BELIEVE in climate action

This multi-year collaborative project is led by the Faith & Belief Forum and funded through the National Lottery Community Fund’s Climate Action Fund. Cambridge provides evaluative expertise with an ethnographic lens, as the project team seek to make space for diverse voices and enable transformational change in response to the present climate crisis.  

The project was initiated through a co-design process, building on discussion at annual interfaith youth summits co-convened with the LSE’s Religion & Global Society Research Unit. The plans thus combine partner organisations’ strengths with the vision, enthusiasm and voices of diverse young adults.

Funding & overview

Thanks to National Lottery players, the Believe in Climate Action project (BELIEVE) has received £1,452,709.20 over 4.5 years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. Led by the Faith & Belief Forum, the project seeks to encourage and support more young people from underrepresented communities to engage and lead on climate action at both the local and national level.

Operating across England in London, Northwest, West Midlands and East of England (and expanding to other English regions from Year 2 onward), the project will engage underrepresented groups (including young people from minority [or minoritized] faiths, migrants, multilingual and ethnic minorities). It will do this through values-driven, community-led climate action, pioneering a different approach to motivate people from faith communities to engage. It will seek to reframe climate action as values-driven and therefore an ever-present aspect of people’s day-to-day lives.

Support for young people will be delivered by working with schools as community hubs to run after-school climate programmes; training and mentoring paid young people to co-lead school-based projects and connect them with regional and national networks; and fostering collaboration between local environmental leaders, regional organisations, and policymakers.

The National Lottery Community Fund’s Climate Action Fund is a long-term commitment to support communities across the UK to act on climate change and involve more people in positive environmental action.

Cambridge contributions

BELIEVE has three core workstreams: work with schools, recruitment and training, and knowledge exchange. Supplementary research led by Dr Anastasia Badder will document how faith, ethical and cultural values influence youth-led climate action. Examining how dominant climate narratives reflect specific value systems, and alternative framing supports behaviour change, these insights will offer formative feedback relevant to all workstreams. 

From a research perspective, we also hope to learn about if and how visions of what constitutes good (climate) action (a) drive behaviour, (b) can be decontextualised, objectified, and compared, and (c) might therefore be meaningfully brought into conversation to build better green futures. 

The project will also benefit from the skills, expertise and innovation behind Public Map, with light-touch consultancy, tools and training. The AHRC-funded Public Map initiative is part of the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition, with work led by the Department of Architecture here in Cambridge. Public Map’s flexible, accessible methods support “community-made maps that turn lived experience into smarter, greener decisions”. For BELIEVE, this map-based approach will enable local information gathering and analysis, generate rooted case studies, and help different stakeholders navigate project learning. 

The Cambridge team is also offering project stakeholders access to a monthly Community of Research and Practice (CoRP). Researchers and practitioners working in the “faith + ecology” space meet online to discuss challenges and opportunities and provide a blend of peer support and knowledge exchange.

Working in partnership

The ambitious project will be supported by an advisory council whose membership is being finalised, and partnerships with organisations who share a commitment to values-led climate action. During the application stages, BELIEVE secured assistance with policymaker engagement (from the LSE), along with pledges of support from Faith for the Climate, climate change charity Ashden, and the Youth Environmental Service.

BELIEVE aims to further the local–national discourse through work with the VCS Emergencies Partnership and the network of Local Resilience Forums, while thanks are due to Birmingham-based Footsteps BCF for their insights into practical aspects of grassroots action.

Latest

Recruitment for the first cohort of interns is now underway, with induction set for the second half of August. Work in schools will begin during the autumn term. 

Project learning will be recorded and shared through a dedicated website (under construction).

BELIEVE is also building a network of potential delivery partners, with expertise relevant to whatever climate action projects emerge from the co-design process. There are small pockets of funding available to support input to training as well as honoraria for project mentors.