Our Partnership

The 52 Climate Actions partnership formed in 2015 after the International Permaculture Convergence declaration to the Paris Climate Conference. Nine organisations came together to promote permaculture based solutions to climate change:

• The Permaculture Association (Britain)   

• The Permaculture Solutions for Climate Change Group   

• The International Permaculture Education Network   

• Dream Awake, an Australian permaculture consultancy        

• The Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Change, Lisbon University    

• Edinburgh Napier University

• The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems

• Susie Poole, climate change thought leader

• ECOLISE (The European Network for Community-led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability)

We were later joined by ethical graphic design company Spiritlab. 

We wanted to create a project that would:

• help people understand their personal power in tackling climate change    

• show people the best responses to climate change    

• promote these solutions to a wide audience

• inspire people to action to help them reduce their carbon footprint, adapt to climate change, and embrace a low carbon culture

• be rooted in permaculture, a design system that aims to create sustainable human habitats by following nature's patterns. 

Our Work

In 2017 we secured $100,000 of funding from the VK Rasmussen Foundation to create this website. 52 of the most effective climate actions that can be taken by individuals and communities in the Global North have been chosen. It’s 52 actions because it’s one for each week of the year. We've chosen actions we think are powerful, realistic, up-beat and fun. Inevitably some things have been missed out. You can discover many additional solutions at www.drawdown.org/solutions

The actions fall into three categories: those to reduce your carbon footprint (mitigation); those to help you cope with the effects of climate change (adaptation); and those that aim to change your mindset (thinking differently). The 52 actions are divided into 16 themes such as ‘Love Trees’, ‘Travel Wisely’ and ‘Respect Food’. Each theme contains 8 actions. Most actions are included in two or three themes.

After the first 4 introductory actions (Actions 1-4), the remaining 48 actions are arranged in a more or less random order. They are NOT listed in order of priority or impact. The 'best' actions differ from person to person according to context.

Our next steps

July to December 2019 was the public launch, using the global network of our partners to reach as many new audiences as possible.

Starting the second phase, 'Changing Behaviour for Good', is based on securing further funding. It will be focussed on experimenting with a broad international audience of users to see how we can maximise the impact of the project. We have already piloted 'climate action training' in South Australia. 

We also want to work with local and national governments to ensure the policy, legislative and budgetary changes necessary to enable and encourage actions at personal and community levels. Ultimately, we want to create a series of further websites; 52 Climate Actions for the Global South, 52 Climate Actions for Children, and 52 Climate Actions for Businesses. 

Our needs

We’d like to thank all the many amazing people who have assisted us in building this project so far. 

There are two ways you can support the project:

1. Fundraising/donating. Please donate to the project through the main partner, the Permaculture Association, if you can.

2. Spread the word. Use the social media icons in the footer to tell others about 52 Climate Actions and talk to your friends and family about it.