Climate Emergency is one of the most pressing issues of the present time. However, the general public including students and staff at business schools have limited understanding of climate change mitigation and how this could be integrated into teaching and research in a business school into every discipline. The Carbon Literacy Training for Business Schools (CLT4BS) is addressing this problem by accelerating an understanding across institutions using a ‘train the trainer’ approach, and providing high impact climate solutions that everyone can implement in daily life and work. The training was developed by Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, UK in collaboration with the PRME Champions, the PRME Working Group on Climate Change, Oikos International, and the Carbon Literacy Project. It also includes an introduction to En-ROADS developed by Climate Interactive in collaboration with MIT Sloan and Ventana Systems.
The United Nations have recognized the Carbon Literacy Project as one of 100 worldwide Transformative Action Programs.
Learning alongside colleagues and students, participants gain an understanding of:
- The science behind climate change
- Social equity & climate change
- What you can do to act on climate change in your personal and professional life
- Carbon Literacy: "An awareness of the carbon dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis".
- Carbon Literacy: "An awareness of the carbon dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis".
Carbon Literate citizens understand how climate change will affect them – both geographically and sectorally – and have acquired the knowledge and skills to lower their carbon footprint, with typical realised carbon savings of 5-15% per person.
The trainees receive a CERTIFICATE and the right to conduct trainings on carbon literacy.
In 2019 and 2020, a number of IBS staff and teachers completed the training and received carbon literacy certificates. In the 2020-2021 academic year, individual training sections were included in the module on CSR and sustainable development. For the next academic year, we plan to incorporate a full carbon literacy module into the curriculum of undergraduate programs.
