Last Saturday some members of SFAA, as well as our coordinator and administrator, attended Southwark Climate Day. Southwark Climate Day is Southwark’s annual climate conference, for residents and organisations within the borough to come together to discuss and explore local solutions to the climate emergency.

This year the event was held in person, at London Southbank University, and was attended by over 200 people. The day was full of many important and interesting activities, speeches, and discussions all centred on the climate emergency and the local, national and international work around it. It began with a speech from members of Southwark council about the steps that the council has been taking to combat the climate emergency on a local level. Actions have included Southwark declaring a climate emergency, creating low emission neighbourhoods and making streets safer to walk and cycle to encourage low emission travel.

Next there was a speech from Mr. Jitoko Tikolevu, the high commissioner from Fiji to the UK. The speech covered the disproportionate impact that the climate emergency has had on the livelihoods of people living in Fiji, despite their minimal contribution to our current climate situation. This connection between carbon emitting activities of the Global North and the livelihoods of people in the Global South made taking action in this country feel ever more vital.

Throughout the day there was also a market running, made up of many Southwark and London based organisations seeking small-scale and innovative ways to tackle the climate crisis. The market had much to offer, from useful signposting, free samples of sustainable food, to workshops on sustainable fashion and on ways to climate proof homes.

SFAA were involved with the market, we had our own stall from which we distributed both information about the alliance, as well as some delicious zero waste brownies which were kindly donated to us by Fooditude, a sustainable food catering company based in Southwark. Many people were interested and wanted to learn more about SFAA and the work of its member organisations.

Additionally, the brownies were very popular, many people came back for seconds!

Get the brownies recipe here!

Two of our SFAA members, Hubbub and Greens Made Easy, also held stalls at the market.

Hubbub is an environmental charity which engages the community and corporates into climate related issues and generates funding to run research and projects in the service of tackling these issues on a local level. One such project has been the establishment of community fridges across the UK. In keeping with its drive to tackle waste and environmental damage, Hubbub was offering a delicious and waste free summer pudding (recipe here!).

Greens Made Easy is a project which offers Microgreens kits to organisations such as schools. Growing Microgreens is a lot more sustainable, fertilisers and pesticides are not needed, and they use 5% of the water used by industrial agriculture. They are also more nutrient rich than regular vegetables. At their stall they had samples of the delicious pesto and hummus made from these microgreens!

Towards the end of the day there was an interesting panel discussion held on whether local solutions help to tackle the climate crisis on a global level. Members of the panel included local MP Helen Hayes, the leader of Extinction Rebellion in Southwark, and London based climate change charity Ashden. The panel discussion explored strategies to widen the influence and voice of local climate organisations.

It is true that it can sometimes feel that our community based actions may not make a difference on a larger scale. Attending the speeches, discussions, and meeting many local climate organisations at Southwark Climate Day, was however a hopeful reminder that even small scale action can raise awareness and begin to make change.