Emma Noyce.
a bit of an effort, but we’re not as envi- ronmentally conscious as we should be. However, a golden thread in my life has been this relationship with nature and the landscape we live in. When I moved into libraries and I missed working outside, I started to think about how environmental awareness linked with inclusion. Some people may never spend their leisure time in green spaces, they may not engage with the environment, they have other interests or pressures meaning thinking about the natural environment is the least of their worries. For me there is a real role for libraries to engage all parts of the community, particularly those people who don’t automatically feel that environ- mental issues are relevant to their own lives. Because the issue of equality and inclusion is ingrained into tackling climate change. Climate change will make existing inequalities more profound. It will affect those people who have the least impact on the climate the most, they are the ones most impacted by rising fuel prices, by a lack of access to information, by the inability to adapt or mitigate.”
Green Libraries Partnership Emma chairs the Green Libraries Part- nership, made up of CILIP, Arts Council England, Libraries Connected. It has the following aims:
1. discover and harness the existing environmental work going on in libraries
2. build and support environmental understanding and action within libraries
3. enable libraries to work with their communities to continue to build envi- ronmental understanding and support environmental action
4. position libraries at the heart of local environmental programmes including those led by Local Authorities
June 2022
She says “We want to build a lasting network of people and organisations and my role as chair is to facilitate that, and drive a collective ambition. Phase one will last until the end of the year and that is to develop an understanding of what’s hap- pening and develop a tool-kit for public libraries. We have an exciting small grants project to fund ideas and initiatives across the public library sector. We also aim to have a network and a hub where the sector can come together and share information, and alongside this a manifesto which brings the ideas together. We will also be issuing a survey to all library authorities. We know there’s tons of stuff out there but we only hear snippets – and we want to use the partnership to share those good ideas.”
Profession
The survey will be issued imminently. One aspect Emma is keen for it to explore is the state of the profession’s confidence on climate change: “In Hampshire we did a survey to assess our service’s environ-
mental awareness and confidence. We found that outlooks and confidence varies across the service, with some differences between managers and frontline staff. It was a bit of a surprise to us that there was a relatively low level of confidence in talking to customers about environmental issues in many of our frontline staff. So, it’s important that the programme doesn’t just talk to heads of service about the things they can do, but engages the sector as a whole. One of the interesting things we found was that the views were very different depending on who you speak to. Some are building and carbon reduction focused and others are more interested in knowledge and information. So it is really important that we engage with the whole sector, not just a specific level of it and, in the survey we’re keen to make sure viewpoints are represented.”
What actions?
“Every library service is different. Some are in direct control of what happens to their buildings and spaces, and some aren’t. It’s about understanding that range
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