Green Libraries Grant Fund 2022 (England)
The first round of grants for public library services in England concluded in August 2022 with grants awarded to 15 public library services.
CILIP, with support from Arts Council England offered a £40,000 grant fund for public library services in England to support environmental activity in libraries. Applications were considered for grants of up to £2,500 per organisation
or consortium for time-limited projects, which explored and demonstrated Environmental Responsibility through innovative ideas.
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 and Bilsthorpe Library. The work acted 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.
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 supported behaviour change by creating a craft kit on a recycling
theme and delivered two workshops in Area North Libraries and Area South Libraries for families on the theme of recycling.
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, helped acquire a greater understanding of ESG principles and practices. The training culminated in an interactive workshop
with residents to help identify greening projects for the libraries and archives.
Barnsley Libraries
Bees in Barnsley
A month-long festival celebrating all things bees and highlighted how essential they are within our ecosystem. The festival used 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.
Kirklees Libraries
Discovering the Secret Garden
Developed 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 was sustainable gardens for
native wildlife, plantings and habitats.
Hampshire Libraries
Sparking Conversations with Children & Families
Activities for children, young people and families at 40 libraries, focused on the environmental sustainability challenge of engagement and education. Activities included worksheets for young children, and delivery of three education
sessions with Southampton Scrapstore, a local recycling charity.
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.
Blackburn with Darwen Libraries
Environmental activities at the Blackburn with Darwen Children's Literature Festival
2022
Authors, poets and illustrators drew 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.
Lancashire Libraries
Planet Savers: workshops for children & families
A series of workshops took place 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.
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 held Green sessions, highlighting books about biodiversity and sustainability, and offered activities such as creative craft sessions using recycled materials.
Wiltshire Libraries
Interpretation boards demonstrating environmental activity in the library
The displays communicated 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 includes 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.
Wakefield Libraries
Encouraging sustainable transport to our libraries
Enables 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.
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.
Lambeth Libraries
Save the planet, pounds and pennies
Activities addressed the cost of living crisis and showed how a greener lifestyle can also save money. The activities with local community groups ran across all 8 libraries and then were embedded in the core delivery, making the libraries
a central place to find out about a green lifestyle.
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.
Cardiff University Library Service
Increasing staff carbon-literacy and sustainable project visibility
Cardiff's University Library Service's project was a two-part programme. The first part of the project increased carbon literacy and climate awareness among library staff through carbon-literacy training delivered by Cynnal Cymru.
The second part of the project involved building themed displays of plants in the libraries. These displays engaged with current research related to topics of ecology, environmental destruction, sustainability, and culture.
Natural Resources Wales Information and Library Service & Gwynedd Libraries
Convenient Truth
This project will explore the role of public libraries in facilitating public access to reliable, authoritative, and engaging information about this crucial subject, to help them to critically evaluate conflicting information as they
encounter it, and in turn, give people agency to take action.
Read more on the Welsh Grant Fund projects
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