Carbon Literacy means being aware of the impact of everyday activities on the climate, and knowing what steps can be taken to reduce emissions as an individual, a community group, or an organisation, and why it’s important that we all take these steps. The actions of individuals can and does make a difference. Learners who have completed a day’s worth of approved Carbon Literacy learning can be certified as Carbon Literate.

Certificates awarded to individuals carry unique codes and will not expire, but it is likely that the core elements of the content will evolve over time, and standards and expectations will rise. When subsequent “upgraded” versions of the certificate become available, individuals may choose to refresh their skills to ensure they retain the latest version. This is particularly likely to be the case if these certificates are used to support the Carbon Literate Organisation (CLO) status of an organisation.

Your Carbon Literacy course will teach you the basics of climate change science, what’s already happening globally and locally, how your actions may be affecting climate change and what you, as an individual, can do to help. During your course, you will also make at least two significant low-carbon pledges. You will:

1. Create at least one significant action, as an individual, to reduce your own personal carbon footprint.
2. Create at least one significant action involving other people to reduce the collective footprint of your workplace, community or place of education.

You will discuss ways in which you can reduce your impact and the benefits of doing so. You’ll also learn about some of the excellent things that those around us are already doing (good, wholesome inspiration!) and find out how to motivate and inspire those around you, including gaining the confidence to express your Carbon Literacy to others.

Not at all. You don’t need to have any prior knowledge of climate change to take part in this course. You do need to be keen and willing to learn.

Certificates are only issued by The Carbon Literacy Project. During your workshop, your trainer will be collecting evidence from the session (these can be photos, questionnaires or anything that we can use to see that you’ve taken part in the learning, and created a personal and group action). When this evidence is submitted to The Project by your trainer we will review it and use it to certify you as Carbon Literate. We will then issue your certificate to your trainer, who will distribute to you.

That depends on where you are trained. The Carbon Literacy Project receives no central funding, so for obvious reasons, there has to be a charge for the work required to certify training and certification (to cover our own costs). Whilst these costs are a fraction of the cost of other certification schemes, they are real and need to be factored into training planning. Do remember, the financial benefits of Carbon Literacy alone outweigh the costs many, many times over.

The ‘Carbon Literacy: Knowledge’ e-learning course has been developed to assist organisations and trainers in delivering Carbon Literacy. The framework meets almost all of the requirements of the “Knowledge” component of the Carbon Literacy Standard. The course covers the basic science of climate change, in a structured and easy to navigate way. The course takes a learner about 3 ½ hours to complete, leaving the rest of the day’s worth of learning to be delivered through a face-to-face workshop. Following completion of the course, a learner is awarded a uniquely-coded Carbon Literacy interim certificate, which is upgraded to a full Carbon Literacy certificate upon completion of their full day’s worth of learning.

Now you know more about climate change you can talk about it to others. Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know the answer to a question (there is so much to learn about climate change, no one can ever know it all!) but speak out about what you know. If you encounter a difficult question then Skeptical Science is an excellent place to go to find the answer, plus it gives you the science behind all the most common climate change myths that you’ll encounter.