Becoming Carbon Literate

We first started looking more closely at our environmental impact thanks to a friend of mine, Jen Gale. Jen wrote The Sustainable(ish) Living Guide – Everything You Need to Know to Make Small Changes That Make a Big Difference, inspired by the year she decided to buy nothing new. When you stop buying new things, you suddenly have to look at almost every part of everyday family life differently: food, clothes, birthday presents, Christmas, holidays, energy, packaging… the list goes on and on.

Jen began looking at all those normal, everyday decisions with fresh eyes. She rediscovered her sewing kit, explored charity shops and refill stores, and inevitably found herself having some uncomfortable conversations with her wider family – especially when it came to Christmas. Other parents questioned her, her husband questioned her, and even her children asked: “Why bother?”

But Jen persevered. Whenever something new came up, she had to question the habits she had taken for granted and unlearn some of the consumer culture that has been drummed into all of us.

What Jen discovered during that year eventually inspired not only one, but two books, a podcast series and a career built around helping people live more Sustainable(ish) lives. For me, Jen was my first real introduction to this new way of thinking.

In 2022, Jen announced that she was running a Carbon Literacy course. Well, of course I had to find out more! The eight-hour course was split into two parts, with the first focusing on the problem.

Having since completed more Carbon Literacy training, I can safely say I wouldn’t recommend leaving a week between the two halves! That first section can be brutal and frankly terrifying. You learn about what our collective actions are doing to the health of the planet, what climate change really means, and what could happen if we fail to act, so a week dwelling on all of that before getting to the second half isn’t ideal.

Thankfully, the second part is where something changes and you start talking about solutions. You explore the changes we can make, the actions we can take and how we can encourage other people to get involved. Suddenly, instead of simply understanding the scale of the problem, you’re thinking about what you can actually do about it.

At the end of the course, you make two pledges: one individual action and one group action. I based my personal pledge around travel and asked myself how I could dramatically reduce the amount I used my car. I started walking more and splashed out on what I would call a “Granny Trolley” for shopping – although apparently all generations use them in France! I even bought myself a second-hand bike; nothing special, although I was sold on the big comfy seat.

My group action was to convince my family not to take any flights for a year. Admittedly, the timing helped, as we were still living with the effects of the pandemic and people hadn’t exactly rediscovered their enthusiasm for airports.

The pledge changed my thinking about flying beyond that first year, though, and since making it I’ve continued to keep flying to a minimum, choosing other options where possible. For example visiting my friend in Toulouse by Eurostar and TGV (French trains are much better than UK ones btw!). It’s one of the changes that has stuck with me and something I will continue.

Then I discovered Carbon Literacy for marketers. My first course taught me so much that when I spotted an opportunity in 2023 to complete Carbon Literacy training specifically for the marketing industry, I jumped at it. This was something that could benefit not just me personally, but BakerWilcox and our clients too.

One of the big topics was greenwashing – something most of us are now familiar with – but I was also introduced to a term I hadn’t heard before: greenhushing.

Greenwashing happens when environmental claims exaggerate or misrepresent how sustainable something really is, whereas greenhushing comes from almost the opposite problem. Organisations become so worried about saying the wrong thing, being criticised or being accused of greenwashing that they minimise, or simply don’t talk about, genuine environmental progress.

That creates another problem because, if businesses don’t communicate honestly about what they’re doing – including where they’re making progress and where there is still work to do – customers don’t have the information they need to make informed choices.

For a marketing agency, that’s an incredibly important distinction. Sustainability communication shouldn’t be about shouting the loudest or pretending you’ve solved everything; it’s about being specific, transparent and able to stand behind the claims you make.

I knew the second one was going to be a big undertaking – there’s a separate blog about that particular journey! But that still left the question of how we could get the team Carbon Literate.

The answer presented itself through Amplifi.tw, who were offering free Carbon Literacy courses, so I immediately got Marcus and Nancy booked in.

The training was online, which made it easier to fit around work, but certainly didn’t make it any less impactful. Both Nancy and Marcus came back from the course buzzing with ideas, personally and professionally, and that helped spark another important conversation at BakerWilcox:

What does sustainability mean for the websites we build?

From Carbon Literacy to low-carbon websites. This is where things became particularly exciting for us, as we started focusing much more seriously on low-carbon websites and exploring the environmental impact of digital design and development.

Grain Sustainability helped spark that interest, and Marcus has really run with it. This is an area where we can multiply our impact because, while we can make changes within BakerWilcox, if we can also help our clients build lighter, more efficient websites and make more informed digital decisions, the effect reaches much further than our own business.

It’s something we’re genuinely excited about – and, actually, I can tell you all about it because it’s all over this new website! Please take some time to explore how we’re approaching things differently and why we’re making those choices.

Carbon Literacy shouldn’t be a one-off. The more I’ve learned, the more convinced I’ve become that Carbon Literacy is something everyone should have access to. I don’t think you should necessarily do it once, get your certificate and consider the job done; we all need top-ups.

I recently had the opportunity to attend another course and, even after completing previous training, I still came away having learned so much new information. The sustainability landscape is moving incredibly quickly, with new ideas, technologies, evidence and approaches emerging all the time. Keeping up can be difficult, but that’s also incredibly exciting.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that you’d mention someone’s carbon footprint and feel like a tumbleweed might roll past because nobody particularly wanted to have that conversation. Now it feels different: I start conversations and people are proud to tell me what they’re doing and, more importantly, they’re interested in hearing what else they could do.

My focus now is increasingly on empowering other people to take action, which means getting involved with more groups, creating opportunities for conversations and potentially screening the National Emergency Briefing, followed by a group discussion.

One of the biggest things Carbon Literacy has given me isn’t a certificate; it’s confidence – confidence to put myself out there, to take action, to have conversations that might once have felt uncomfortable, and to know that when I talk about climate and sustainability, there’s knowledge behind what I’m saying.

You don’t need to know everything before you start; you just need enough understanding to take the next step and then keep learning.

If you have a team you’d like to ignite into action, Carbon Literacy is a brilliant launch pad. It might start with eight hours of learning, but where it takes you after that could be much bigger.