Scottish Institutions Secure Climate Challenge Fund Funding

26th March 2018

On 16th March 2018, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced the award of £15.3 million for 110 community-led projects in the 24th round of grants from the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund.
 
The Scottish Government Climate Challenge Fund encourages communities across Scotland to take action on climate change, and so help enable a transition to more sustainable, low carbon lifestyles. The Fund supports projects which lead to realistic and measurable carbon reduction and/or increase communities’ resilience to the impacts of climate change, are community led, and leave a long standing legacy of low carbon behaviour.  Project themes include energy efficiency advice to households, improvements to community-owned properties, greener travel, waste reduction and recycling, and local seasonal food-growing.
 
The total funding since the launch of the fund in 2008 has now reached £101 million, with 1,097 grants across Scotland. The First Minister recently visited the 1000th recipient of the fund.

Along with community groups, the fund is supporting projects within Scottish universities and colleges. We spoke to these fantastic projects about what this funding means for them.
 

Community Share for Climate Care

Transition University of St Andrews, St Andrews Botanic Garden & St Andrews Environment Network
£293,645

The fund will expand their low carbon living programme based at “the Kernel”, a new community space within the grounds of the St Andrews Botanic Garden.
 

This funding will enable us to continue to build a strong University / Community project within the grounds of the St Andrews Botanic Garden that works across the themes of shared economy, food growing and carbon literacy. It’s wonderful to get two years funding that will enable a much more detailed programme of activity to take place.

 

Go Green Low Carbon Travel Project

Edinburgh College Students' Association
£174,536

The project will promote sustainable travel to students. Project activities include travel planning support, promotion of lift sharing and use of an eco-driving simulator with events at the start of term to gather interest. The project will also run a series of engagement events to increase awareness of climate change and highlight opportunities for students to reduce their impact.
 

We are delighted to be the first ever College Students’ Association to be successful in a bid to the Climate Challenge Fund, and excited about the projects we can deliver across the 4 campuses. This would not be possible without the partnership with the Development Trust and the College Sustainability team. This project will help students better understand the impact their choice of travel has on the environment and how we can support them to reduce their carbon emissions, save money, and become more active.

 

AberGreen

Aberdeen University Students’ Association
£163,153

The project aims to reduce energy consumption in University halls through a campaign and competition that will both reduce carbon emissions and increase understanding of climate change. Initiatives to tackle waste include collection and distribution of second hand items from University accommodation that would otherwise go to landfill. Further project activities include support to increase consumption of local and seasonal produce and raise levels of sustainable travel.

I am delighted that we have secured Climate Challenge Funding in order to run the AberGreen project. This will enable us to expand and develop campus sustainability initiatives, providing resources to reduce waste and cut carbon emissions with support from dedicated staff. Our initiative will result in a huge expansion of the community gardens and local growing, a developed low-carbon transport campaign, as well as improved provision of the VegBag scheme and swap shop schemes, and a new energy efficiency programme.

 

Swap and Reuse Hub Co-operative

University of Edinburgh
£289,937

Swapping Normal, SHRUB Changes Gears project, will increase the number of people using their Swapshop by moving it to a prominent high street location to reach a wider audience, with advice available on sustainable use of resources and climate change. The project will also involve collection and distribution of items discarded in student halls. The Wee Spoke Hub will expand their activities in the previous SHRUB premises at Guthrie Street, and offer a range of support to help people to replace car travel for that by bike. 
 

This CCF funding offers us the opportunity to follow the passion of our members, bringing the Swapshop into the centre of our community and offering a greater range of support for local people to over come barriers to cycling.

 

A list of all fund recipients can be found here.