Ronnie Whiteside of Ceartas
Ronnie Whiteside of Ceartas
Ronnie Whiteside explains why he chose our accredited Climate Emergency Training and outlines what he gained from it.
Ronnie is Compassionate Care Coordinator at Ceartas and completed our fully accredited online Climate Emergency Training for people across East Dunbartonshire in 2025.
About the training
This fully accredited training provided the opportunity to be certified as Carbon Literate and was designed in partnership with East Dunbartonshire Council and East Dunbartonshire Voluntary Action. The training featured a variety of local case studies. It was fully funded by £42,175 from the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
You can view our currently available accredited Climate Emergency Training and book online via our Eventbrite page.
Why did you choose Climate Emergency Training for people across East Dunbartonshire?
I was keen to enhance the general day-to-day activities of my organisation and to hear about how other organisations of all sizes approach their respective environmental policies. This training was a great introduction to this and helped me to explore what was happening elsewhere.
What benefits have you noted as a result of undertaking Climate Emergency Training?
By gaining a greater insight to all things green, I am keen and confident to do more where possible, as is my organisation which is very encouraging. For ourselves as a small charity, it’s a focus on how our smaller actions can make large differences over time as we move toward our environmental targets. By attending this training and achieving an accredited an award, I have taken back this knowledge to the team and it has reinvigorated my organisation to start an environment sub-group, where members of the team opt-in to meet quarterly to review our practices and policies around sustainability.
What support did Keep Scotland Beautiful provide?
Tim (Senior Training Officer for Keep Scotland Beautiful) was fantastic from start to finish and was always available to answer my specific questions around our approach to enhancing our practices. Tim made it easy to understand what would help and why, and the week between sessions allowed me time to consider what we had learned and how to tailor this to my organisation. I found the presentation and the resources equally engaging, both helping to tell the story and emphasize the importance of the topic we were learning about.
What’s next for you?
Build on the environment sub-group – consider adapting or changing practices where suitable. Continue to play our part collectively in whatever ways we can, encouraging new and innovative ideas that we haven’t considered before. It will be nice to see us have more self-awareness and take more individual responsibility for better environmental decisions, and hope this attitude continues as we move forward.
"The current environmental issues affect us all and the title of this training is very appropriate in reminding us of the urgency we should be tackling these with. I thoroughly enjoyed this training about a tough subject, but with greater understanding we can help to reduce the impact we’re having on our planet at local, national and global level. Personally I think this training was a great prompt to something I have always been aware of, but admittedly haven’t been doing as much as I can with, so would encourage everybody to book their place on this training. Thanks again!!"
Ronnie Whiteside, Compassionate Care Coordinator at Ceartas became certified as Carbon Literate after attending our Climate Emergency Training in 2025.
Develop the knowledge to respond to the Climate Emergency, move towards net zero and become certified as Carbon Literate.
Summer, autumn and winter courses are open for booking now.
We would be delighted to discuss developing Accredited Climate Emergency Training for you.
Or we have a variety of Introductory Climate Emergency Training if you are looking to help your audience take their first steps into understanding the Climate Emergency.
