image © Garry Knight
Royal Parks is the charity that cares for London's eight Royal Parks including Hyde Park, Richmond Park, Kensington Gardens and Saint James’s Park. They look after 5,000 acres of historic parklands and hundreds of heritage buildings, statues and memorials with 180 staff and contractors across the parks.
The charity’s focus is on climate change adaptation, energy management and waste strategies, amongst lots of other things! They are interested in speaking to members who have installed solar panels on heritage buildings. 70% of their fleet is currently electric.
Break Children's Charity
Break Children’s Charity help young people in care and moving on, children with disabilities, children at risk, and families who need support. They have 49 charity shops across East Anglia and the West Country, 450 permanent staff and 915 volunteers.
The charity is in the process of revising its organisation’s environmental policy, and has joined Fit for the Future to learn about how other organisations approached this. They would like to run their 49 shops more sustainably, and look forward to linking up with similar charities.
The Institute of Conservation is the professional body for the conservation of our cultural heritage. It represent nearly 3,000 individuals and organisations with membership incorporating professional conservators and conservation scientists, volunteers and heritage professionals.
ICON recently published a great summary of reasons for joining Fit for the Future on its blog:
“John Ruskin, a pioneer of the early conservation movement in the UK, didn’t see any distinction between the need to care for our natural environment and to care for our cultural heritage. So, given the immense challenges facing the planet as a result of climate change, it is only right that Icon follows his lead and plays a part in supporting ideas and activities to combat and adapt to climate change within our field of conservation. We don’t have the answers but we can support our members to share good practice and to collaborate on this important issue, and we can also show leadership through our own actions. With that in mind, a few of our Trustees are currently working on a draft environmental policy for Icon.”
…we are building allegiances with other organisations who are working to address climate change. We have recently joined Fit for the Future, an environmental sustainability network that brings together over 100 charities, heritage organisations, cultural venues and others to share best practice. Their aim is to help people and organisations learn from the experiences of those who are leaders in their fields through case studies, seminars and workshops.
Read the full post ‘ICON Joins Fight to Address Climate Emergency’ here.
Canopy Housing empower people who are homeless to transform empty houses in Leeds into homes and become part of a community. Their central team include 15 members of staff.
Canopy are joining Fit for the Future for help getting started on their sustainability action plan. Many of the buildings they renovate are Victorian, and they are keen to link with other organisations who are retrofitting and see good practice case studies. They are also keen to lower their carbon impact during construction, and learn more about EVs and options to replace their three diesel vans. They have a low budget but loads of enthusiasm!
Our four new members join more than 80 other organisations and the hundreds of individual practitioners working to make these organisations climate-friendly, adaptive and resilient. See our full membership here.