Getting Trustee/Board Buy-in for Your Organisational Carbon Reduction Plan

• Trustee/board buy-in is essential to embed sustainability long-term – without governance-level ownership, carbon reduction work won’t stick.
• Frame carbon reduction in the language boards already use: finance (investment and budgets), strategy (priorities and direction), and risk (climate impacts and opportunities).
• Build board capability and confidence: identify champions, consider recruiting a sustainability-focused trustee, and use skills audits, training (e.g., carbon literacy), and informal briefings to bring trustees along.
• Make sustainability “normal business”: weave it into existing governance routines (strategy, budgeting, annual review/KPIs, risk register) and align actions with the regular policy review cycle.
• Be data-led and realistic: allow time for a “plan before the plan” (baseline footprint and data tracking), set achievable targets with staff input, and weigh decisions using carbon alongside impact and cost.

Q: Dealing with listed buildings provides limits to what can happen. Can the concept of harm to listed buildings be offset by literal carbon offsetting?

A: Listed buildings can add complexity, but adaptation is still important: the safest building is one that is occupied, loved, and used, and that often requires sustainability adaptations. There is guidance (including Historic England guidance for local authorities) showing what can be done to improve energy efficiency without long-term harm to historic fabric, and the long-term harm of abandoning buildings is likely worse. Liz encouraged using the guidance when speaking with local authorities/conservation officers and pointed to Historic England’s Technical Tuesday webinar back-catalogue for practical examples.

Additional note: Many carbon-reduction actions are “soft adaptations” that don’t affect the building fabric, and carbon offsetting should be a last resort after doing everything possible to reduce emissions.

Q: Any guidance for trustees around procurement (e.g., supplies/equipment such as solar panels, heat pumps, etc.)?

A: Procurement is tricky and varies by organisation size; policy is easier than implementation. Focus on the outcome: a more sustainable procurement pipeline. Start by asking whether you need the purchase at all (limit purchasing), then consider suppliers and supply-chain sustainability. Research to weigh options and trade-offs. At trustee level, aim for a procurement strategy (formal or informal) that explains why choices are being made—especially as sustainable options may cost more and affect budgets, so trustees need to understand and buy in.

Q: If in-person engagement is key to your business activity (so travel is a major factor), how might you avoid boards setting targets (e.g., “all meetings are online”) that significantly affect operations?

A: Boards should not set targets that staff can’t realistically deliver. Engage the board in setting targets so they understand what is achievable and why. Avoid making public commitments (e.g., a net zero date) that later prove impossible. When making decisions, treat carbon as a third factor alongside impact and cost: if an activity is high-impact and worth the carbon, you may still need to do it. The goal is to reduce the footprint, not eliminate it entirely or “close the doors.” If public targets are unachievable, work with the board to rephrase them to something realistic.

Speakers: Sarah Rousseau (she/her) and Liz Powers (she/her)

Sarah: I'm Sarah Rousseau, and I work at Historic England for the Sector Resilience and Skills team, and I currently manage the delivery of our sector to net zero heritage carbon reduction training rollout. So, I'm really excited, because this is the first of our webinars to accompany and complement the training and workshops. And I'm really pleased to be introducing Liz Power, who's just come on. I see she's turned a camera on. Great. Not only is she one of our wonderful carbon reduction trainers, she's also the director of Historic Buildings and Places. So, very well placed to discuss how she's worked with her trustees to create and introduce that carbon reduction plan. And, with that, I'm going to hand over to Liz for what I know will be a really interesting and informative session. Please pop any questions in the chat, the top chat, for Liz, and we'll have some time at the end for that. And with that, I'm going to hand over to Liz.

Liz: Thank you very much, Sarah. Hello, everybody. What a beautiful day it is. Not at all grey, rainy, all around the country. And it's really lovely to be here. Thank you for giving up your time to come and talk about boards and carbon reduction plans. Hopefully it is a subject that you have all been thinking about. And if you haven't, don't worry. Hopefully this will give you a few pointers of where we can get started on something that can be a bit tricky. So, my name is Liz Power. I'm the director of Historic Buildings and Places. That is me and my entire lovely team. That's us posing for a Christmas photo, which is why we look quite so jolly. We are a very small heritage charity. So, we are one of the national amenity societies, which means we give advice around listed buildings.

So, if you are a listed building owner or somebody who cares for a listed building, if you want to make a change to that building, you ask your local authority, your local authority then has to ask us, as one of the amenity societies. Most of the time we think that what you are asking is so reasonable we don't say anything. Sometimes we have to say we don't think it's a good idea, but most of the time we try and give some advice and some guidance back to the local authority to help them make their decision. So, we're really small. We're only three full-time equivalents. So, three of us are part-time. But we're very, very old. I know we don't look it from the photo. That's because we moisturise. But we're actually 102. So, we were founded in 1924, and two years ago, on our 100th birthday, we also became a CIO.

So, that's a charitable incorporated organization, which I'm sure some of you are as well. We have a board of trustees. We have 15 trustees, which is quite a lot when it comes to the trustees. It's probably bigger than most. But that comes with the age of the organization. And one of the things that happened when I joined is that I moved us into becoming a CIO, and that involved transforming our governance. So, working on developing new trustees who wanted to come on board and support us, changing things that we had, like terms of service for our trustees, and also getting our committees in order. So, at the moment, we have three committees as well that run. We have a casework committee who look after our statutory functions, so what we respond to those local authorities about. We have a finance and audit committee. They have all the fun, making sure the budgets are right. And then, we have a publications committee.

So, what do we do as a charity? We also run membership. That's where the publications come in. We print a magazine, we print a journal, but we also take people out on events. And it felt really right that Sarah should ask me to come and do this talk to you today. So, yes, I'm a carbon literacy trainer, and I also helped work on some of the other courses as well. And I think the links will be around here somewhere. But also, I had to work out how we were going to embed sustainability into our organization. So, it was there as an aim, something that we wanted to happen as a charity, but we really hadn't worked out how to turn that into practice.

So, what I'm going to talk to you about today is based on my experience of helping my charity get to grips with sustainability and working with the board about that, but also when I've supported other organizations, so mainly small charities in the heritage sector doing the same thing, working out how are we going to start this piece of work off, and how are we going to get our board on board with it all? So, we're gonna have time for questions at the end. So please, any questions, stick them in the questions for the presenter box, and I'll try and answer them at the end.

So, let's get going. First question is, why on earth we even doing this? Why do boards get stuck thinking about carbon reduction plans? Now, this is my head's up to say that all the photos, pretty much, that are going to be shown to you today are of my board at our 100th birthday party in the House of Lords. So, this Moa, my board member. As you can see, it's quite early on in the night and you can't quite see the large glass of wine she's drinking. As we go through, you will see how fun the wine was in all the photos. Right. So, why do boards get stuck thinking about carbon reduction plans? First off, they're often worried about policy and legislation. So, they are probably aware that there is something around carbon reduction that links to law, that links to government policy, that they should probably be made aware of.

So, if you're kind of my age-ish, I'm almost 50, I wasn't taught anything about sustainability at school. I don't know anything that I haven't upskilled myself recently, so it's quite likely your board is the same. They might have heard something on the news. They might be aware of something, but that concern that maybe there's something they're not sure about linked to government policy, linked to legislation, that can be a real, real worry. There's an uncertainty there about, what does that mean for your charity? Now, if you are a sustainability charity, fingers crossed they've got it sorted. But most of us aren't. We're in heritage organizations, so it can be really confusing. And they can have a real fear of making the wrong decision. My board, not now, but really were the absolute kings and queens of procrastination. And if there was a decision they could take next meeting, they would. So, actually helping them understand and not worry and make a decision is kind of a key part of it. So, that's why they might be stuck.

The second thing is just the nature of sustainability. They can be unsure if your carbon reduction plan is kind of operational or strategic. So, boards really should be working at a strategic high level, overseeing what's happening in the charity. And if something is brought to them at that level, they're like, "Brilliant. Got it." Sometimes boards work at an operational level. So, it's more about the mechanics of getting things done for your charity. And if something arrives at that level, they often understand it. Now, the challenge with carbon reduction is that it really is both. It's both a kind of strategic policy piece of work and an operational piece of work, which makes it really hard sometimes for boards to work out how they're going to navigate their way through it. And that balancing act can be really difficult. They don't want to have to fear on operational things. They want to stay strategic. But how do you do it with this piece of work that sits across both?

So, I'm going to go through a few things. They're gonna help us think about the situation boards are in. And then I'm going to go through some solutions and some takeaways at the end. So, what are boards responsible for? So, this is the whole of my board posing in there. We didn't plan to wear blue clothes. I don't quite know how that happened. But in the red and blue, this is the board before the party got started, really. We have no photos at the end, which I think tells you everything. So, what are boards responsible for across the board? Number one, all boards, whether you call them management committees, trustees, I will use all of these interchangeably, they are responsible for the finance of your organization. That is why you put so much effort into reporting to them, and hopefully they put the effort into reading the financial reports, they will be involved in setting the budget for the upcoming year.

But when we talk about financials, they're also involved in the long-term financial planning of your charity as well. So, for when they are no longer a trustee, they need to have thought about what the finances will be then. So, that's an enormous responsibility. Something goes wrong with the charity, the financial responsibility, the responsibility for that mistake is to the board. Second thing, they are responsible for the strategic direction of the charity. So, in your founding document, you have some charitable objects, and this is your board. You have to take those charitable objects and form them into a strategy that is the way forward for your charity. Now, hopefully, and almost definitely, they do that with staff members. They involve everybody in that process. You work together to plan out the best way forward, but it's really important that they are taking kind of the lead on that area.

And then, the third thing that the boards are really responsible for is risk. So, hopefully you will have a risk register as an organization, where you're regularly looking at the risks to your charity, whether they be local or bigger-picture ones, and thinking about how you might address them with your work. So, it is up to the trustees to kind of review that register and think about not just the risk, but also the opportunities that might come up as well. Now, why are these three things helpful when we're thinking about carbon reduction plans or sustainability in any way? Well, because all three of those are needed for sustainability and carbon reduction plans to happen. And it might be that actually talking about your plans in terms of finance, strategy, and risk works better for your board than talking about it separately.

So, what your organization is going to do around sustainability is definitely going to affect your financials, whether that be changing your business plan because you need to make adaptations to change your business model, or whether that being that you have to invest if you're running a property, all of that is going to tax your finance. How you're going to approach sustainability and carbon reduction is going to affect the direction of your charity. What priority do you give it? Where does it sit in amongst your other workflows? That's all about strategy. And then, of course, climate change and the climate emergency brings with it absolutely tons of risk. So, keeping on top of that risk is part of their job as well. So, you can tie your carbon reduction plan neatly into the things that your board is responsible for.

That's the Charity Code of Governance 2025 there on the site. Definitely worth having a look at with your board, or to refresh yourself if you haven't looked at it for a while, just to remind you of where your board should be acting in the best interests of your charity, and to make sure that you can tie those threads together. That's a good place to start. So, that's what boards should be doing. And hopefully you've got lots of people, willing to be your trustees, keen and enthusiastic, and want to come and take responsibility for that and the rest of operational staff. So, what might the challenges be for individual trustees? Now this laughing gentleman is my treasurer, which seems about right. He's at least had two glasses of wine. And it's very fair point that the first thing I've said is money.

So, what might the issue be for trustees? First off: money. As we just said, they're responsible for the financial long-term future of the charity. And a lot of sustainability and carbon reduction work is going to require investment. You're gonna need them to spend stuff, and they might not see the return on that investment for quite a long time. So, that is quite challenging when it comes to signing off projects or pieces of work needed in your carbon reduction plan. Also, a lot of this might change how your money is actually earned. So, I can give you an example from our organization. We have decided that we will no longer run an event unless it's accessible by public transport. So, that means that we are having to say no to some events that may be really good income generators, but we've said that's the line we're not going to cross.

So, that affects the income stream, that affects how we can spend our money, it affects if we might need to pull on our reserves in a small way, but it might be bigger for your organization. So, concern over the finances might be an issue for that individual trustee. The majority of trustees, I would say, sweeping generalization, really do have a limited education, at least a formal education around the climate emergency, around sustainability, and therefore that really affects the choices they feel they are able to make. Most of us didn't learn about this. If you have younger trustees, they might have learned about sustainability at school, but most don't have knowledge, and we will come up with a solution in a bit. But it's really important to acknowledge that this might be a completely new area for your organization, probably something you have never had to tackle before or think about.

So, when you are thinking about the knowledge of your trustees, then you do need to bring them on the journey of understanding, so it's not just plonked on them as a brand new thing. They might be worried about the business plan. So, actually getting a heritage organization to a business plan that is in any way kind of sustainable, financially sustainable for the future, is an amazing thing, right? And if you have got there, well done. Your trustees might be really worried about messing with that applecart. You know, you don't want to upset it if you've got it going smoothly. So, thinking about how changes might have to be made, how they might impact operations, how they might impact income streams, or your delivery methodology, this is really worrying stuff for trustees, especially if they feel they've just only got something that really works.

And again, a lot of the trustees who come on board to support us in heritage may not really have a good understanding of business in the first place. They might have just got their head around how this organization is going to work, and suddenly we're bringing in a whole new thing. So that might be an individual worry for some trustees. And then, the biggest overall challenge, I think, really covers all three, is a responsibility for an area they don't feel confident in. We've all had that feeling, haven't we, where we were asked to do something, we don't 100% understand it, and you kind of grit your teeth and go, "Okay, I'll try." And that feeling, I think, for trustees, really can impact, kind of that group feeling. You know, when you're in a board meeting, whether it's online or in person, and it only takes a few people to say, "Oh, I'm really not sure," and then suddenly nobody's sure, and they really don't feel confident enough to take responsibility.

So, for individual trustees, that one person or two people really can make the whole group feel we're not ready to make this choice. And that's why you might have your carbon reduction plan stuck at board level, or you might be a bit apprehensive about taking it to a board level. So, let's look at some solutions. Because we know the problems, let's look at how we might go about solving it. So, first one, the membership of your board. Do you have a sustainability trustee? Now, I don't know why on this slide deck Peter pops up there, but this is Peter. He's one of my trustees. He's head of sustainability at one of the country's big estates. We are very lucky to have him on our board. It's not a photo from the same night as our party, because for some reason, he didn't get into any of the photos. But there we go.

So, do you have of a sustainability trustee? I didn't when I joined the board. There was nobody who felt that they understood sustainability at a kind of deeper board level. As part of becoming a CIO, we needed to change our governance completely. And for the first time, we decided as a charity that we would do an external recruitment for trustees. I think before then, trustees would come to the organization by, you know, who knows who, a tap on the shoulder. But we decided we would advertise for trustees. And we thought about what we needed to advertise for, and one of the roles I was really keen on getting was a sustainability trustee. So, we put that very confidently in our recruitment pack. We advertised on LinkedIn. And the good thing about advertising for trustees on LinkedIn, you can do things like do hashtag sustainability to try and get as broad a range of people interested as possible. And we took people- we had to go through a whole selection criteria, and then we took people to interview.

And Peter was amazing. And he has been on our board now for three years. So, why was I so passionate about wanting a sustainability trustee? So, when you join the board, even if you have a specialist area, of course you still take responsibility for everything. So, you're still responsible for the budget. You are still responsible for the HR issues. You are still responsible for the strategic direction. But, I have found it is really beneficial for me to have one person on the board who is that voice of sustainability. So, somebody who understands what we're looking to do, somebody who the rest of the board feel confident in. I think that's really underrated. So they can sit back and go, "Oh, yeah. If Peter thinks that plan is probably all right, then I'm probably going to feel confident in that."

So, he builds the confidence of the whole board by having him there. He can also be the person to push me when he thinks that we're not trying hard enough, we're not doing enough on our carbon reduction. And he gives that kind of recognizable voice, the group look to him. We don't quite do it like this on our board, but another charity I used to work at, they always used to say, "Everybody has one vote unless it's your area of specialism. Then you have two." Which I thought was quite an interesting way. We don't quite do it like that, but the idea that some people's voice carries weight on a subject. The second thing, and this has been incredibly important, it's been brilliant to have somebody who can guide and advise me. I didn't know anything about sustainability five years ago, so I have been learning since then. It's not my background, it's not my area of expertise, but I have been learning along the way, doing courses, looking for opportunities.

So, having somebody who is educated in this, who does it for a living there at the end of the phone has been super helpful. He's always willing to listen to my ideas, good or bad, and advise me on the course of action I think I'm going to need to take. So, having that person outside of the boardroom who can come and talk to me about it, who can guide me along the way, has been very useful. That has enormously built my confidence as well, and means that when I go to talk to the board about our carbon reduction plan or any area of sustainability, I feel much more confident because I know that I've already talked it through with Peter. He's our specialist, and we're kind of in that situation together. The other thing I find having a focused trustee really does is that he can see a much bigger picture than I can.

So, when I write something in my carbon reduction plan, say I write that we're going to limit travel, right, I see all the difficulties that will bring straight away. I think about how challenging that will be, because I'm in the weeds, I'm in the nitty-gritty. He is much more thinking about the organization as a whole. And he can say, "Right, this is part of our commitment to sustainability that we've made public. Therefore, I can see the big picture." You know, he's not operational. He's not thinking about how he's going to explain it to the staff. And that is really helpful. I worry about my bit, he worries about his bit, and it also means that I can see the bigger picture and I don't get stuck in my own weeds. So, I would really recommend, if you are thinking about recruiting for trustees, saying that you would like somebody interested or with knowledge and experience of sustainability, I would really think about that as a way forward.

Solution number two: skills, knowledge, and experience. This is Kate, our trustee, several glasses of wine in, having a very good time. Kate is brilliant. But she doesn't come with any kind of paper-based knowledge about sustainability. So, out of my board of 16, Peter is only one. So, I've got lots of people there with very little skills, knowledge, and experience of sustainability, who I'm asking to make decisions about the future of our organization. So, one thing we do as a charity, and I'm sure you do too, is a skills and behaviours audit with our trustees, with sustainability questions included. So, we can do that as a paper-based survey, but we also do it one to one with our trustees. So, they all have an opportunity to talk to our chair, and she talks to them about what they know and what they don't know.

When we recruited Kate, who's here in the picture, we recruited her because of her knowledge around running public programs, which is really helpful, particularly for membership organizations. She had held a senior position at Kew Gardens. It wasn't until we actually started doing the skills and behaviour audit that she started to explain that so much of that had come out of her own personal knowledge around biodiversity and nature recovery. So we were like, "Oh, we didn't even bring you on board for that. That's fantastic. We would never have known unless we'd started asking those questions." So, it gave me, across the board, knowledge of who was interested in this area, who felt they had some skills, who was going to need more to bring along. Second point: we offer training to all our trustees.

Now, this is just a massive plug for all the training that Historic England offers around this. So, carbon literacy, how to reduce your- how to write a carbon reduction plan, how to do your carbon footprint as an organization. We get so many trustees that come on that training. Some of the organizations who are here today, you are here because you may only be a voluntary-led organization. You may not have any staff. So, actually making sure we get training out to trustees is really important. Of course, trustees are volunteers, and their time is incredibly precious, but if this is something that's going to be a priority for your organization, then it is probably worth thinking about. Can some of your trustees invest some time in some training and really kind of build up some skills in that area? That's not always the solution that works for everyone, of course. So, for a lot of my trustees, they don't have the capacity in their working life to give over to vast amounts of training. But I am always happy to talk to them outside the main meeting.

And actually, the carbon reduction plan is one of the areas they wanted to talk about the most, because they really wanted to understand how we made the choices we had made, and how we were going to enact them and report on them. And I don't know about you, but our board meetings, there is not time to get into all the details. We've got so much we need to get through. So, actually, taking time outside the meeting to make sure that I've been answering those questions, and bringing people on board has been really important. Also, if they want to talk about the broader picture of what's going on in the climate emergency, what's going on in the area of heritage and sustainability, you know, I probably have more time to read and understand this than they do, and I'm always happy to talk about them. So, that informal support, really do go for it if you can. Keep those trustees interested on it.

And then, my third solution is about making carbon reduction part of the normal process of your governance. Now, no lovely picture of trustees at a party for this one. That is in fact, the meeting notes, the minutes of our first, oh, I don't know, probably about 20 board meetings, all from 1920s. And they're all bound now in this enormous book that looks a bit like kind of a doomsday book or something out of Harry Potter. Absolutely massive. The only thing they didn't think about in 1924 is that none of us would be able to read their absolutely spider-like cursive writing. But there's all our minutes. So, I am kind of advocating to try and make sure sustainability is as routine and as normal as possible.

So, what I've done is tied all my planning into things we already do as a board. So, if we're thinking of a long-term strategy, then we are going to put sustainability in that thought process. When we're doing the financial budgets for the year ahead, that's when we'll think about any spend we need around carbon reduction as well. That's also- when we're reviewing that, so at year end, that's when we look at the carbon footprint for the year as well, see if we achieved our KPIs that we had set around carbon reduction. So, tying it into both our long-term and our short-term planning. I try to make sure that everything is aligned to our normal reporting cycle. So, our financial year is January to December. We do budget approval in October, and that's when we approve are forecasting of carbon for the next year coming up. We review the year usually in April, and that's when we look at the carbon footprint. So, that's coming up for my next board meeting. So, you can see I've slotted it in.

So, I don't have one of my meetings a year that's about sustainability. I try to put sustainability in all the meetings in one form or another. This means that you can also do that reporting in your normal reporting after your audit, when you publish your minutes of your ADM, anything you can tie in to your normal reporting cycle do. The reason I say that is, if you put it on a side and say, "Then we'll do this special extra reporting cycle," it's not going to happen, is it? We've got so many pressures in our job. We are stuck for time. So, tie things as closely together. Also, it gets our trustees used to the fact that when we are thinking of the future, we're thinking of carbon. When we're reviewing the year, we're reviewing the carbon footprint. We look at the carbon reduction plan, we look at ours annually. So, whatever suits you as an organization, then that is the way to tie it in.

And then, also, you have to think about all the other policies that sustainability and carbon reduction is going to link to. So, go back to my example of deciding that we're not going to go to any events unless we can access them by public transport. Well, that's going to have an effect on my HR policy, okay? About how we travel, how we pay for travel, how we record travel. And so, you end up with a little bit of carbon reduction sustainability work in that HR policy. Same can be said for attending meetings, whether you decide to have meetings online or attend them in person. That's a HR policy. So, things link together all over the place. For those of you who are public-facing or have worked in organizations that deliver to young people or vulnerable adults, you will understand that from safeguarding.

So, a safeguarding policy for an organization touches on every single policy that you hold, and sustainability will do the same. Now, what I'm not saying is you've got to rewrite all your policies, get it done now, because - what a nightmare. But when it comes to the regular renewal of each of your policies, so diversity and inclusion, for example, you might want to think, "Diversity and inclusion, have I updated everything I wanted to? Have I thought about sustainability? Get my carbon reduction plan out. Is there any overlaps?" And you need to do that for every policy. One thing that your board can do, which is really helpful, is ask that when you're presenting a policy saying, "Have you considered this," with sustainability in mind, you can go, "Yes, no, whatever," so you can actually involve them in the process.

And if your board is involved in writing policy for you, which a lot of trustees are, then it's important that they realise that sustainability is probably going to be involved in every policy that we have, particularly around anything around restoration, programming, anything like that, frontward facing, where you need to think about sustainability. So, make it part of your everyday decision making. That is the goal. I'm not going to say I've totally achieved it, but that's where I would really like to be, that it is considered normal business, much as other aspects of running the charity is considered normal business. So, I've got some takeaways. While we get to the takeaways, don't forget to please write some questions, some very nice, easy questions for me, for the presenter, in the questions for the presenter section, and we'll get to them in the minute.

So, here are my key takeaways. Number one, you might need a plan before the plan. So, that's a lovely photo of my chair of trustees in full flow there, giving a speech at our birthday party. It is completely fine that you may not be ready to go to your board with your carbon reduction plan, with the sustainability policy, with something ready to be signed off. It might be, and it's probably very likely that you actually need to gather quite a lot of data and information before you can put together that plan. I would really suggest telling your trustees, "I'm going to take some time to get this to you because of these reasons." So, for me, when I started in the role, I really wanted to write a carbon reduction plan, but actually we hadn't got any data at all. So, it took us one year's complete working cycle to have enough information to do our carbon footprint. And then, after we'd done our carbon footprint, we then could start thinking about the carbon reduction plan.

I also really needed to sort out our board before then. So, actually, that's where recruiting our sustainability trustee came into that process. My trustees were really happy with the plan before the plan. They knew they needed something, they were happy that I was working on it, and I could tell them how far I'd got, but it actually took quite a long time to actually bring it to board, to get it signed off. So, as long as you're clear about that timeline, I think that should work well. Second one: see who is on your wavelength. So, if you haven't started talking about sustainability as a board, the first time you do, see who responds, see who is interested, who is passionate about this subject. It may not always be the people you expect, but the earlier you can find those trustees and engage them in that process, and offer training or whatever support it might be, the easier it is going to be for you as you go along. So, that's my second takeaway. See on your board who is on your wavelength.

Number three: present in the same way you would any other stream of work. I am absolutely sure that you present to your trustees information about work streams that they don't know anything about, and they feel very confident and are happy and able to sign this off. So, stick with that format. So, use the same format as you do for everything else. My sustainability board papers are not on green paper, they're the same as everything else. Keeping everything really clear in the language, keeping it really practical so they understand it. And then, as I said, weaving everything in together. So, do it the same as you do everything else. And then, the fourth takeaway I want you to have is, really think about your confidence first.

So, when you go and start talking about sustainability with your board, you need to feel that you've got the skills and the knowledge to hold those conversations and to talk to them. So, get yourself some training, run some ideas past some colleagues first, join the Knowledge Hub and start talking to other people. Make sure that you have got the information you need, and practice what you're going to say to your board before you go there, so that you feel equipped and confident. If you're confident about the plan you're presenting, then they are going to feel much happier signing off whatever you're putting forward to them. So, my final message, really, is that every single organization, regardless of size, tiny like us, enormous like some of them, you need to be engaging with sustainability.

And that must be at a governance level. You might have a group of really passionate employees. You might even have a member of staff that is able to work on this full-time, whatever it is. But if it doesn't come from right at the top of your charity, then it's not going to be embedded into the longevity of that charity. So, that success really is about bringing them along board. So, make sure you know what you're doing, feel confident and happy, and bring them with you, and you will get that carbon reduction plan signed off. Thank you very much. And I can see we've got some questions, which I hope Sarah is going to pop up and read to us.

Sarah: Just turning my questions- my camera on. There we are. Yes, we have some questions. Thank you so much, Liz. That was really interesting. I'm also a trustee of a small charity, not a heritage charity. This is one of the things- I think I'm going to get the trustees to actually watch this presentation. So, thank you. Yes, we do have some questions. And if anybody else wants to pop anything in the chat, they're very welcome to. But I'll go with the first one. And I will say, Liz, don't feel that you need to answer these. We can also follow up. Okay. The first one is, dealing with listed buildings provides limits to what can happen. Can the concept of harm to listed buildings be offset by literal carbon offsetting? And I know that this is something you know about.

Liz: So, listed buildings provide- I think "complication" is the polite way we like to phrase it. You know, we're trying to protect and look after those properties and those buildings, but also we need to move with the times. So we, as a charity, fully believe that the safest building is one that is occupied, loved, and used. Okay? So, we know that that can't happen unless we're meeting sustainability adaptations. The good news is that Historic England- I'm sorry, I keep singing your praises on your own webinar, but Historic England have provided loads more information for local authorities, which is much more positive about what can be done for listed buildings without damaging long-term the integrity of those buildings when it comes to energy efficiency and things like that. So, you can find that information on the Historic England website.

So, when you approach your local authority, you can have it in one hand, and when you talk to them, they should also have it in their hands. And so, you should be able to really find a solution. Because if we are going to start abandoning buildings because we can't convert them, we can't heat them, we can't look after them, or the climate emergency impacts are having too much of an impact on a building, that is going to be much more harmful in the long run. So, we as a charity are quite positive about adapting and retrofitting buildings. I chair a group which is all about the retrofit skills we need in heritage, to prepare them for climate change. And hopefully, when you speak to your conservation officer, you will find they're on the same page with you. There's also- sorry, plugging the Technical Tuesday Webinars of Historic England as well. If you're not sure what that might look like for your building, have a look on the back catalogue of them, because there might be something there that really helps you.

Sarah: Thank you. And I will add to that that one of the things that we have in our training, and Liz will know this, is discussion about the fact that a lot of the things you can do to lower your carbon emissions are not going to impact a building, any building, because they are soft adaptations that you can make, that can really make a change. And also to just point out, and I think we all know this, that carbon offsetting really, really is the last resort. You should be doing everything you can before you get to the point of thinking about offsetting.

Liz: Absolutely.

Sarah: Yeah, thank you. Another question. I will just read these out to you. So, I'd be interested to hear if you have any guidance for trustees around procurement, for example, a policy around supplies for equipment such as solar panels, heat pumps, etc.. Before you answer, Liz, I will just say that it is my plan to have a seminar in- a webinar in this series about sustainable procurement. So, if that's something you're interested in, please do keep a watch on announcement for these webinars. But I will also let you answer, Liz.

Liz: Yeah. So, procurement is really tricky, because... Procurement can be big or small depending on your organization. So, you might have a payment policy as an organization. That's all well and good, but the implementation of that policy is often the hard bit. When you're thinking about upcoming and carbon reduction, then sometimes you can do all the right things and it won't show on your carbon footprint. So, you really want to think about what it is that you're trying to achieve, and I'd suggest that you're trying to achieve a more sustainable pipeline of procurement for your organization. So, the first thing about procurement is really thinking about, do you actually need this? And trying to limit purchasing as possible. And then, obviously, thinking about the suppliers, and, you know, the sustainability of that supply chain.

Everything to do with sustainability, I would say, involves a great deal of research. So, if you want to make a choice, I think the example there says something about, you know, solar panels and heat pumps. Well, get reading, right? Because there is a lot of information out there about choices that you could make, and how much information you can give, and weighing up those choices. When it comes to a trustee level, you should be thinking about that procurement strategy, whether you have an actual strategy written down, or it's a more informal one that says, you know, "We don't buy from local companies." So, we buy all our food from a local provider. We try not to use the big chains, whatever it may be. Whether it be a big policy or a small policy, getting your trustees to understand why you're making those choices.

Because, often, the most sustainable choices at the moment might be more expensive. So, that's going to hit the budget, that's going to hit your finances, so you need that buy-in and understanding when it comes to it. So, I'm not sure if that answers the question completely, but procurement is a minefield. Come to Sarah's webinar.

Sarah: Also, I wanted to flag up that we have just announced some webinars on a pilot project that we've been running with Arts Council England on decarbonisation of your heritage building, and they are available, and the links will be on the screen a little bit later. So, it's worth having a look at those, because new guidance has just been popped on our website. The next question is about carbon literacy. How are we doing for time? We're all right. Certification as a carbon-literate organization is something that enhances the organization's reputation, and therefore may be appealing to boards. Certification at bronze level doesn't appear to be too onerous or costly, even for small organizations. Are you able to briefly comment on the process and examples of the steps, outline future plans, and implement a system for tracking? I will just say, I'm not sure whether you have carbon literacy organization for yours yet, Liz. But I do know that Historic England, and we are a much bigger organization, we have just recently achieved silver accreditation.

Liz: Well done, Historic England. No. So, we're all, as a staff team, carbon literacy trained, and we have three or four members of our trustee board who are carbon-literate as well, who have done the training and received certification. We haven't gone for doing the certification. Now, the reason for that is that we're not incredibly public-facing. And I think it is much more appealing for organizations who are public-facing to get an award or to get some sort of certification. I know a lot of heritage organizations who are more visitor-facing go for things like eco-tourism awards. The churches might go for the gold, silver and bronze sustainability awards the Church of England does. I am really a big fan of anything that motivates, so if being carbon-literate is gonna- as an organization is going to work for you like it's worked for Historic England, fantastic, right? Or whatever it may be. I imagine that the future plans- and this system for tracking is literally that.

What would be your plan? You're going to do that anyway if you're going to do a carbon reduction plan. So, how are you going to reduce carbon over the next two, three, four years? And how are you going to track it? Well, that's about the data. One of the things that we know is if you are measuring your carbon footprint, often your carbon footprint gets "worse", because your carbon amount gets more because you are getting better at that data tracking. And we often talk to organizations as well, that plan before a plan, if you're not able to do something like do your carbon footprint at the moment, you want to think about how you are tracking data. So, implementing a system for tracking, the only advice I ever give, anything to do with tracking carbon in an organization, make sure it is as easy as possible, and ties into all the systems you currently have.

So, if you are paying for mileage for trustees, that's going to tell you how many miles they've driven. So, you've already got that system in place. Your bills will have all the amounts in place around your energy usage, for example. I would never say invent a new system unless you absolutely can't tie something else in, because it will just be forgotten. When things are hard, it will be one of the things that fall by the wayside. But if it is normal, if it is part of your reporting, if it's part of the cycle, then it's much easier. So, I can't help you out on the exact comments, but, you know, good practice around collecting data and keeping track of things will probably fulfil those requirements.

Sarah: Yeah, and I will say that carbon literacy projects are really good at helping you out to get what you need together to get the bronze, silver, and gold. And when you get used to vacation, you get to go into an award ceremony. And that's really nice. And it's a good bit of PR as well, as Liz mentioned. One final question. If in-person engagement is key to your business activity, so travel costs are an obvious factor in a carbon reduction plan, how might you avoid boards setting targets, e.g. all meetings are online, having a significant impact on your operational costs?

Liz: Yeah... I think this really comes into you and the board working together, and this tie-in of things being both operational and strategic in one piece of work. So, what you really don't want is your board setting targets that you can't make. So, the absolute classic target that many boards have set over the past few years is a date by which net zero will be achieved. And then, as soon as the staff go away and do some of the detailed work around that, they have to go back to the board and say, "Dear board, you know, you made this very public target. There's absolutely no way we can make that." And it was very much something that boards may have said publicly as a target, but it's not actually achievable. So, when it comes to the target setting, I would say engage the board in the process of setting those targets with you. So, help them understand why you're going for things that maybe aren't as fancy as they'd like, but actually are going to be really vital in the process that you are on.

And when we think about things impacting things operationally, we're used to considering, you know, how impactful something will be against the budget. We're very used to that, aren't we? You know, getting this all together for this webinar would be slightly more impactful, but a billion times more expensive, so, we're not going to do it. We're going to do it online. What we're asking now is, as organizations, to think about that carbon as that third element, okay? So, when you're making a choice over a piece of programing, is it going to be impactful? Incredibly impactful. Is it going to be cheap? Oh yes. Brilliant. Dirt cheap. Is it going to use quite a lot of carbon? Actually, it is, but the impact is worth it. And if you feel that something, the impact of doing the activity, whether it be meetings in person, or running a conference, or whatever, that if you can think about and prove, hopefully through evaluation, that that impact is definitely worth it, then you must do it.

We're not asking organizations- the best way to be net zero would be to close the door, right? And we're not going to do that. We still have other charitable objectives that we are looking to meet. Remember, we are always thinking about reducing our carbon footprint, not getting rid of it altogether. That would be completely unrealistic about how we can operate as organizations. So, bring your board along and make sure they understand that. And if they have set some public targets that you know you're not going to be able to make, then you need to talk to them about how you could rephrase those to actually be achievable.

Sarah: Thank you. One of the comments that has just come up, and I'll leave it at this one, is: online and AI is adding to one's carbon footprint. Absolutely. Again, I know I'm plugging my own webinars here, but we do have a webinar planned on digital carbon emissions, because that's something that's coming up a lot, and I know it's... I know it's something that a lot of people are really interested in. So, that will be coming soon, probably in April, or hopefully in April. Fantastic. So, I think we're coming to an end, and I just want to say, thank you so much to Liz for...

[END]