As a global insurer with customers big and small all over the world, almost every part of our business is affected by climate change. We’re taking action to reduce our own impact as well as helping our customers and business partners adapt, and now through our partnership with The Country Trust, we’re helping the next generation learn how they can create change.
Through the Hiscox Foundation, as part of our focus on ‘protecting and preserving the environment’, we’re supporting The Country Trust with a £60,000 donation to fund the ‘Climate Action Farm in a Box’ scheme for schools in the UK.
The Country Trust is an education charity focused on supporting better life chances for disadvantaged children through hands-on food, farming and countryside experiences, empowering them to create change in their lives and in the world.
The charity worked closely with teachers and farmers to develop the box, which is designed to help children build connections between farming, the food we eat and climate change. It’s a free, hands-on, learning programme which aims to support 7-11 year olds by introducing the concept and consequences of climate change, whilst inviting them to reflect and explore their feelings around this often overwhelming subject.
Each box contains activities as well as equipment and resources to help the children complete them, plus short films featuring real-life farmers talking about the impact of climate change on their farms and how they’re adapting. Pupils are guided to create their own climate action plan, to identify issues around them, and, working with their head teacher, create a plan to reduce their school’s carbon footprint.
Farming is a major contributor to climate change, producing around 20% of greenhouse gases globally, and 10% in the UK. But farms can also be part of the solution, for example by capturing these gases from the air and locking them up in the soil. The Climate Action Farm in a Box explores different ways farms are responding to climate change and what part we can play too.
It’s vital that children build these connections to the world around them and their place in it. However, according to the Office for National Statistics around 1 in 8 households in the UK have no access to an outdoor space, a number that is noticeably skewed towards black and minority ethnic groups and those living in poverty.
By helping make this scheme free for all eligible schools, we hope that all children will now have this opportunity to learn, grow and connect with nature so that together we can build something better.
Learn more at www.countrytrust.org.uk/climate-action.
