In Our Nature’s latest updates | Winter 2023/4
It’s been an action-packed winter for the In Our Nature team! Here’s what we’ve been up to recently to help make Manchester a greener, healthier, and more connected city…
Working closely with communities across Manchester we’re beginning to see really positive results which we hope will have a lasting effect and encourage even more people to join the movement. Let’s take a closer look at what we’ve been up to recently and how you can get involved!
Supporting Manchester to take climate action
From low carbon cooking to alleyway transformations, we’re supporting projects across the city to make a big difference.
Did you know you could save time, energy, and money by using a slow cooker at home? In fact, an average-sized slow cooker uses just slightly more energy than a standard lightbulb, coming in at 9p per hour on the average energy tariff.
We partnered with sustainable food experts, Open Kitchen, to deliver weekly slow cooker workshops at the Northmoor Community Centre in Longsight. We also shared healthy recipes and cooking tips to help people reduce their food waste by batch cooking and using leftovers more often.
Want to give it a go yourself? Tuck in to some of our tasty tips!
Fast fashion is so last season, did you know that just one cotton t-shirt is responsible for around 15kg of CO2 according to The UK Carbon Trust?
That’s why we’ve been working with Valery Touchet from VT Creation to support her free sustainable fashion workshops at Gorton Central!
The sessions taught people a variety of skills including how to use a sewing machine, how to mend their existing clothes and how to make new clothes out of different fabrics. You can read the full story here.
Ready, set, SEW! Give sewing a go with Moss Side Social Stitching Group’s guide to making your own fabric hang-ups.
We're working with residents across Bowes Street in Whalley Range to transform three alleyways and make them as vibrant as the community that live there.
We're running interactive workshops and events throughout spring to bring it to life, including facilitating skill-sharing between neighbours, building climate resilient planters (like this fabulous rain garden planter!), running a neighbourhood spring clean in partnership with Keep Britain Tidy, and decorating the alleyways with solar panelled lighting and colourful murals.
Ready to flex those green fingers? Get growing for the planet with our handy resources.
Community Support
We’re so excited to have some new Community Support projects underway. Over the next few months, we’ll be helping them to get their ideas off the ground, measure their impact and celebrate their success!
You might have heard about the seven Community Support projects that we have already supported. So far, these projects have managed to save 2258.26kg CO2e and 778 people have been involved. You can read more about all of these projects here.
Want to make a positive difference in your area? Sign up to our newsletter to be kept in the loop on upcoming rounds of Community Support!
Helping community groups to act
If you’re already familiar with our website, you might have spotted a new section of our Resource Hub - the Community Toolbox!
The Community Toolbox is a collection of guides, advice, and insights to support people who are involved in or leading community action in Manchester. We’ll continue to update the toolbox with useful group and personal development tools provided by the experts over at Amity CIC – one of the In Our Nature partners.
3 tools are currently available; caring for your group, engaging others in your community, and well-being led action. And more are on the way! Check out the Community Toolbox for yourself
We also launched a free webinar series led by Amity where each month we’ll be exploring a different topic relating to community climate action. The first session, all about taking effective action, took place in February and you can check it out here.
Find out more and book onto further events in the Meaningful Community Action Webinar series here.
Building a climate movement across the city
Check out where action is happening near you - explore the In Our Nature map!
We’re sharing tips, toolkits and inspiration to help you create change. This winter we’ve been sharing loads of great tips including how to stay warm and cosy whilst saving energy, make the most of your leftovers and keep cycling even through the classic Manchester drizzle!
Over 15,000 of you have visited our website, signed up to our e-newsletter or interacted with our posts online over the past six months which just goes to show how many people want to make a positive difference for Manchester.
Loads of new tips, toolkits, and stories have been added to our ever-growing Resource Hub since last September, check out some of our latest additions!
Want to help shape the change you want to see in Manchester?
Join the Community Coalition - a collaborative group of Manchester residents working together to take climate action, reduce carbon emissions and create positive change for our communities.
Register your interest to get involved in the In Our Nature Community Coalition here
Inspiring Others to Act
We’re developing a local carbon footprint for every ward in Manchester
Knowledge is power! Our carbon footprints have been designed to give you the information to know where you can have the biggest impact.
The footprints have been created using the most up-to-date energy and travel information and insights from In Our Nature partner, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
Take a look at our carbon footprints here.
We held our first ever Community Get-Together event
We brought together individuals and groups who are taking climate action to share their stories, build new connections, and celebrate their work to reduce carbon emissions in Manchester.
We were joined at the Friends Meeting House by 43 inspiring people, including representatives from 14 different community groups. We also welcomed special guest speaker, Dr Hilary Powell of Bank Job – a community-driven movement that asked important questions about money, debt and changing the economic system.
It was a truly special evening, filled with so many wonderful moments. Highlights from the event included a showcase panel discussion from community leaders and a keynote presentation from Dr Hilary Powell as well as plenty of opportunities for idea sharing and climate conversation over a slice of cake and a cuppa.
The panel discussion featured Kenny Umeh from Moss Side Social Stitching Group, Shaeda Sikander from Flavours from Manchester, Feimatta Conteh from Factory International and Sam Case from Low Carbon Levenshulme.
The panel talked about their work to help people take community climate action, shared their most inspiring moments, key learnings, and next steps before opening the discussion out to the floor.
"It was a lovely evening at the In Our Nature Community Get Together. There were great ideas on what more we can do towards mitigating climate change. Quite inspiring!” – Kenny Umeh, Moss Side Social Stitching Group
We’re already so excited for our next Community Get-Together event which is planned for this summer!
With spring just around the corner, we can’t wait to see what will come next for In Our Nature. Feeling inspired? Take a look at what else is happening in Manchester and sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear about new projects and opportunities!
