April 23, 2025, by sustainablenottingham
Climate Ambassadors: 1000 and growing!
What is the Climate Ambassadors scheme?
The Climate Ambassadors scheme is an initiative funded by the Department for Education with the aim of helping all education settings make and implement a Climate Action Plan. It is delivered by a national consortium led by the University of Reading and EAUC. In the East Midlands, the Universities for Nottingham partnership acts as the regional hub, offering tailored support to schools and colleges across Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and Rutland.
How’s it going?
Pupil voice at NottAlone 2025: How can we fight climate change?
Since launching in 2022, the programme has trained over 1,000 Climate Ambassadors who have worked with more than 1,600 schools – that’s around 1 in every 15 education settings in England. In the East Midlands, the Climate Ambassador network is over 120 strong, supporting over 250 settings.
The scheme has been present at many regional events, engaging with young people to share their ideas on climate action. Pupils shared how climate change makes them feel and what we can do as a community to take action.
What is it like to be a Climate Ambassador?
Many of our university colleagues, both staff and students, have trained to share their skills and passions with local education settings. This includes a group of students from UoN and NTU who are actively supporting primary schools in Nottingham City to create impactful climate action plans and work with young people to inspire them in climate action.
Heather Young and Lorien Birch, 3rd Year Biosciences students at UoN, are enjoying working with Y5 pupils at their local school:
“We have been working with the Year 5 children to imagine a greener future which has been both inspiring and insightful. We conducted an initial ‘Imagination Workshop’, hearing the children’s incredibly imaginative ideas, positivity and environmental proactivity. We are looking forward to actioning some of the ideas from the session, including building bird feeders and bird boxes, planting more flowers to attract pollinators and ultimately looking ahead to longer-term goals of renewable energy sources for the school. Their creativity and enthusiasm in our imagination workshop is shaping the foundation of the school’s climate action plan, and we’re excited to continue working alongside them to create real, lasting change.”
Climate and Nature Action in Education Event for educators, hosted by University of Nottingham, 2024.
In the wider region, Climate Ambassadors are working with Trusts and Partnerships on this journey, linking up with other organisations that work in this space. This is a great opportunity for personal development, as Katie Parsons, Research Fellow at Loughborough University, explains:
“The programme has also helped us engage with brilliant initiatives like the National Education Nature Park. Collaboration is key to addressing the climate crisis, and this scheme enables just that—helping schools take meaningful steps towards a more sustainable future.”
Whether it’s through mentoring, workshops, or simply sharing expertise, Climate Ambassadors are helping to embed sustainability into the heart of education – and here in the East Midlands, the movement is growing stronger every day. If you would like to be a part of the movement, find out more by visiting the website or emailing your Regional Hub Manager: ca-eastmids@nottingham.ac.uk.
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