Climate Support Partnership – Big Local

Community work is climate work

Project duration: January 2022 ongoing

CSE is proud to have been appointed Climate Support Partner to the Big Local programme.

Big Local is a National Lottery programme – the largest single endowment ever made by the Lottery Community Fund – and we’re looking forward to working with some of the inspiring Big Local communities and supporting their efforts to tackle the climate crisis from a local perspective.

Since 2011 Big Local has given £1m each to 150 communities across England that have had very little lottery funding to date. The funding has no strings attached – as long as it is used to address local needs and priorities. Sounds pretty amazing, doesn’t it? You can read more in Big Local’s ‘half-way point’ report here.

Other Big Local support partners include the Good Things Foundation, Media Trust, StreetGames, Hamlett Films, Campaign for Better Transport, Shared Assets and UnLtd.

Among the valuable initiatives that Big Local communities have developed over the years are tackling loneliness, encouraging healthier lifestyles, improving employment opportunities and helping to create spaces for the community to come together.

CSE’s Harriet Sansom said: “Being Climate Support Partner is an exciting opportunity to work with Big Local communities to climate-proof their assets and activities and support them as they join the national effort to cut emissions.

“We recognise that the communities we’ll be working with have done a lot of work to identify community priorities, develop projects and create their Big Local plans, and we’ll be supporting them to climate-proof these. For example, if that the community has acquired a building, we’ll explore with them opportunities to improve its energy performance. Or if young people are identified as a priority area for a community and they’re interested in the idea of setting up an environment ambassadors scheme, we’ll support them to do this.”

This will be done through a combination of direct support and facilitating links to a variety of specialists. We’ll run a peer-support programme, facilitating Big Local groups to collaborate and share experiences of climate action from across the partnership.

For further information contact

Harriet Sansom |