Climate Action

Cloudesley is a signatory of the Funder Commitment on Climate Change, which commits us to the following:

Funder Commitment on Climate Change

Below is a summary of our progress in 2024/25, as well as some current plans.

1. Education and learning

Staff and Trustees have attended a range of related webinars and events, including on charity investments, buildings adaptations and net zero. Our Grants Managers have completed Carbon Literacy training.  

For the Islington churches that we support, our quarterly church newsletters have shared details of funding and resources to help with energy efficiency/ environmental projects. 

We have shared learning from our Sustainable Church Buildings Projects with other funders and the local voluntary sector.

2. Committing resources

Through our Church Grants programme 2020-25, Islington churches can apply for grants of up to £65,000 for sustainability and environmental works. Over the past five years, 25% of our Church Grants funding has been agreed for environmental church buildings projects, such as the installation of solar panels, LED lighting and insulation. 

Since July 2023, we have been running our second Sustainable Church Buildings Project for churches in the Islington Deanery. The new project builds on the successful programme we ran in 2017/18 and has a £500,000 budget. The project includes a mix of technical support, non-competitive Small Grants and a Large Grants fund.

  • All 24 eligible churches have now received updated technical advice from Inspired Efficiency, along with other consultancy support
  • Three churches have received Large Grants totalling £215,000 for particularly impactful projects
  • Eligible churches have started applying for non-competitive Small Grants – for the full list click on the link below.

Sustainable Church Buildings Project: grants awarded

Sustainable Church Buildings Project 2023-25

Sustainable Church Buildings Project 2017/18

3. Integrating climate into existing funding programmes

Our 2020-25 Church Grants priorities include funding for major sustainability/environmental works and buildings projects, and for related professional fees and development work. During 2025, as part of our Church Grants review, we will analyse our support in this area in more detail.

All our grant-making application and assessment processes are now online, with support available from the staff team as required.

4. Stewarding investments

In 2022, we updated our investment policy, including additional criteria about not investing in companies that needlessly emit excessive quantities of carbon into the atmosphere. In 2024/25, as part of an investment policy review, we’ve considered how closely our investments align with the charity’s environmental, social and governance aims and our Board will discuss this in Spring 2025. 

In 2023, we tendered for new investment managers and as part of the process included specific questions about their approach to environmental issues. During 2024, we worked with our new investment managers to agree a reporting framework on sustainability issues. 

The charity has c. £30mn invested in property, mainly residential. We’ve arranged for our property managers to report quarterly on green audit issues and to develop proposals for improved energy efficiency during the refurbishment of one of the charity’s properties.

5. Decarbonising operations

We continue to hold some committee and working group meetings online, with other meetings offered on a hybrid basis. Paper copies of reports for Board, committee and working group meetings are no longer produced. Our impact report is now an online-only publication. During 2024, staff moved more internal operations to paperless processes. 

Our flexible working offer means that most of the small staff team work remotely for the majority of their working week. We offer a cycle loan scheme. Catering at our events is vegetarian. 

Impact report

Cloudesley is a member of the Islington Sustainability Network and we’re keen to work with others in Islington and beyond.

Islington Sustainability Network

As a signatory of the Funder Commitment on Climate Change, we’re required to report annually on our progress. You can find the latest FCCC report below. We will continue to update this webpage as we move forward, including through the addition of specific targets.

Funder Commitment on Climate Change report