The Climate Change Collaboration

The Climate Change Collaboration is an initiative comprised of the Aurora Trust and two other Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, the Mark Leonard Trust and JJ Charitable Trust. We support efforts which help stabilise global temperatures, restore our natural world, and support a regenerative economy. We aim to help reshape market norms, incentives and structures and create a political mandate to keep fossil fuels in the ground and accelerate finance into climate and nature solutions.

Since 2015 the Climate Change Collaboration has helped spearhead the Divest Invest movement within Europe. Divest Invest asks investors to move their money out of fossil fuels investments and into climate solutions. The Trust has engaged with many different organisations and institutional investors across Europe.

A grantee supported through the Climate Change Collaboration:

The Green Finance Institute

The Green Finance Institute develops financial solutions to accelerate the transition to a low carbon future.

The Climate Change Collaboration is supporting its local climate bonds campaign which it launched in 2021 with Abundance to encourage UK local councils to set up local climate bonds. Local climate bonds are financial products launched by local councils to generate funding and allow local people to invest in low carbon community projects (i.e. solar panels).

So far eleven councils have issued local climate bonds to generate income for local green projects, raising over £9.5m combined.

Connecting People with Nature

There is a wealth of evidence which shows that spending time outside in nature has lasting positive effects on our physical and mental health as well as our general well-being. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the extent to which access to nature differs across our society; those who are most disadvantaged often have less access to, and miss out on the benefits of, natural spaces.

We believe everyone should have access to natural spaces and we have a long history of supporting organisations and initiatives which get people back into nature.

Connecting Children with Nature

The Trust has a large focus on connecting children with nature; there is plenty of evidence which suggests that children feel better when outside, develop more holistically and learn better in outdoor settings. The Trust’s strategy will be to:

• Provide opportunities for children (of school and college age) and especially those from disadvantaged homes, groups, and communities to connect with and access nature, outdoor learning and play;
• Enable children to reap the mental, and physical health benefits of being outside and more connected with nature.

Another benefit of achieving these two aims may be that children also develop a sense of care and responsibility towards the natural world.

We recognise that some of the factors which enable or affect children being able to fully benefit from time outside in nature are:

• An adult guide (such as teachers, parents, out-door and community leaders) who themselves are confident about being outside and in nature.
• Opportunities for active engagement in nature.
• Nearly every child goes to school, so schools are well-placed to provide opportunities.
• Once children reach the age of puberty, many begin to feel much less connected to nature – likely because they are moving through puberty and the way that secondary school education is structured.

We seek to achieve our strategy through the following ways:

Directly supporting children’s access to nature

The Trust has a small grants programme which funds children’s outdoor time in nature and play.

Supporting ‘multiplier’ opportunities which help connect children with nature

Important areas of focus for us are:

• ‘Teaching the teachers’ so that schoolteachers are confident to deliver outdoor, engaging education and play.
• Providing advice to farmers, land-managers and land-owners about how to establish outdoor learning and nature connectedness experiences for children.
• Connecting organisations that provide support services to disadvantaged children with organisations providing support for outdoor education and play, and supporting organisations that directly provide outdoor learning and nature connectedness opportunities for disadvantaged children.

• Connected to the above, we may provide further support to address some of the practical barriers to outdoor education and play; such as transport and having waterproof clothes and boots, and social barriers such as feeling comfortable being out in nature.

Evidence gathering and advocacy for connecting children with nature

We want also want to support grantees to develop, share and communicate evidence which supports why children should be given access to nature and the benefits of outdoor learning and their learnings from their work.

Some of our grantees:

The Harmony Project

The Harmony Project aims to transform the education system so that nature and sustainability are at the heart of learning. We are funding the Harmony Project to run a field trial to test a model to deliver regular nature-based learning in up to 90 schools as part of the Learning in Nature programme. The trial will collect insights into how schools use the funding and engage with nature-based learning and the impacts of it on both students and teachers.

The Country Trust

The Country Trust brings disadvantaged school children to farms to help them understand where their food comes from and to learn more about and connect with the UK countryside.

 

 

Connecting adults with nature

Whilst the Trust has a main focus on connecting children with nature, it also supports organisations which help adults acquire the mental and physical health benefits of being connected with nature. An example of a grantee which do so is:

Horatio’s Garden

Horatio’s Garden design, create and look after gardens within NHS spinal injury centres for patients dealing with serious spinal trauma. They have opened eight gardens across the UK and Scotland.