City of Wolverhampton Council: Climate Emergency Toolkit and Employee Climate Change Summit

Lead Organisation

Sustainability West Midlands

Project Team: Alan Carr and Nathaniel Weaver

Overview

The Climate Emergency Toolkit provided City of Wolverhampton Council staff with a simple guide and pointers on what they can do at work and at home to help tackle the climate emergency. It featured four key themes: transport, energy use, resource efficiency and the natural environment. These themes were chosen to align with the council’s roadmap to 2028.

SWM were also commissioned to support and chair the council’s Employee Climate Change Summit, at which the toolkit was launched.

Aims

The aims were to create an accessible and easy to use tool to assist City of Wolverhampton Council’s employees to:

• Prepare and plan for the impact of climate change
• Lower scope 1,2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions
• Think and act more broadly to support climate and social justice, both at home and at work

Outcomes

The toolkit has been finalised as a 21-page interactive document with engaging visuals. It has been split into four themes, and within those themes were four sections that featured the following aspects:

• ‘Did You know’ sections to educate City of Wolverhampton Council employees on how their actions have an environmental, social and economic impact on the council, themselves, and the wider community.
• Action tips for home and at work, which included easy to follow behavioural change choices.
• A final section on each theme provided links, resources, and sustainable choice hierarchies.

Testimonial from the City of Wolverhampton:

The City of Wolverhampton Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and decided that there was a need to create an accessible and effective tool that could be used to champion sustainable change throughout Council. The toolkit, created by SWM, will support our employees to prepare and plan for the impacts of climate change, reduce carbon emissions to think and act more broadly to support climate and social justice, both at home and at work. Not only was the toolkit clear and easy to interpret, but it also offered cost effective solutions. SWM also supported and chaired the toolkit launch at our Employee Climate Change Summit, an engaging event featuring a keynote from Ed Cox from West Midlands Combined Authority and an interactive behaviour change session.

Download the full case study here

For further information on the project or to work with us in one of a variety of ways, please contact the SWM team at enquiries@swm.org.uk.