Building Skills for Sustainable Futures

If you’ve read our website and blog articles, you’ll know about our concern that society needs to function differently if we are going to address climate change.  

Key to this is good health and life chances being enjoyed by everyone.   Swansea has huge disparities in educational outcomes, income levels and life expectancy between leafy West and post-industrial East.  

That’s why we’re so pleased that, thanks to people who buy green electricity and invest in our community shares, we can offer funds to projects aiming to make a positive difference, such as… 

Down to Earth Project is a sustainable construction company.  Construction in the UK is fraught with environmental problems.  Raw materials are often gathered in unsustainable ways, then processed via polluting methods (the “roasting” stage in cement production is a massive contributor to global warming, for example) and not dealt with responsibly at the end of their life.   So it’s great to have a company right here on the Gower, showing how we can do things differently.

Through their “Build Me Up” project, Down to Earth works with adults who have been unemployed for a long time.  The project enables participants to develop accredited skills in sustainable construction and sustainable land management, moving closer to a paid job whilst improving their well-being.  

Down to Earth understands the importance of people developing new skills in co-operative settings. Their approach has been clinically proven to help people recover from physical and emotional trauma, build confidence and improve mental health.  Director and co-founder of Down to Earth Mark McKenna said,

We’re very excited about this new project which will allow more than 150 people to benefit from our clinically valid approach to improving health and wellbeing whilst developing amazing spaces for future groups to learn in and enjoy.”

And another really exciting part of this story is that our contribution helps Down to Earth to secure European funding from the Active Inclusion Fund.

Would you like to support projects like this?

You can!  Simply switch to our green electricity offer or buy shares in our projects.

Our green electricity is NOW AVAILABLE for only 300 local households or businesses to purchase!  Working with our partners, Bristol Energy, we can offer our 100% green electricity, produced at a solar farm here on Gower, at competitive prices.  

Our community share offers give you the chance to invest in something really worthwhile, while earning a good rate of interest.  Share offers only happen once in a while, so join our mailing list below to be kept informed.  

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