The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh EH3 6BB.
Climate confident village halls
The climate emergency affects us all. But as organisations across the third sector try to cope with rising running costs and increasing demand on services, environmental action can too often be pushed down the road. We want to help you understand your options, whether you’re unsure where to start or already taking action and want more ideas.
Growing Climate Confidence
Growing Climate Confidence is a comprehensive digital resource tool from SCVO, providing information and guidance on reducing your emissions and engaging your community on your journey to Net Zero. The tool will help you to learn about the climate crisis, share your experiences with others in the sector, discover actions and funding you can take to address it. There’s a scorecard you can take to work out where you are on the journey to net zero and to give you ideas of what you can do next.
Energy efficiency
Making improvements to the energy efficiency and environmental impact of your community space – the building fabric, its facilities and activities – will have a significant impact on cutting down emissions and your journey to Net Zero.
You should carry out a simple audit of your community space, to help you identify the most effective options for energy efficiency improvements. Business Energy Scotland have a template you can use to audit your space and offer a free assessment service which is open to charities as well as social enterprises.
There are a range of low-cost measures you can make, as well as more expensive improvements that you could seek funding for.
Changing the way in which staff, volunteers and users in your community space use energy and controls can also make a big impact on energy use.
Practical improvements to your community space might include:
- insulation and draughtproofing
- upgrading heating systems
- investing in energy efficient lighting
- fitting heating controls
- putting in water saving gadgets
- changing to more efficient means of heating water.
Find out more about steps you take to improve the climate impact of your buildings and energy use on the Growing Climate Confidence website.
Rented or leased premises
If you rent your premises, you may not have direct control of energy efficiency in your community space. Getting your landlord onside is important and can help you make the community space more sustainable, even when you don’t have ultimate responsibility. And the more people ask this of landlords, the more they will see it as an important part of providing tenancy.
For example, your landlord could look at draught exclusion to save on the need to heat space, and minimising wasted energy. Other areas to look at include water use, recycling facilities, hand dryers, etc.
The Green Lease toolkit from the Better Buildings Partnership helps tenants and landlords work together to reduce energy consumption and waste, moving cooperation forward and providing templates for formal inclusion in lease agreements.
The Weston Property Manual from the Ethical Property Foundation, has a useful section on building energy use, conservation and improving environmental performance as part of operational strategy.
Has your village or community hall taken action to make your space and activities more environmentally friendly and sustainable? Tell us about it, to share ideas and inspire others.