Our Green Opportunities Fund is open for applications
This week, we’ve launched our Green Opportunities Fund – a £2.2m partnership between us and Co-op to help inspire young people to develop green skills and pursue green career paths.
In designing the fund, we looked back at our Gen Z(ero) research. Young people told us that they were keen to learn more about the transition to a more sustainable economy and the job opportunities that may exist for them.
In fact, 66% of young people want a career that helps tackle the climate crisis, but almost half (46%) don’t know how to access green jobs.
So, we looked further into this with our Green Opportunities Fund Report, to see what the barriers are to young people entering green jobs. One of the things our report revealed is that young people think green jobs aren’t for them. This is particularly true for underrepresented young people, including women, those from Global Majority backgrounds, young people with disabilities, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
With the help of our Environmental Collective (a group of eight young people) and Co-op, we looked at how we could address this, and our Green Opportunities Fund was created!
Learn more about who we’re looking to fund and how to apply for funding here.
My journey into a green job
Launching a fund with a focus on helping young people to consider green jobs and careers got me thinking about the influences that steered me towards this path.
Like many people, the career path I thought I’d take isn’t the same one I’m on now – I actually started out studying fashion. Now, I look after all of our environmental grantmaking at the Co-op Foundation – working with a range of partners from seaweed farms to young climate activists!
So how did I get here?
Everything changed one day when I saw a really inspirational woman called Safia Minney speaking at an event. She was launching a series of micro-documentaries about the environmental and social destruction created by the fashion industry.
Once I’d seen and heard and learned all of those things she was speaking about, I couldn’t unsee, unhear, and unlearn them. It sent me down a rabbit hole of researching more for myself; information about the impact of the fashion industry on the environment wasn’t largely available at that time.
Seeing someone who ‘looked like me’ working in the environmental and social space really had an impact on me, too. It gave me the confidence to pivot my career aspirations to something that aligned to my newfound knowledge and my values.
I started volunteering for environmental and social charities and worked in sustainable sourcing before getting a role in Co-op’s Ethics, Sustainability and Policy team. I then moved over to Co-op’s charity and took everything I learned to the role I now have at Co-op Foundation.
Working on this fund with Co-op to support organisations that are helping young people to consider green careers has been fantastic and I’m proud to launch it today!
We’re looking for organisations that are influencing young people aged 14-20 to pursue green careers through initiatives such as workshops, campaigns, mentoring, or social media initiatives.
We welcome applications from:
- Charities
- Community Interest Companies (CICs)
- Co-operatives
- Community Benefit Societies
If this sounds like you (or, if you know an organisation doing this), go to our webpage to learn more and apply.
If we work together, we can build fairer communities with more sustainable futures for everyone.
