Shaping and Influencing Policy: Q4 2023/24

Strategic engagement and working collaboratively

We are proud to link to Scottish Water’s new nationwide resources through our Eco-Schools programme to help empower children and young people throughout Scotland to take positive action to protect our water.

It was a pleasure to host our second online National Conversation event in January, the panel consisted of Decathlon store manager Ryan Wood, environmental ambassador Mike Scotland, Director of Low Impact Living Louise Hastie and environmental influencer Laura Young. This was a great opportunity for attendees to hear from the cross-sector panel about the issue of litter and how to tackle it across Scotland.

We attended the Scotland Beyond Net Zero partnership launch. This was an event hosted by the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow which launched their new initiative that brought together the research facilities and expertise of both institutions. We were fortunate to hear from academics as well as the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition, Mairi McAllan.

Developing and engaging with policy

Through working with ASH Scotland, the Marine Conservation Society, Scottish Environment LINK and Laura Young we have continued to champion for a ban on single-use vapes. We were delighted that the government announced that they were to ban single-use vapes and we added to their consultation on how the ban should take shape.

Furthermore, we were invited by the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland to attend their Ecocide Roundtable discussion, we were fortunate to hear from Monica Lennon MSP about her proposed Ecocide Prevention Bill.

Demonstrating expertise and credibility

On behalf of the Scottish Government we supported engagement events for their proposed Heat in Buildings Bill. We held both in-person and online sessions for people all over Scotland, which outlined the intentions of the Bill and allowed attendees to voice their opinions.

Since the publication of the Scottish Government’s National Litter and Flytipping Strategy last year, we have been working hard to deliver key actions outlined in the Year 1 National Litter and Flytipping 23/24 Action Plan.

In March we held an event to celebrate the success of the community groups across North Lanarkshire. At this event we were joined by Monica Lennon MSP who was able to engage with the community groups before delivering the keynote speech.