3 ways your Scouts and Guides can save the planet

Scouting and Girlguiding have always had an interest in environmental conservation with multiple badges to celebrate efforts to keep up the focus on protecting our planet.

Climate change has more recently become a focal point of conversation with young people across the world.

Take Greta Thunberg for example, the 16-year-old Swedish girl, who last year began protesting outside Swedish Parliament in a bid to make her country’s leaders take their role in global warming seriously. Her actions have influenced youngsters across the world to participate in protests with more than 1.4 million young people taking part in school strikes to raise awareness of the issue.

So how can your members and volunteers make an effort to minimise their contribution to climate change with just a few small steps and possibly work towards some new badges?

Take advantage of reusable products

We now have a wealth of relatively cheap, reusable products that are easily accessible to us from our local supermarkets.

Encouraging your members to bring along reusable water bottles to meetings can massively reduce your collective usage of single-use plastic.

You could also ask anyone to donate old cutlery, crockery and other equipment for snacks, activities and weekly meetings in general. And if they get broken, then the impact is already reduced as it was second-hand in the first place.

Walk, cycle, or use public transport to get to your meetings

Probably the easiest way to help reduce your carbon footprint and minimise your contribution to global warming is to get somewhere by either walking, cycling, using public transport or if you really have to get there by car, offering to carpool with others.

This is a great way to encourage your members to get some exercise and fresh air which is great for both them and the planet. Why not make it a challenge to see who can clean up the most litter on their way to your meetings?

Doing so can also help your youngsters work towards some new badges that they otherwise wouldn’t have. Eco-friendly and productive!

Use your website to reduce your paper usage

Although paper is often used as an alternative to reduce the use of plastic, our paper consumption is still a massive threat to the environment with the average UK family throwing away 6 trees worth of paper per year.

Encourage your youngsters’ parents to email you things such as letters and queries instead of sending your members in with notes and things that may happen to get lost on the way.

If you completely stop using paper documents, forms and leaflets for enquiries, events and personal information, and create all of these using our bespoke forms on your website or add downloadable documents, imagine just how much paper you would be saving just from your Group, District, County, and Region. And it’s much more secure than a stray piece of paper!

Alongside our Scouts website service, we now have a bespoke offering through our Kolodo Uniform team where we are building completely on-brand websites for Girlguiding Units, Districts, Divisions, Counties and Campsites.

Find out more about Scout Group websites here