Bright Green Future
We must all play a part in the climate emergency and CSE is supporting environmental leaders of the future through our Bright Green Future (BGF) programme. A free UK-wide environmental leadership and empowerment programme for 16-19-year-olds.
We particularly welcome applications from people of colour because we want to tackle the lack of diversity in the environmental sector.
People of colour are currently poorly represented in the environment sector and Bright Green Future helps young people to develop leadership skills, provides opportunities for their future career and builds their professional networks. The programme also works to channel the wisdom, energy and enthusiasm we see in young people into environmental change, by exposing current leaders and decision-makers to a more diverse range of perspectives.
Since 2016, we’ve inspired more than 300 young people to be changemakers and create a positive impact. Since pledging to increase our intake young people of colour, 51% of our young people per cohort have been young people of colour with the ambition of reaching 75% young people of colour completing each cohort in future.
The BGF programme helped me connect with what I wanted and how I wanted to show up and create change in the world. I always felt like there was pressure from school to go down a certain path, but BGF made me realise I could do something completely different and have an impact in the way I truly wanted.
BGF student
Teaching climate and energy in schools
We also work with schools to empower young people to become the next generation of energy champions. Our suite of free-to-use, adaptable educational materials explore topics including climate change, energy saving and fuel poverty.
About the Bright Green Future programme
Over six-months, our BGF students are part of a diverse and inclusive group of 25 young people.
Together they will:
- Experience an immersive residential of engaging workshops and talks, time spent outdoors and connecting with the other young people on the programme
- Create and run an inspirational workshop on an environmental topic of choice, working in a team with four of five other students
- Join interactive online session to meet different people working in jobs that are having a positive impact. Students can ask questions and find out about the speaker’s journey
- Learn about different sustainability topics in an accredited online course and share learnings in monthly discussion groups
- And finally, celebrate their achievements and graduate from the programme
To continue the Bright Green Future experience, we have a thriving alumni network of past students. There’s also paid opportunities to become alumni mentors, inspiring and working with future students.
BGF helped me become more aware of how activism and environmentalism at all scales is important and I learnt how to cope with a lot of climate anxiety and burnout too.
BGF student
In November 2021, Roy Kareen (BGF programme lead) spoke at COP26 on pathways that respect a more inclusive future and the work of the BGF programme and Bristol’s Black & Green Ambassadors. You can read more about this here.
