What is the Highlands & 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. Both were incredibly well recieved and achieved the goal of celebrating community climate action and showcasing communities incredible efforts. 

From active travel, repair cafes, growing open days, film screenings and even a tree hugging competition! Events were varied with something to suit a huge range of interests.

Following this success, the Highlands & Islands Climate Hub worked with community organisations throughout the region to be one, month long Highlands & Islands Climate Festival.

The inclusive 2023 Festival was the biggest to date - with 120 events taking place across the whole of September, coinciding with the Scottish Government’s Climate Week.

Our community climate action celebrations are back soon as the Highlands & Islands Climate Festival returns from 1st - 30th September 2024!

If you’re a community or an individual passionate about protecting the environment while having great fun, or an organisation eager to engage with their community, 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. You can join the Festival by adapting your own pre-existing events/projects occuring in September or create a brand-new event 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 it's goals.

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The Festival is a celebration of localism; ‘Think Local, Be Local’.

‘Thinking local’ means low carbon, sustainable choices and celebrating what can be done within our vibrant local communities.