Climate Connectors

Our Climate Connectors programme is exactly what it says on the tin – an initiative that connects businesses with local community organisations such as schools, charities and action groups, to mobilise projects that help tackle the climate crisis in Camden and create value within the community.

Many projects don’t make it off the ground due to a lack of finance or resource for community actors to deliver them. At the same time, businesses are increasingly recognising the role they can play in being a good neighbour and supporting projects local to them. Climate Connectors helps to bridge this gap.

The project also delivered two key climate events for the secondary and primary schools in the borough.

Schools

In partnership with Camden Council, we work closely with Camden schools on climate and eco-related projects. Our main aim of this is to find out what the young people of Camden feel about their local area and whether it meets their needs in these unprecedented times of a climate and social emergency.

In 2025, as part of our Climate Connectors programme we delivered two school events with Camden’s support. The first, a secondary school event, was titled Love Your Climate on 14 February (Valentine’s Day) and the second was the third year running of our Green Dragon’s Den event for Camden Primary schools.

Love Your Climate Secondary School event

Love Your Climate invited young people to discuss neighbourhood based climate solutions. We asked them to gather in groups and mix between the schools.There was one facilitator per table who asked them questions like What climate solutions in their area they knew of. What did they think? Was anything missing? What would they like to see? We then asked them about the 17 recommendations that the Council developed with the Citizen’s Assembly. The event helped Camden Council get a true representation of the youth voice in their next five-year Climate Action Plan.

“One of the highlights of the event was the enthusiastic participation of the students. Despite the fact that the environment was new for most of them, they engaged in various activities and discussions. From interactive workshops to insightful presentations, the event provided a wealth of knowledge and hands-on experiences that captivated the students’ attention” – La Santé Union staff.

Green Dragons Den 2025

On 27 March we co-hosted our annual Green Dragons Den event at CCA business, Troup Bywater Anders. We were joined by students from the following 8 primary schools:

• Brecknock Primary School
• Brookfield Primary School
• Christ Church Primary NW3
• Edith Neville Primary School
• Hampstead Parochial C of E Primary School
• Kingsgate Primary School
• Torriano Primary School
• West Hampstead Primary School

We heard some amazing pitches and have now fed back to schools awarding them for their exciting projects! The winner of the top prize was Torriano Primary School followed by Brookfield and West Hampstead who were tied in second place. Torriano’s prize of £500 was for purchasing window film to put on their classroom to keep it cooler on bright sunny days. The other schools prizes were as follows:

Brookfield Primary School	Fashion Show and Clothes Swap	£400
West Hampstead Primary School	Rewilding project in their school	£400
Brecknock Primary School	Clean Air Green Fence	£300
Edith Neville Primary School	Water Bottles	£300
Hampstead Parochial School	Solar Panels on the Library Roof	£300
Christ Church Primary NW3	Encouraging Sustainable Travel	£200

A big thanks to the Dragons for their expert judging on the day:
Hafiz Onitolo, Think & Do
Tuli Halima, Think & Do
Sophia Chau, T B+A
Holly Browne, Anthesis Group

Also a very special thank you to the new Camden Mayor, Councillor Hanson who attended the event, took part in the judging and gave a very inspiring speech to you young people in attendance.

We also ran Sow, Sew workshops on the day for pupils to participate in when they were not presenting. The workshops were on creating seed bombs and learning how to sew to repair buttons on clothes. Sophia Chau also showcased their Sustainability Superheroes presentation to the schools, which spoke about how construction can be done more sustainably.

We are very grateful to T B +A for hosting, in particular Claire Bower and Tilly Grainger for helping the day run so smoothly. Many thanks also to Lauren Spragg and Jody Chapman from Anthesis Group for running the Sewing workshop.

Here are some photos from the workshop:

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Local Businesses

We have developed partnerships with Camden Climate Alliance (CCA) businesses on behalf of the council over the past few years, encouraging them to work on eco projects at schools, community groups, charities and related organisations local to them. For example, CCA businesses have increased biodiversity in Camden, which is one of the CCA’s business climate change pledges.

As part of our Hyper Local Map and MAtch programme, we reached out to CCA businesses over spring and summer spring to try and match them to a third sector organisation, within a 2km radius of their location, mapping their locations on a Google map.

The conversations are still ongoing with a few organisations and may come to fruition in the next few months. What has transpired from this project is that many of the businesses wanted to work with a greening community organisation of which we are one! Think&Do benefited from this and we were very grateful to receive the support of many businesses with volunteers on our greening projects over the past few months. You can find out more on our Volunteering newsletter.

Thank you to all the volunteers who have contributed vital grit and determination to help us complete our greening project.