Meet our Green Opportunities Fund Partners!
Developing solutions to the climate crisis is a priority, both for Co-op and Co-op Foundation. This is why we developed our £2.4m Green Opportunities Fund together. We’re excited to announce that we have awarded the first round of funding for our second climate change focused partnership fund with Co-op.
Our Green Opportunities Fund partners are helping young people across the UK build skills, confidence and networks. They’re inspiring young people who might not have otherwise considered a career in the green economy to explore what this could look like for them. From turning go-karts electric to digital storytelling, these organisations are equipping young people who are underrepresented in green careers with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed.
This funding builds upon research published by Co-op and Co-op Foundation earlier this year that demonstrated that young people are at risk of being locked out the growing green economy, with significant barriers to accessing green skills and careers. It includes the key finding that the “complex green skills funding landscape [offers] piecemeal provision, overlaps and areas of unmet needs.”
46% of young people reported that they had not heard about green jobs during their education. The young people with the most barriers to accessing training are often hit hardest, risking a missed opportunity to tackle green skills shortages and drive social mobility.
Through our Green Opportunities Fund we want to make sure that young people have fair access to opportunities that arise from the transition to Net Zero.
Who we’re funding
- Touch of Love Outreach (Aberdeen, Scotland) – their Green Futures Lab is a youth-led programme supporting young people aged 14–20. It focuses particularly on those least likely to access opportunities, to build confidence and aspiration through practical green skills in energy and retrofit, real-world experience with employers. It will provide clear progression routes into accessible pathways for future green careers.
- KRIMMZ’s (Bolton, England) project, Green Futures for Girls will work with 150 young women aged 14 – 20 from Bolton’s most underserved communities to shift their perceptions of green careers- and build practical skills. Their aim is to support them into real training, work experience and employment pathways.
- Comics Youth CIC (Merseyside, England) will deliver a two-year, youth-led comics and digital storytelling programme in partnership with the Environment Agency. This will combine paid co-design, mentoring, site visits and campaigns to help underrepresented young people aged 14–20 see green careers as relevant, achievable and secure pathways, supporting them in taking informed next steps.
- Oasisplay (London, England) will target disadvantaged young people, delivering EV mechanic skills, recycling and upcycling training, introducing green career pathways and opportunities. They will use their established youth-led go kart track programme as an entry point, transforming traditional go karts into e-karts.
- Adra (Tai) Cyfyngedig’s (Gwynedd, Wales) Camu i’r Copa is a three‐year preventative programme for 14–16‐year‐olds at risk of becoming NEET. It offers hands‐on green skills training, mentoring and exposure to low carbon careers through their Tŷ Gwyrddfai Decarbonisation Hub – the first of its kind in the UK – building confidence, wellbeing and pathways into sustainable futures.
- CAN GROW, (Ballymoney Northern Ireland) will use their 11-acre Lislagan Farm to equip young people aged 14–20 with learning disabilities, autism and mental health challenges with practical green skills. They will look to increase their confidence and open clear pathways into environmental education, training and employment.
- Landworkers Alliance (UK-wide) will run a three-year multimedia public-awareness campaign highlighting the ways into environmental education, training and employment. It will demonstrate the opportunity, importance and rewarding nature of careers in agroecology and sustainable forestry. The team aims to engage under-served groups of young people in these sectors and make the case for government support to make these careers safer, more secure and better paid.
Co-operative funding
The Green Opportunities Fund is funded through donations from the sale of Co-op compostable carrier bags, alongside Co-op Foundation’s own funds.
We have also partnered with MCS Foundation to fund two organisations that are focused on retrofit as part of this round of funding. MCS Foundation is providing Touch of Love Outreach and Adra Tai Cyfyngedig with £25,000 towards their grants respectively.
Alastair Mumford, Programmes Director at The MCS Foundation, said
“The MCS Foundation is delighted to be partnering with the Co-op Foundation to support projects opening up routes into careers in low carbon sectors for young people in Scotland and Wales. These projects will both help young people in need of support and contribute to the workforce needed for the transition to a low-carbon economy.”
We can’t wait to see what our Green Opportunities Fund partners will achieve in the upcoming months.
If you’d like to hear more about what they and our other funded partners are up to, sign up to our blog and follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.