Climate Week
Ministers and senior staff from the Department of Energy & Climate Change last week took part in a series of events to mark Climate Week.
Secretary of State Edwards Davey signing the Climate Week 'pledge wall' at Ecobuild
Climate Week & Ecobuild
Climate Week partnered with Ecobuild and together they presented Edward Davey with the Climate Week declaration when he attended the Ecobuild trade exhibition at ExCel last Tuesday.
Pictures from Ecobuild (Flickr)
The Building Centre – Building the “Movement”
Edward Davey’s other appearance at this year’s Climate Week was to take part in a very lively discussion on Green Deal at the Building Centre in London.
The audience, consisting of community and faith groups, green NGOs, and also architects and builders, was invited by the Secretary of State to discuss ways to engage with the public on energy efficiency.
Facing a forest of hands, the Secretary of State called of Tracy Vegro, Green Deal Director, to join him on the platform. Questions ranged from energy efficiency for community centres, to the best messages to communicate.
The event was so successful that we are now looking at ways to maintain some form of engagement with the Building centre!
Climate Week and International Women’s Day
Baroness Verma visited Manchester on Thursday 7 March for a series of ‘Climate Week’ events.
Arndale Centre, Manchester - Carbon Literacy
Her first session was the public launch of the Carbon Literacy programme at the Arndale centre. Under this programme, each person living, studying or working in Manchester will get one full day of carbon training before the end of 2014.
During the visit, Baroness Verma met several projects taking part in the programme, including the University of Manchester and their Food Journey, Bike Right and their work to get adults cycling with their children, MAES -teaching Carbon Literacy to challenged families, Dwelle’s scale (3m high) Eco-house “dwelleing”, the real version of which is being used as a Carbon Literacy training centre, and the Carbon Classroom, where she sat with children and took part in a lively discussion on climate change!
Manchester BME Network
Her second event of the day was with the Manchester BME (black & ethnic minority) Network, where she took part in a discussion hosted at the Wai Yin Women’s Society, meeting several local charities all looking after specific communities and groups and engaging them in being more energy efficient.
Baroness Verma stressed the role played by women in these organisations, which was saluted by both the women and men taking part in the discussion. She asked that the organisations stay in contact with her as she is very keen for the learning from this group to be shared more broadly across the country.
Smart Meters
The last visit of the day – though not entirely under Climate Week auspices but close enough - was with Landis+Gyr, one of the principal manufacturers of Smart Meters. Their management gave Baroness Verma a very good overview of their activities, illustrating the jobs that will be created across the next few years as part of the smart meters roll out, as well the role they play in the regional economy.
Following this discussion, Baroness Verma was given a short tour of the factory, where she met with some of the staff, and saw for herself the type of precision work that is required to assemble these devices.