Why did you make Climate Emergency Training with Keep Scotland Beautiful a priority?

I saw the certification on a colleague’s email signature and thought hmm, that looks pretty neat, I wonder what that’s all about. I spoke to her and she recommended the training. It also turns out that one of my colleagues is actually involved with Keep Scotland Beautiful so I chatted to him also, and he suggested using myself as a test to see if we want to put some of our wider team, members of our Net Zero Action Group of possibly a group of our Senior Leaders through one the training. So I had a bunch of reasons for wanting to go on the course.

Why did you choose the quarterly Climate Emergency Training with Keep Scotland Beautiful?

I wanted to do it with other people and not in self study and I wanted to ‘test the water’ so to speak for how useful this, relatively affordable, training would be. I recently completed a microcredential at the Open University which went into much more detail over several weeks but I found this a good summary of the most important points, especially aimed at non-specialists.

What benefits have you noted as a result of undertaking Climate Emergency Training?

I got a lot from doing it with other people. And to see how widely spread the care for our environment is, really gave me some hope. You get a bit cynical, I think, when you work in this field but seeing so many others from traditionally wasteful and carbon intensive industries as well as young, idealistic students and small business owners take this with me was a really positive experience. And the knowledge you gain is useful to make a great start, get some relevant language under your belt as well as facts and possibly some resources or videos to make a start in changing how you behave, your family or community might behave or even your organisation does.

What support did Keep Scotland Beautiful provide?

The course was delivered live, by a really caring and knowledgeable individual, we got homework and a login to study further materials if we had the time or inclination to do so. There were facilitated discussion – and I truly wish we had had more time for those as I loved them – and every email was answered if anything didn’t make sense or we needed more info. Really great!

What’s next for you?

In my role at Scottish Forestry, I chair the Net Zero Action Group and we are responsible for writing the Net Zero Road Map for our organisation. We also play a role in engaging and educating the rest of the organisation around this topic – although I am lucky and work with a lot of clued up people who deeply care about protecting the environment already, so that part is easy. In both those areas, this training will come in handy for sure.