1st - 3Oth September 2O24
Highlands & Islands
climate festival
The Highland & Islands Climate Festival is a celebration of localism and community engagement with a focus on climate action first held from 1st – 30th September 2023, and we hope to return for 2024!
Find details about the past events below.
The Highlands and Islands Climate Hub has offered overarching support in creating and managing the website and social media channels. However, the beauty of the festival is that the decision-making powers lie with the communities who take part.
What is the Highlands and Islands Climate festival?
The Festival originated in 2022 after excited discussions between the Highlands and Islands Climate Hub and Highland Adapts. This sparked the creation of the Highland Climate Festival which took place in June 2022 and the Orkney Climate Festival which took place in September 2022 alongside the Orkney International Science Festival to great success celebrating efforts to promote climate action.
Between the two, over 150 events took place with everything from active travel, repair cafes, growing open days, film screenings and even a tree hugging competition! Following the success of the 2022 festivals the Highlands & Islands Climate Hub worked with community organisations throughout the region to bring us together to one Highlands & Islands Climate Festival.
Be
Local
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Share
Local
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Grow
Local
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Think
Local
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Be Local ● Share Local ● Grow Local ● Think Local ●
The 2o23 festival
An active working group of community organisations from across the Highlands and Islands took the festival forward for 2023 and unanomously decided to host the celebration throughout September 2023. This coincides with:
Scottish Government’s Scottish Climate Week
Theme
The Festival is a celebration of localism with our strapline ‘Think Local, Be Local’.
Celebrating local means celebrating sustainability, low carbon choices and the very fabric of our vibrant local communities who are carrying out community led climate action.
Why get involved?
If you’re a community passionate about protecting the environment while having great fun, we encourage you to get involved with the Highlands & Islands Climate Festival.
Participation allows you to gather community members to take climate action and celebrate one another. This can be events or projects you already host or a brand-new event you decide to host specifically for the occasion. Check out the opportunities for funding to see if we can support you to participate.
The Festival and its events give us the chance to meet like-minded people, share experiences and knowledge so that we are better placed to make climate friendly changes both independently and as part of a wider collective.
The benefits of participation are wider than climate action too, hosting an event in your community can raise awareness of your organisation and its goals.
How to get involved
If we have convinced you this far, brilliant – welcome aboard! Getting involved with the festival is easy:
Register (for free) an existing or new event taking place in September 2023 with a climate focus so that it’s included in the programme and promotions.
How we can support your involvement
Within the Resources page, you’ll find a communications pack bursting with posters, press release templates and ideas designed to support you to host some cracking events.
If you would like to take part but your organisation is lacking in funds, see our Funding page to see if we can help via the Events, Big Local Picnic or the Discretionary Fund.
