The Green Libraries Partnership with support from Arts Council England and in partnership with British Library, Libraries Connected and Julie’s Bicycle is pleased to announce fifteen selected projects under the £40,000 grant fund for public library services in England to support environmental activity.

Selected projects include a range of innovative ideas that will enable libraries to demonstrate environmental understanding and action through local partnerships, community engagement activities and staff, stock and space interventions. Projects will take place between August–October 2022 and the outcomes will be shared at the Green Libraries Conference and through the website www.cilip.org.uk/GreenLibraries.

For updates on the Green Libraries Partnership and ongoing activities, follow @CILIPinfo and #GreenLibraries on Twitter or visit www.cilip.org.uk/GreenLibraries.

The Green Libraries Partnership is developed in response to COP26 and the long-term climate commitments made by libraries and local authorities across England.

We believe that public libraries are hubs of sustainability. Reusing and recycling books and providing information to communities to underpin their own climate action, is at the core to what we do. The Green Libraries Partnership aims to:

• discover and harness the existing work going on in libraries relating to Sustainability
• build and support environmental understanding and action within libraries so they can play their full part in creating a better future for planet and people
• enable libraries to work with their communities to continue to build environmental understanding and action
• position libraries at the heart of local environmental programmes including those led by Local Authorities

CILIP is supported in delivering the Programme by Arts Council England, the British Library, Libraries Connected and Julie’s Bicycle. The Partnership is Chaired by Emma Noyce, Assistant Director of Culture and Leisure Services at Hampshire County Council

Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. We invest public money from Government and The National Lottery to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. www.artscouncil.org.uk.

Following the Covid-19 crisis, the Arts Council developed a £160 million Emergency Response Package, with nearly 90% coming from the National Lottery, for organisations and individuals needing support. We are also one of the bodies responsible for administering the Government’s unprecedented Culture Recovery Fund. Find out more at www.artscouncil.org.uk/covid19.

Green Libraries Grant Fund 2022 - Full list of selected libraries and projects:

1. Inspire Midlands Libraries
   LOGGS (Library Outdoor Green Garden Spaces)
   A library garden with outdoor classroom facilities for the development of a high impact environmental programme of activities in Bircotes rural library. The work will act as a pilot generating data on community awareness and engagement with the environment through the garden, to explore creating a rolling programme in other rural libraries.
2. Staffordshire Libraries
   Changing Climates Changing Lifestyles toolkit
   A toolkit of resources for the Climate Change Library Champions in Staffordshire’s 43 libraries developed with the help of local artist Juneau Projects. The project will support behaviour change by creating a craft kit on a recycling theme and deliver two workshops in Area North Libraries and Area South Libraries for families on the theme of recycling.
3. Bi-borough (Westminster-Kensington & Chelsea) Libraries
   Cleaner greener bi-borough libraries and archives
   A series of interactive training sessions in partnership with Groundworks London for libraries and archives staff to help acquire a greater understanding of ESG principles and practices. The training will culminate in an interactive workshop with residents to help identify greening projects for the libraries and archives.
4. Barnsley Libraries
   Bees in Barnsley
   A month-long festival celebrating all things bees and highlighting how essential they are within our ecosystem. The festival will use engaging activities and events to raise awareness of the environmental challenges we’re facing due to the declining bee numbers and what we can do as individuals to combat this.
5. Kirklees Libraries
   Discovering the Secret Garden
   Developing the unused garden behind Golcar library into an accessible, environmentally sustainable area for community use with the help of three local schools and a local artist. The theme of the artwork would be sustainable gardens for native wildlife, plantings and habitats.
6. Hampshire Libraries
   Sparking Conversations with Children & Families
   Activities for children, young people and families at 40 libraries, focusing on the environmental sustainability challenge of engagement and education. Activities include worksheets for young children, and delivery of three education sessions with Southampton Scrapstore, a local recycling charity.
7. Eltham Libraries
   Wishing Well - Eltham Library’s Community Garden
   An intergenerational project to design and construct a library community garden using sustainable materials and skills sharing between local primary school children and Age UK’s Men/Women in Sheds group.
8. Blackburn with Darwen Libraries
   Environmental activities at the Blackburn with Darwen Children’s Literature Festival 2022
   Authors, poets and illustrators will draw on their ‘green work’ to create an underlying theme of the importance of looking after our environment, using their published work, e.g. the rap poem, Save Us From Plastic, which focuses on the devastating impact plastic pollution has in our rivers and oceans, and Felicity Fly in the Garden, which educates children about pollinators and their important role in the eco-cycle.
9. Lancashire Libraries
   Planet Savers - workshops for children & families
   A series of workshops for children and their families during the national Fun Palace weekend in 5 libraries, all based around the idea of environmental sustainability – one of the core principles of Planet Savers - Lancashire Libraries’ in-house designed summer reading scheme.
10. Dudley Libraries
    Enzo & Loca - Environmental action figures looking for ways to achieve net zero
    Each month, Enzo and Loca will provide simple suggestions that children can follow to help the environment, reducing the amount of waste they make, reusing items so that they don’t have to throw them out, and recycling by using waste materials to make new products. The libraries will hold Green sessions, highlighting books about biodiversity and sustainability, and offering activities such as creative craft sessions using recycled materials.
11. Wiltshire Libraries
    Interpretation boards demonstrating environmental activity in the library
    The displays will communicate to the public what has already been done by Wiltshire council to reduce energy wastage, generate and use renewable energy and increase recycling in libraries. The display will include examples of sustainable swaps from Sustainable Devizes and information on the future Wiltshire Council plans e.g. solar panel and air heat pump installation and LED lighting and direct people to the collection on Climate books to find out more.
12. Wakefield Libraries
    Encouraging sustainable transport to our libraries
    Enabling sustainable transport access to the library through a programme of analysing and upgrading the information to promote non-car travel options twinned with the provision of cycle repair equipment at our branches in addition to existing cycle racks.
13. Surrey Libraries
    Learning to Deliver Zero Carbon
    Training for 200+ library staff to increase their awareness of the benefits of going Net Zero and how they can support the delivery of the Surrey County Council Net Zero Programme.
14. Lambeth Libraries
    Save the planet, pounds and pennies
    Activities addressing the cost of living crisis and showing how a greener lifestyle can also save money. Activities ve local community groips and will run across all 10 libraries and then be embedded in the core delivery, making the libraries a central place to find out about a green lifestyle.
15. Newcastle Libraries
    Greening of Princess Square
    Changing the way we think about and manage small areas of planting in an urban setting. The project intends to redevelop an abandoned urban planting area outside Newcastle City Library to demonstrate how to increase biodiversity in the city centre and to raise awareness of eco-friendly urban gardening techniques.