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Glasgow Women’s Library

On retrofitting, community gardening and sharing green learnings

Glasgow Women’s Library is the only accredited museum in the UK dedicated to women’s lives, histories and achievements, with a lending library, archive collections and innovative programmes of public events & learning opportunities. It delivers vital services and inspiring learning programmes to women from diverse backgrounds with different experiences and needs. This case study outlines some of the recent activities of their active green team, or ‘Green Cluster’.

This case study was produced by Glasgow Women’s Library green team members Becca Lewis, Facilities Management Officer and Gabrielle Macbeth, Volunteer Co-ordinator.

Watch a short, filmed version of this case study.

About the Green Cluster

Our Green Cluster is made up of team members with very different roles: as well as Becca and Gabrielle, it includes our cleaner Doreen, who also volunteers as a literacy tutor and reader development champion; Emily, from the admin team; Caroline, who’s involved in programming; and Mary, who volunteers on front of house and is also a super keen and accomplished gardener. The diversity of roles, experience and perspectives makes the Green Cluster a strong and effective team.

The Green Cluster takes the lead on:

  • Programming events that highlight women’s contributions to climate activism
  • Reducing our carbon footprint as an organisation
  • Sharing our work, like we do in the wee video above.

Here are some of the projects we’re especially proud of:

We installed secondary glazing and LED lighting throughout our building thanks to a grant from the Climate Challenge Fund. This had been on our wishlist for five years, as we knew it would significantly reduce our carbon footprint, so we are very pleased that we have now done it!

In 2019, we partnered with a local primary school and the Royal Horticultural Society to plan, plant and look after a garden outside our building.

A group of women and children standing outside a building.

Group from the local primary school

Two large planter boxes full of plants

Thriving planters at Bridgeton train station

And in November 2020 we also installed planters on the platform of our local train station, Bridgeton. These projects have been a great way of engaging with our neighbours and showing how much we care for our environment. We hope to plant some trees next.

In 2020, we co-designed and hosted an online event with our lovely colleagues from Creative Carbon Scotland, now Culture for Climate Scotland. Our guest speakers Dania Thomas, Clem Sandison and Nicole Paterson, explored how we can adapt to a changing climate in ways which forefront social justice and challenge structural inequalities and colonial legacies. Pretty powerful stuff! You can watch the recording of the event on our Vimeo channel.

Some of the things we’re looking forward to working on next are:

  • Exploring how we can further reduce our carbon emissions and work towards being carbon neutral. We have funding for a feasibility study which will result in the production of a route map to carbon neutrality.
  • Sharing more resources through the Green Learning blogs on our website, where we share what we’ve been reading and watching about climate justice, carbon reduction and our role in caring for the environment – such as this paper on a Feminist Green New Deal or the Mothers of Invention podcast. We’re also starting to let our audiences know what we’re doing behind the scenes to reduce our organisation’s impact on the environment, and publishing some green stats.
  • We are programming more outside events using the garden as a gathering point. As noted by our blog, gardens and green spaces are not only good for the environment and wildlife, they are good for us and our wellbeing, so we are enjoying having this newly created space to use for our programme.
  • We are hosting a student placement with Sophie from the Earth Futures masters course at Glasgow University. Sophie was developing climate literacy activities and resources in the lead up to COP26.

Contact

Please get in touch with Gabrielle at [email protected] if you’d like to know more about any aspect of our green work.

Visit Glasgow Women’s Library website for details of opening hours, location, events and other information.