Offset alternative

Glasgow Eco Trust has launched an innovative fundraiser – a community flight donation scheme. People who have taken a flight recently can make a small donation to support our work on community led climate action. This scheme is an alternative to official carbon offset programmes. People that donate will be supporting community-led climate action. We are also not encouraging people to fly more!

WHY WE ARE DOING THIS

There are two main reasons why we are doing this:

Firstly, our work is delivered under five main themes – transport, food, resource use, energy and spaces. The first four of these are the main contributors to an individual / household / community carbon footprint. By donating through this scheme you are supporting community-led climate action which is making a difference for people, place and planet.

We also know there is huge pressure on consumers to change their behaviour however often it is the system that is preventing people doing more – why is it cheaper to fly from Glasgow to London than take the train? – so we will continue to lobby for system change to make it easier for people to make positive choices.

Examples of our work include:

• Transport – our Active Travel programme enables more people to walk, wheel and cycle and we campaign for better active travel infrastructure, including our recently launched Active Travel and Sustainable Transport plan for Whiteinch and Scotstoun focusing on bigger system change. In 2017 37% of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions are accounted for by transport and the two biggest contributors to transport emissions are from cars (40%) and aviation (15%) with flying being the largest per trip contributor. (2017) (Source: National Transport Strategy, p21).
• Resource use – De’ils On Wheels community bike workshop refurbishes unwanted bikes – every bike we get back into reuse saves 16.5kg of CO2e
• Food – Glasgow Eco Trust is part of an innovative project, the Food and Climate Action project to develop a more local, more resilient food system. This is lead by Glasgow Community Food Network and is in partnership with five local host organisations including ourselves in west Glasgow.

Secondly, funding is becoming ever more competitive. Therefore we are having to diversify where and how we get our funding and income from as well as become more innovative as to how we fundraise – such as this community flight donation scheme!. This scheme forms part of our bigger #GET23in23 fundraising campaign where we are aiming to raise £23,000 in 2023. Although the flight donation scheme will go beyond 2023!

SUGGESTED DONATIONS

The following table provides suggested donation amounts based on how far your flight was and which class of travel you took. You can use this table to calculate the donation amounts based on any flights you have taken since the end of lockdown. There are some examples shown below too.

HOW TO DONATE

1. Have you flown since lockdown was lifted?
2. If so work out how much you would like to donate based on the table above
3. Click the green ‘donate’ button
   • On a PC/laptop – the ‘donate’ button is on the right – use ‘Ctrl + Donate’ to open the donate page in a new tab – then you can move between tabs to see the suggested donations
   • On smartphones/tablets – scroll down to end of page and hold down on ‘donate’ and open in a new tab – then you can move between tabs to see the suggested donations
4. Complete the required fields including the flight details information
5. Tick the Gift Aid declaration if appropriate
6. Complete your donation

NOT FLOWN RECENTLY BUT STILL WANT TO SUPPORT OUR WORK

If you have not taken a flight recently but still would like to support our work you can donate to our General donations.

Thank you for your donation – all support is greatly appreciated.

Community-led climate action – making a difference for people, place and planet!