Free carbon footprint training in Edinburgh

Data 4 Climate Action Edinburgh received a request for help from Fountainbridge Canalside Community Trust. They wanted to know the carbon footprint of their largest current barge, the Lochrin Belle. I’ll say more about that in a future post.

I did not have the skills at the time to calculate that figure. Luckily I heard about some training that would be very relevant.

The Climate Springboard course is offered by the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute (ECCI), part of the University of Edinburgh. The course is free for eligible small to medium businesses in Scotland, and there are a modest number of places available for charities too.

The aim is to help organisations reduce their emissions in a way that saves money at the same time (fair enough, these are businesses primarily), and demonstrate they’re doing so. Many different stakeholders may be asking businesses and charities to assess and report their carbon footprint. The team showed us how to do exactly that, by developing a baseline, learning to track relevant sources of emissions, use tools that make it easy to compile and report on the data, and then use that data to drive planning for further action to reduce emissions.

The quality of the training was fantastic - all the attendees were made to feel very welcome. The information was all communicated very clearly. The training is a series of three live learning tutorials, a half-day each, with a trainer from the ECCI, in this case the wonderful Izi Robe. As learners we benefited from a great deal of interaction and additional support round about the course, so it was all very practical, and we all compiled a carbon footprint for our organisations as we progressed through the course, and had opportunities for input and feedback from Izi and the team throughout, and in the following months. So it was perfect.

And with the training, I was able to fish out the information I needed to estimate the mileage of the barge, the consumption, and make a comparison to an electric barge. Initially my numbers did not add up, but I refined the calculation and finally reached a figure. I am very grateful to Izi and colleagues at ECCI for checking over my final calculation, giving me and FCCT confidence in the result.

The new electric boat should save 1.7 tonnes of carbon every year. A stunning result, if I do say so myself. What would FCCT do with this information? To be continued…

Afore ye go…

If you’re part of a climate or biodiversity voluntary group or charity in Edinburgh, and you’d like us to provide some data support, please email me on data4climateactionedinburgh\@gmail.com . We’d love to hear from you.

If you’d like to join the D4CAE mailing list, and/or volunteer to help, please drop me an email on data4climateactionedinburgh\@gmail.com you’ll be most welcome.

Pauline Ward
Founder, Data 4 Climate Action Edinburgh

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Image credit: adapted from work by PixLoger on Pixabay https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red-Heart-vector-2731436.svg