Training: Free Carbon Literacy Training (OU Staff and Students)

We have been encouraging students and colleagues to sign up for our fully funded Carbon Literacy Training, available to all OU staff and students following a pilot with The Open University in Wales. The training gives us all a solid awareness of climate change and the climate impacts of our everyday actions. It allows us to map our own carbon footprint and gain an understanding and the motivation to reduce personal and work-place emissions.

Former Director of The Open University in Wales, Louise Casella, discusses the importance and benefits of the Carbon Literacy training in this two-minute video. 

Our online learning starts with four hours of self-study activity, followed by four hours of interactive training, and an individual and group action pledge that leads to Carbon Literacy certification. We encourage you to make a work-place action pledge which can then be linked into organisational sustainability actions and reporting.

If you're a member of staff, you can book directly on My Learning Centre here. 

If you are an OU student, or OCA staff or students, you can register your interest for the Carbon Literacy Training here, and we will email you the dates and links to upcoming training. (please ensure to use your OU/OCA email ID when registering).

Upcoming dates for online training, each taking place between 11am-3:30pm on the last Wednesday of the month:
 

21st May

25th June

30th July

24th September

29th October

26th November

Testimonials received in 2025:

"Coming from a non-science background, I found the Carbon Literacy Course to be exceptionally well put together. The concepts were well explained with remarkable clarity, making it easy to understand even the more complex ideas. This course has truly broadened my perspective on the bigger picture of climate change and sustainability. The face-to-face workshop was extremely well facilitated and really helped the learning come alive. Completing the course and making my pledges has empowered me to reflect on the individual impact I can have, both within the workplace and at home.

Despite the total commitment being 8 hours overall , the flexibility of the self-study part (4 hours) allowed me to complete it at my own pace, breaking it down into manageable chunks. Having a choice of workshop dates, meant I could choose to book this when I felt I was ready. This structure made the learning process both accessible and enjoyable. I can't recommend this course highly enough!"

Anna,Tutor Support Manager , The OU

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My Carbon Literacy Training was a real eye-opener. The self-study in advance gave me confidence around the science that I had never looked into before and the group training was supportive and thought-provoking. It inspired me to go on to study the OU microcredential on Climate Change which led to development of the sustainability action plan for my unit and chairing our unit's sustainability working group. We're taking action in a range of areas to reduce carbon emissions and encourage individual action and learning. 

Liz, MarComms, The OU

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Since completing my Carbon Literacy Training in April 2024, I have felt my confidence in environmental matters increase. The training informed me of the wider environmental issues we face today, and helped me to see that making small changes in day to day living can have an impact. Having Carbon Literacy Training also helped to give me the confidence to make suggestions in professional spaces, such as implementing environmental policies and ways of working. The training has also helped me to be able to identify meaning working practices by companies as it is important to me to work in spaces that are sustainable. The training itself was highly enjoyable, especially as the online training took place with a mixture of OU students and staff, and did not take a large amount of time to complete. I highly recommend doing the training! 

Adelaide, student, The OU

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Since completing my Carbon Literacy Training with The Open University, I’ve become much more conscious of the environmental impact of my daily actions. I pledged to reduce my energy usage at home and have since switched to a green energy supplier, cut down significantly on single-use plastics, and started using public transport more regularly instead of driving.

The training helped me better understand the systemic nature of the climate crisis and inspired me to talk more openly about sustainability with friends and colleagues. I’ve also encouraged my workplace to consider more eco-friendly practices, such as reducing unnecessary printing and improving recycling efforts.

Being Carbon Literate has made me feel empowered to make meaningful changes and contribute positively, both individually and within my community.

Hugo, student, The OU 

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Since completing the Carbon Literacy course in December 2003, I have made a few changes which I had pledged to work on.
I immediately reduced my heating thermostat by 3o and reduced the hours of use by a number of hours per week, most days not using it at all. Blankets and extra layers have been the main source of heat in my home. Also, my energy supplier offers an off-peak use initiative which gives me half price electricity to use appliances effectively to save energy use, these changes have provided the added bonus of cheaper bills.
My travel footprint has been reduced too as I have not been on any flights since completing the course, my next flight is almost 18 months away which was planned as a special occasion holiday 5 years ago.
I also pledged to replace my large diesel car, I've just bought a new petrol mild hybrid model which is being picked up this week, I plan to change this in 2-3 years to full electric.
I keep my certificate in my study where I see it everyday, I am proud to have completed the course, it was a great experience offered by the OU and I encourage others to give it a go to see what changes can be made to their lifestyle to help our planet. 

Kelly, student, The OU 

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I was a frequent air traveller and my pledge to use trains instead of planes for medium-distance business travels even when visiting only one costumer was a real challenge. But between 2022 and 2024, I have taken trains to Slovenia, a bus to Poland as well as trains to London and the south of Germany. Additionally, I have agreed with my costumers to meet online and not in person. That is why I haven't even once travelled by air within this period of time! In retrospect, I am really surprised. It seems incredible that the implementation of my pledge would work so smoothly.

Wilfred, student, The OU

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My pledge at the end of the course was to deliver a training session to the volunteers and staff at a community organisation I support. Since becoming carbon literacy certified I've delivered three sessions, one to the organisation's youth group and two to the staff. We've also added a Biodiversity and Sustainability agenda item to all our meetings to create space to reflect on our decisions and discuss how we can tweak them to reduce our carbon footprint.

Nathan, student, The OU
 

I really benefitted from the sustainability course, I have a deeper understanding of what climate change versus global warming actually means.
I think now before I jump in the car, and I am extra vigilant in my recycling, and I took the initiative to ask for textbooks for my classes that can be reused to minimise the photocopying this year and in future years.
But more than that I was inspired to join a reforestation group Love Woodland Northwest, and we have just recently completed the planting of 1600 trees, all indigenous species in a plot in Tullaghan, Co. Leitrim. It was back breaking as we dug everything by hand over a number of weekends with a handful of volunteers, it filled me with a sense of pride and achievement, and I am looking for more projects to get involved with. I am now a member of Ulsterwildlife and have signed up as a volunteer for their peatlands restoration projects, hoping to get stuck into that over the summer. I am also reading a book “Six degrees” by Mark Lynas I would recommend it to anyone interested in what is happening to our planet.

Gerri, Belfast Met

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Since completing the CLT Training a couple of years ago, I’ve endeavoured to become an effective ‘Champion’ for our team in the areas of Carbon Literacy and sustainability. Some of the actions I’ve taken have included:

• Regularly promoting and attending the OU’s ‘Go Green’ Teams events and sharing follow-up summaries/ links/ recordings etc. in our Teams social channels.
• creating and maintaining a Sustainability resource, accessible from within our team’s shared OneNote documentation, providing a library of links and resources.

• arranging litter-picking sessions for our team on days when we’ve been working face to face in the OU’s Nottingham office. The litter-picks have been very well received and, in addition to encouraging greater awareness of sustainability, have certainly contributed to our team’s wellbeing.

  I feel this has increased awareness of sustainability-related issues within our team, and I hope colleagues have subsequently felt inspired to take their own actions, hopefully contributing to lowering our team’s shared carbon footprint.

James, Administrative assistant, The OU

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Since completing the carbon literacy training we have continued working to reduce the carbon footprint of our house through installing air source heating, in addition to solar panels and battery storage. 
My attempt to grow more vegetables has had limited success but it is an ongoing project that will develop over time.
I gave up my petrol vehicle and have walked or public transported for about a year. I will soon be getting a new vehicle but it wil be much smaller and electric.

Within my teaching I am embedding the sustainability goals into a module in production to increase student engagement.

Linda, Senior Lecturer, The OU 

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Since completing my Carbon Literacy course in 2022 I have made numerous individual changes – particularly through reduction and management of food waste and becoming more conscious of my purchasing.
Through the collective action I proposed through my elected representative role at OU Students Association, I went on to lead panel events, delivered ‘How Bad Are Bananas?’ games, trained as a Carbon Literacy Trainer and even had the opportunity to host a Q&A with Chris Packham. Over two years I led a complete shift in sustainability at the OU Students Association, making it central to Student Voice Activity, championing introduction of revised travel policies and the creation of a dedicated Sustainability Representative that has allowed this work to continue to grow beyond my term. When my elected term ended, I joined an Apprenticeship in Project Management at the British Antarctic Survey. Alongside my day job I’ve been able to continue my journey, delivering Carbon Literacy training to colleagues and bringing back the banana costume for a breakout activity at a recent induction.

Lou, student, The OU 

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My pledge was to educate myself further, and since the training I completed Module U116 with the Open University. U116 is a fast-paced course that combines written, audio and video resources, catering to all learning styles. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in Carbon Literacy/sustainability or looking to enhance their knowledge in global environmental challenges. Alongside my studies , I have also joined my units sustainability team to help contribute implementing greener practices within our departmental communities. One initiative we led was a “Digital Cleanup week” in March 25, which encouraged sustainable engagement among colleagues. As part of this I developed a “Digital Cleanup Bingo” card a 4x4 grid of simple actions aimed at reduced our units digital footprint. For each task, we provided support statistics, policy guidelines and a step-by-step “How to guide” to make actions easy to follow and impactful.  My secondary pledge was to engage with my local council; now I committed to volunteering across Milton Keynes to help clean up local community areas e.g. Litter Picking, Planting, De-weeding and also roped my family to help out.

Carly, Digital services,The OU

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The Carbon Literacy training was absolutely brilliant and I can’t recommend it enough to colleagues and students to study this, in fact everyone who works or studies with the OU should study this course!
It opens your eye to what is happening to the environment and I found the explanation on the science really helpful.  The training motivated me enrol and study the OU microcredential TZVM320 Climate Change: transforming your organisation for sustainability.  We have an active PVCS SPARK sustainability group, comprising of colleagues who have completed the training and through this group we are seeing positive impacts with embedding and promoting sustainability in both the unit and the wider university.
At home I have registered for the Giki Zero App and have a carbon reduction plan which includes only using the car for essential journeys, buying clothes second hand or from sustainable companies, eating a plant based diet and composting.  I am a member of a Climate Action Group and recently put myself forward as a Green Party candidate in the local elections. Making changes in your own life is empowering the words of Mahatma Ghandi are very true ‘Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

Teresa Cox, Senior Manager (Access), PVCS, The OU

Click here for further testimonials from students and staff at the OU Students Union.

Note: The review and certification of your pledge can take up to six weeks. If this time has passed and you haven't heard back from us, please email carbon-literacy@open.ac.uk so we can assist you.