Where did the Greening Campaign start?
In 2007, Terena (the founder of the Greening Campaign) realised that only ‘green’ people visited ‘green’ centres or read ‘green’ magazines, and she felt that this meant most of the time people with climate change expertise were preaching to the converted. She also realised that the whole ‘climate issue’ was overwhelming people. And more than this- no-one could tell whether anyone else was taking action, leading them to wonder: ‘Why should I change my lifestyle when everyone else is carrying on the same?!’.
From small beginnings
Terena wanted to engage everyone, and so started the Greening Campaign in her own community. To her surprise, she found that if people are given clear advice and ideas on how to save money and reduce greenhouse gases in a fun and visible way, they take action! People all over the community started to change their behaviour, and the Greening Campaign was born.
The community next door then asked if they could run the Greening Campaign, then another joined, and another…until 200 communities up and down the country were running a ‘Greening Community’. Terena created packs compiling all the learning gathered so that new communities could learn from what had happened before, and other volunteers joined her to support communities. However, doing this and full time job was exhausting. Covid then put a stop to all community gatherings, and just like so many not-for-profits across the country, the Greening Campaign took this as an moment to regroup and reassess what was happening and what communities needed.
Learning what communities need
The best way to find out what communities wanted was to ask them. They said they loved the engagement, but they wanted support to make serious changes on the ground- they wanted to take action further.
The Greening Campaign does not hold all the expertise required to do this, nor did we think it made sense to hire people to do a job that was already being done by other organisations. So the Greening Campaign became a Community Interest Company (CIC), and with the help of funding from Hampshire County Council found partnering organisations- we built a handrail for success!
We trialled this new way of working in Hampshire with five communities. It was a success, and we continually improved it as we learned from working with communities. We then extended the partnership and with National Lottery funding we are now working successfully with 20 communities across Hampshire.
Ready for the next chapter
We are now recognised as a successful tool supporting communities to engage residents in a wide range of sustainable actions and activities to make their communities more resilient – we were even asked to speak at the Houses of Parliament so MPs could learn what we do!
We have a great team of people behind our community support, and incredibly knowledgeable partners.
As each community has taken part, we have learned what works, and how to provide space for all to take action. We share this with our Greening Communities through direct support and through our information ‘Packs’. The Packs are jam-packed with fun, intriguing, and sometimes outright hilarious suggestions for you to learn from.
Having built a successful programme, we are ready for the next chapter, taking on ten more Greening Communities across Hampshire in Autumn/Winter 2026/2027.
If you want to join us on our journey, contact us at hello@greening-campaign.org.
Interested in running a campaign or finding out more?
Please contact the Greening Campaign and we will talk you through all the options. We want to support you to enjoy running The Greening Campaign - our future is your future - we all live on the same planet!
