Back 2 Earth, Hackney City Farm

Hackney City Farm is home to Back 2 Earth, an environmental project which is pioneering 60 ideas for achieving a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions across the farm site and in the wider community.

"Our activities and events introduce people to the environmental agenda, inspire them to learn more and help them get involved in practical ways," says Bronwen Wilson, Environmental and Enterprise Project Manager at Hackney City Farm. "Some of the things we've done so far include setting up a biodiesel plant, organising a Bike Day to promote cycling, running courses on low-impact living and developing a network of Green Ambassadors."

Measuring impact

Back 2 Earth reaches a large audience, with around 70,000 people using the farm each year. As well as monitoring carbon emissions on the farm itself, the Back 2 Earth team tracks the number of people it reaches through its events and activities.

"With such a large visitor base, it isn't feasible for us to collect data on the household carbon emissions of a significant proportion of the people we engage with," explains Bronwen. "Instead, we look for other creative ways of measuring the impact of our work. For example, we're currently developing a questionnaire to track how people are changing their behaviour as a result of what they've seen and learnt through the programme."

Creating green ambassadors

Individuals who volunteer as Green Ambassadors raise awareness of green issues within the community and motivate people to take practical action. "The ambassadors meet up each month to talk about one of our areas of focus, such as transport or water," says Bronwen. "We also provide practical training and support to help ambassadors undertake activities in the community."

The Back 2 Earth team felt it was important that the Green Ambassadors programme was representative of Hackney's diverse community. To achieve this, they advertised the programme widely and promoted the scheme through organisations that work directly on local estates. Partnerships with all of the primary schools in Hackney also help Back 2 Earth to reach as diverse an audience as possible.

Developing community resources

To encourage people to take practical steps to reduce their carbon emissions, the Back 2 Earth team is developing a range of community resources. "We're working on a carbon monitoring kit to help people track their household emissions and we're also developing a '60 Steps to 60% Reduction' toolkit for other community organisations to use in their areas," explains Bronwen. "Our Green Ambassadors have been helping us to test and refine these resources to ensure they're easy to use and accessible to as many people as possible."

An update on the project, and how it has developed since launching can be read here.