The video begins with a jaunty, guitar-based music track and a title screen featuring the Sport England logo and the words ‘Sport England Every Move – Case studies: Carbon footprinting at Active Devon’.
On a blank screen, the text ‘Who are Active Devon?’ slides in.
The outside of a wood and stone building called ‘The Loft’ is shown, then we see a harbour view featuring boats, as we hear a man speaking.
He says: “So, Active Devon, we are one of 43 active partnerships across the country and we're all about reducing inequalities through helping people live active lives.”
The man then appears on screen at the harbour and the caption introduces him as ‘Aaron Harverson, Partnerships Manager’.
A slide with the question ‘Why is carbon footprinting important?’ is shown, before two people cycle beside water at the harbour. There’s another wide view of the harbour and a banner inside a room with the Active Devon logo and the words ‘Everyday Movement’.
Aaron continues: “Carbon footprinting is super important for a couple of reasons. So, we all have a carbon footprint. So it's really important that we understand where our emissions are coming from so that we can put things in place to reduce our emissions and to work on that.”
We see two Active Devon posters: the first has a photo of a mum and young child in a swimming pool and the text ‘Movement for health and wellbeing’; the second shows a group of people rafting in helmets, below the text ‘Movement with communities’.
Two people kayak down the water in the harbour.
Aaron continues: “Secondly, more and more events now are being affected by climate change. It's important that we recognise what we can do as a sector to support people to continue to be active, despite this change in the climate.”
The question ‘What have you done to address your carbon footprint?’ appears on a blank slide.
As Aaron replies, we see a scene of him and a colleague looking at and discussing charts on a computer screen.
Aaron says: “We've designed our own carbon calculator to understand our own carbon footprint that, linked with a staff survey, feeds into an environmental action plan that we've now put in place to track and monitor all the things that we want to do to reduce our carbon footprint.”
The colleague shown with Aaron now begins talking to camera, stood beside someone working on a computer. The caption says ‘Tim Howard, Partnerships Manager’.
Tim says: “So our carbon calculator is really simple. We do it in Excel. We look at the data that we capture via the survey and via walking around the office. Then we combine it with the government conversion factors and it just creates it as a form and makes a really simple Excel summary of our footprint.”
More shots of Tim talking to another colleague in the office, and close-ups of the computer.
Aaron continues outside in the harbour: “We tend to focus on some key impact areas, which is travel and transport. So how people get to and from work and how we travel to and from meetings, how our energy is produced and generated and how we use that in an efficient way.”
We see Aaron carrying a foldable bicycle up his office stairs.
Aaron continues: “And then lastly, stuff around purchasing and food and finance. All this other stuff is kind of brought into the last section as well.”
Tim puts on a helmet in the harbour, before lifting his bicycle away from a stand.
Tim says: “One of the really useful resources we had for estimating our carbon footprint, which we weren't aware of at first, was the government emissions factors.”
Close-ups of webpages from the SME Climate Hub are shown on a computer screen.
Tim continues: “That enables you to say if you use a kilowatt of electricity through the grid, how much carbon equivalent is that outputting? Similarly, if you travel a mile by car, what is the carbon footprint of that?”
A leaflet with the title ‘Free Adult Cycle Training Sessions’ is shown on a table.
Tim continues: “Same for train, same for bus, you know, whatever transport you use or whatever energy you use, that website has got the conversion factors you need.”
Aaron’s hand points to places on a map of Devon on a wall.
Tim says: “What we've found with our carbon footprint is that it's enabled us to think about the footprint impact in our decisions we make, to buy or where to go or how to travel. The carbon footprint isn't the be all and end all. However, it does allow you to know that this is going to be a big impact on our carbon footprint or this is going to have a big reduction to our carbon footprint, so you know where to focus your energy.”
The next question slide is ‘What do you hope for the future?’
More wide views of the harbour, showing mature trees and buildings next to the water, before a drone shot of the area.
Aaron says: “Looking ahead and as an active partnership involved in movement and physical activity, I would love for every active partnership to be understanding where their carbon emissions are coming from, but also recognising that the work we do every day in enabling people to be physically active, move more every day, it's one of the most impactful things we can do both individually and organisationally to reduce our carbon footprints.”
The two kayakers from earlier in the video are shown paddling again as the background music fades up.
The video ends with a blank slide that says ‘Created by’ above the logos of Useful Projects (part of the Useful Simple Trust and a social enterprise and B Corp sustainability consultancy) and Pictures for the People (a social enterprise video production agency).
