Green aims and achievements
Gloucestershire Archives' Green Pledge Project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, takes a holistic ‘green’ approach aiming to reduce our environmental footprint, catalogue environmental archives, train an archives apprentice, co-create green themed activities and exhibitions, provide volunteer opportunities and run a public pledge campaign.
We recently created a green action plan in just over an hour covering procurement, transport, building, community garden, collections, digital, training and waste. So far we’ve catalogued over 9000 plans relating to rivers and flooding (helping reduce our cataloguing backlog). We’re planning a flooding workshop for researchers and those planning preventative measures, whilst digital copies of some orchard records have been sent to those working with endangered species in Kent. We’re hoping our weather records will be used by meteorologists working on climate change models.
We’re working with AMPS to continue driving down our gas and electricity usage across the site and installing solar panels for our roof. We’re grateful to GCC’s Climate Emergency Advisory Group and the sustainability team and for expertise and inspiration. Thanks to the sustainability team, Archives staff, Hub partners and volunteers took part in September’s ‘Love to Ride’ campaign encouraging cycling. Surprisingly, we came first in Gloucestershire and 11th in the UK for our category.
By taking this action we’re playing our part in culture change and contributing to GCC’s commitment in 2019 to achieve net zero by 2030.