The Duke of Edinburgh meets recipients of Ridge Clean Energy’s Climate Care Awards

His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh visited Oxfordshire on 12^th February and met with key representatives of Oxfordshire organisations focused on climate, renewable energy, sustainability, and other environmental issues.

Ridge Clean Energy (RCE), a UK-based renewable energy company, shared information on the Climate Care Awards, designed for school-aged children.

His Royal Highness watched a short role-play on the carbon cycle prepared by pupils from Charlbury Primary School, the first participants in the Climate Care Awards Programme.

The aim of this scheme is to inspire sustainable living, heighten climate change awareness and lessen eco-anxiety by encouraging positive contributions from individuals and communities towards the health of our planet. The awards begin with Bronze and work up to Gold and involve completing targets to reduce pupils’ carbon footprint.

Ridge Clean Energy’s Community Partnership Coordinator, Teresa Hall, emphasised ‘Education is a fundamental part of the community engagement work undertaken by RCE while developing Renewable Energy Parks in the UK. Regardless of individual abilities and challenges, our young people are the future guardians of this amazing planet and we therefore have an obligation, as a responsible developer, to prepare them for that role.’

The Climate Care Awards have been created for educational groups to be completed alongside suggested hands-on activities planned to make caring for our planet and making a difference a fun thing to do.

Philip Sharman, Deputy Lieutenant for Oxfordshire remarked ‘It was great seeing the enthusiasm of the school children when acting out the carbon cycle and talking His Royal Highness through the range of actions we can all take to reduce our carbon emissions.  They absolutely ‘got it’ which is a credit to the Climate Care Awards material!’

Teresa Hall said, “Climate change might seem like too big a challenge for any one individual to take on, especially a child, but we know that cutting down our individual carbon emissions does make a difference. As a company we look beyond developing renewable energy parks to supporting the communities near our sites on their path to net zero.

Ridge Clean Energy wish to share the Climate Care Awards programme with other renewable energy companies who can then, in turn share with the schools and communities they serve. The Climate Care Awards Primary Pack is now available for interested groups to download here.