions, but there is still much to achieve and the role of behaviour change and community action is crucial.
“The Climate Challenge Fund supports community projects that inspire people to care about the problem of climate change, consider what it might mean to them in terms of their everyday lives and enable them to take action.
“R:evolve Recycle is an excellent example of this approach. They work with people spanning the whole community – from school children to elderly community residents.”
We have managed the Climate Challenge Fund on behalf of the Scottish Government since the Fund was established in 2008 and provide support, resources and training to support grant recipients and other community groups taking action on climate change.
Derek Robertson, Chief Executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful commented:
“Climate change impacts all of us and we need collective action to tackle it, so we were delighted to have supported so many communities from across Scotland in preparing applications for the latest round of the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund.
“We congratulate all those community-led organisations awarded Climate Challenge Fund grants and look forward to working with them as they implement their projects.
“We have managed the Climate Challenge Fund on behalf of the Scottish Government since the Fund was established in 2008 and are committed to empowering many more communities across Scotland to take action on climate change. We see this as part of our work to make Scotland clean, green and more sustainable.”
In 2017/18 the Climate Challenge Fund totals £9.97 million and is a combination of £9.09 million from the Scottish Government and £0.88 million from the European Regional Development Fund.
Iain Gulland, Chief Executive of Zero Waste Scotland said:
“Scotland’s ambitions for a circular economy, where we make things last for longer, go hand-in-hand with its world-leading commitments to tackling climate change. Thanks to extra investment from the European Regional Development Fund we’re now able to help more communities across Scotland take action locally to benefit Scotland’s environment.
“We look forward to working with the successful organisations to make a real difference to their communities.”
You can view a full list of CCF grant recipients for 2017/18 on the Scottish Government’s website. The projects will commence their activities on 1 April 2017.”
