Bringing the People's Emergency Briefing to our Local Community
This September, we're stepping just down the road from our Woodside base to bring together our Investors in the Environment members and the wider local community for a showing of the People's Emergency Briefing at Ye Olde Cross Community Pub in Ryton.
Why we're showing the People's Emergency Briefing
The climate and nature emergency can sometimes feel like something happening somewhere else, or something that belongs in conversations between scientists, policymakers and sustainability professionals.
But its impacts affect all of us. Our homes and communities, the food we eat, the places we work, the businesses we rely on and the natural environment around us are all connected to a changing climate.
After another exceptionally hot and dry summer, some of those challenges can feel increasingly close to home. But while the scale of the issue can feel daunting, understanding what is happening – and what we can do about it – is an important place to start.
That's what the People's Emergency Briefing sets out to do. Featuring Chris Packham, Jennifer Saunders, leading climate and nature scientists and a former senior military leader, the film provides a frank and accessible briefing on the climate and nature challenges facing the UK, what they could mean for our lives and our future, and what can be done in response.
Bringing different people into the conversation
At Genee, we spend much of our time working with organisations to help them understand their environmental impacts and turn their sustainability ambitions into practical action.
Through Investors in the Environment (iiE), we're fortunate to work with brilliant organisations across the North East and North West that are already doing exactly that.
We'll be inviting our iiE members to join us at the screening, but the evening is equally for local residents, community organisations, businesses and anyone who is simply interested or curious.
You don't need to work in sustainability, to know the science, or arrive with all the answers.
We'll watch the film together and then have an informal conversation about what we've heard, the different perspectives in the room and what it might mean for us as individuals, organisations and as a community.
A community film needs a community venue
We couldn't think of a more appropriate place to hold the screening than Ye Olde Cross Community Pub in Ryton. Ye Olde Cross became the area's first community-owned pub after more than 300 local people came together and raised £150,000 to save it from closure.
It's a brilliant example of what can happen when a community recognises something it values and comes together to protect it. And as a two-person environmental consultancy based just up the road in Woodside, that local connection matters to us too.
Genee might work with organisations across the North of England, but we're a local micro-business. This is our community as well, and we want to play our part in creating opportunities for conversations like this to happen locally.
From understanding to action
One of the things we've learned through our work is that sustainability doesn't work particularly well when it's confined to the sustainability team. The most meaningful progress happens when people across an organisation understand why something matters and feel able to contribute to what happens next, and we think the same applies beyond the workplace.
Climate change and nature loss will affect all of us in different ways, so conversations about how we respond shouldn't be limited to environmental professionals.
The People's Emergency Briefing gives us an opportunity to start one of those conversations here in our own community.
Whether you're an iiE member, a local business, part of a community organisation, live locally or are simply curious, everyone is welcome.
The screening is being held on the 8th September from 6pm. It is free to attend but booking is required due to room capacity: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-peoples-emergency-briefing-tickets-1998362480975?aff=oddtdtcreator
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