Manchester Museum project 'Roots and Branches' receives public funding

09 Jun 2021

The Manchester Museum has been awarded £136,750 of Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant funding for an ambitious two-year partnership project, ‘Roots & Branches’, which aims to accelerate the museum sector’s ability to respond to the climate crisis

The launch of ‘Roots & Branches' will coincide with the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in November 2021. Over the next two years, this project will enable us to scale up the roll-out of carbon literacy training across museums in England.

 The ‘branches’ of the project will create an environmentally aware and active sector, giving museums the tools to respond to ‘Let’s Create’, Art Council England’s new ten-year strategy in which environmental responsibility is at the core.

Manchester Museum will host the ’roots’, creating a nationally significant co-working hub of cultural environmental action that will bring together museum staff, educators, environmentalists, artists, researchers, third sector organisations and students. This will be coordinated by an innovative new post shared between Manchester Museum and the Carbon Literacy Trust.

In collaboration with Museum Development England and supported by a new Environmental Sustainability Museum Development Officer post, ‘Roots and Branches’ aims to train and certify as Carbon Literate 1,500 museum professionals and volunteers. It will also see 300 museums developing organisational pledges to take action against climate change. The training will start on 1 November 2021, the first day of COP26, as part of the Carbon Literacy Trust’s ‘Carbon Literacy Action Day’ – an attempt to stage the largest ever low-carbon education event globally and set a record for the number of people completing their carbon literacy training in a single day.

Esme Ward, Director of Manchester Museum and Manager of Museum Development North West, said: “We are thrilled to receive such timely and significant support from Arts Council England’s Project Grants. We are passionate about the role that museums can and should play – here in Manchester, and nationally – in addressing the climate emergency. 

"Through this unique collaboration with Museum Development North West and the Carbon Literacy Trust, this project will be pivotal in developing museum practice further, transforming our sector’s capacity to support ecological thinking and action to build a sustainable future and inspire post-pandemic green recovery.”

Michael McGregor, Director of Wordsworth Grasmere, and Manager of Museum Development North West, said: “This is wonderful news. National Lottery funding from Arts Council England will help Museum Development North West build on its established and pioneering commitment to carbon literacy training in the museums sector.

"We’re excited to be working with Manchester Museum and the Carbon Literacy Trust, empowering museums across the country to take action and effect lasting change as we seek to build a sustainable future for our planet.”

Dave Coleman, co-founder and Managing Director of the Carbon Literacy Project, said: “We’re thrilled that long-term carbon literacy partners Museum Development North West and Manchester Museum have been backed by Arts Council England to take Carbon Literacy into museums and galleries - across the cultural sector – using a shareable toolkit.

"We’re really excited to see how Manchester Museum and Museum Development North West – both organisations deeply experienced in delivering impactful carbon literacy to their staff and communities, will develop this toolkit for all museums and galleries, and in so doing directly increase low-carbon action on climate, opportunities and access to Carbon Literacy across the sector and low-carbon culture, across the whole of the UK.”