I was motivated to join this course as I had a personal interest in seeing how art can relate to climate change and contribute to climate action. I see the arts as a great way of translating what science cannot.

Plymouth Culture are one of Arts Council England's National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs), which means we are required to align with specific principles set out by them, one of which is sustainability. As there is a need from our funder that we tackle this issue in our delivery, I wanted to learn how we could do that.

The main benefit I gained from this course is the confidence to lead on sustainability projects within my organisation.

The course helped me in a range of areas, from understanding why I'm doing the carbon calculations that our funder requires and recognising their importance, to being inspired to start a collaboration project with Art and Energy called "Let's Make Change", created to support Plymouth-based creative freelancers in developing bold, imaginative projects that respond to the climate crisis. The structure of Future Climate Leaders , combining self-directed learning, inspirational talks, and collaborative group work, strongly influenced the format of our project.

I've done other climate change courses before and often felt frustrated in those spaces because I didn’t feel like I was learning. What I needed was to build confidence in my understanding of sustainability.

The practical nature of this course made learning easier, and now I feel confident and able to be the champion of sustainability within my organisation.

I understand more when I'm practising what I'm learning, so this was incredibly valuable for me. I can get distracted in some learning environments, but everything on the course really caught my attention because of this practical mix.