July’s Pledge of the Month is from Newham College. We’ve been working with Newham since 2025 offering Carbon Literacy training to mixed cohorts of staff and students.
This pledge made the cut because it illustrates the importance of bringing climate learning into the curriculum, no matter the subject. Yes there are meaningful action staff in colleges can take to reduce energy emissions, around things like travel and energy consumption. However, by far the biggest opportunity teaching staff have to make an impact is by engaging their students.
This is something that comes up again and again in conversations at Speak Carbon. When we look at emissions via scopes 1, 2 & 3, we’re only ever seeing part of the picture. Quite often, the biggest chance to create change is with what we sometimes refer to as our scope 4 emissions. This is our carbon handprint, our ability to influence others’ carbon footprints, and help them reduce them. For the legal sector this is clients, for the transport sector it’s passengers and for education settings like Newham College, it’s students.
Interested in increasing your organisation’s carbon handprint? Get in touch.