The National Library of Wales has launched Culture and Climate Cymru, a new website and networking platform to help Wales’s culture and heritage sector respond to the climate crisis.
Culture and Climate Cymru aims to support individuals and organisations across the sector to collaborate on tackling the climate and nature emergencies and provides access to training, information and resources, events, case studies, and an online forum space to share ideas and collaborate.
The new website has been developed in response to the recommendation of the Welsh Government’s research report into the Welsh culture sector and the climate and nature emergencies, supporting delivery of “Ambition 16” of the Welsh Government’s Priorities for Culture.
Rhodri Llwyd Morgan, the chief executive of the National Library of Wales, said: “The National Library of Wales has an important role to play in helping people to access accurate information that they can trust about climate change. There is also so much information, history and intangible heritage that can help us tackle the climate and nature crises in our collections. Taking climate action therefore aligns with our core mission to protect, expand and develop the collections, and enable people to enjoy and appreciate the content.”
The new resource, developed as part of the National Library of Wales’s Climate Action Programme, has been made in partnership with the Welsh Government.
The library’s Climate Action Programme also supports a pilot project to help three cultural organisations based in historic buildings to develop decarbonisation plans; a training programme to support the cultural workforce to develop the skills they need to take climate action; and opportunities for people working in culture and heritage in Wales to share learning and best practice on climate with colleagues from across the UK.
Judith Musker Turner, the library’s Climate Action Programme lead, said: “Culture and Climate Cymru will make it easier for people working in the culture and heritage sectors to take collective action to protect Wales’s culture and heritage from climate change and will raise the profile of all the outstanding work that is already being done. The culture sector has a unique power to inspire change and to bring people together, and it is important that this is more widely recognised.”
With financial support from Welsh Government, the National Library of Wales is working towards becoming carbon neutral by 2028. The library recently transformed its historic estate through a retrofit programme that significantly reduces its carbon footprint while securing a more sustainable future. Measures included the installation of technologies such as air and ground heat pumps, 1,622 solar panels, and the implementation of an intelligent building management system to improve energy efficiency.
