We were thrilled to exceed our fundraising target this year, by raising an amazing total of £10,300.

These vital funds will directly support our UK operations as well as providing further support to our charity partner’s habitat restoration work in Tamil Nadu, India.

A huge thank you also to the Big Give Fund for match-funding the donations through the campaign.  We enjoyed being part of the Green Match Fund community of wonderful environmental environmental charities all endeavouring to support our planet – at a local and global level.  By acting together we really are a force for nature!

LIVE for one week from Thursday 18th April to Thursday 25th April 2024, the campaign will double any donations made through the Big Give website.

Last year, thanks to your support, we successfully raised £16,990 to help support our programme work in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. Another 2,000 native saplings were planted and nurtured by a local women’s cooperative, restoring vital local habitat. Big Give supporters also funded a new solar installation for an environmental education centre near to the forest in Nadukuppum, Tamil Nadu.

This year we aim to raise at least £10,000 through Big Give for further habitat restoration work in Tamil Nadu as well as vital charitable funds.

Double the donation, double the impact for nature!

PLEASE donate to this year’s campaign here!  Thank you!

A BIG thank you to everyone who participated in the Big Give Green Match Fund and helped us raise £16,990 for further habitat restoration and development of community renewable energy projects in India! It was great to be part of the week-long fundraise campaign with Big Give and to be fundraising alongside other important green-minded projects. There is much to do!

India is ranked as the 7th country most vulnerable to climate change and its future effects, scoring 16.67 on the Climate Risk Index (2019). In 2019, India had the highest fatalities as well as the highest financial losses adjusted for Purchase Power Parity while as a developing country. India’s electricity consumption has increased 459% since 1990, and emissions have increased by 335% as India remains a fossil fuel power based country where at least 70% of the electricity still comes from coal power plants – emitting high levels of CO2 and creating high levels of air and water pollution that cause long term health issues for locals.

The Converging World believes that global problems need global solutions. Investing in renewable energy in India captures the growing need for clean energy and an even bigger impact on carbon avoidance. Our investment in 4.2MW wind turbines deliver c8,000 tonnes carbon avoidance impact per annum – 4 times that in the UK. The profits from sale of clean energy to local communities and businesses are then used to support programs for community empowerment, habitat restoration and providing employment opportunities for women.

Donations received from the Green Match Fund will help us enhance our climate action through our core charitable objectives of access to sustainable and affordable energy, ecological restoration and poverty alleviation. We plan on working closely with our partners – Pitchandikulam Forest – to deliver holistic sustainable development projects for climate vulnerable communities in South India.

Stay tuned for updates on our activities and progress!

Since 2015, ecolibrium has worked with over 55 events and 40 suppliers to balance the carbon emissions from over 13 million travel miles. They provide resources, tools, advice and inspiration to reduce travel emissions and invest in climate solutions to balance unavoidable emissions – supporting ecosystem protection, regeneration through their Trees+ programme and clean energy generation through Energy Revolution.

In 2015 and 2017 ecolibrium invested donations from their members to their Energy Revolution programme into the Converging World’s projects. Donations in 2015 came from ecolibrium’s festival members, including Boomtown Fair, Shambala, Kendal Calling, Bestival and Secret Garden Party, via audiences who opted to balance the carbon emissions associated with travelling to the events.

In 2017 donations came from ecolibrium’s artist member, Joss Stone, who calculated and carbon-balanced emissions from the first half of her ‘Total World Tour’ after taking measures to reduce emissions as much as possible.

ecolibrium sets out to help the event industry to reduce emissions and supporting climate solutions but their vision is wider: they believe the live events industry has the potential to inspire and educate millions of people each year, highlighting key issues and showing leadership by taking action on the climate crisis.

Find out more about their work at www.ecolibrium.earth

The Converging World has been working alongside Colston’s School to deliver a tree planting initiative that is beneficial to both people and the planet, through educational and ecological objectives.

This initiative would not be possible without the generous involvement of the Society of Merchant Venturers (SMV) Social Enterprise Committee that has committed to £2.8K in donation funds to the cause.

100percent of these funds are going directly to TCW’s reforestation partners in India. There are currently 800 students across Colston’s Upper and Lower School. At £3.50 per tree, these funds will enable a tree to be planted on behalf of every one of these students.

By engaging a Bristol based charity with a Bristol based school, to plant trees in India, this initiative reflects the widely celebrated ‘think global, act local’ecological mantra.

Educational Objectives:

Our hope is that by planting one tree on behalf of every Colston’s student, we can foster a sense of personal connection amongst the students with reforestation in the tropics. In addition, facilitating a sense of empowerment by enabling these students to assume an active role in the fight to combat climate change.

Direct engagement from the students is essential in achieving these outcomes. Due to the covid-19 pandemic that has come to define this moment in time, TCW was not able to visit the school and deliver an in-person presentation to the students about the project. In light of this, we resorted to delivering the educational dimension of the project in the form of a video that would be shown to students during their assembly.

The student charity committee, made of up 8 students, came up with their own list of questions for TCW about the project and ecological restoration more broadly. These were answered over a video call in the style of an interview between the students and a TCW representative.

Allowing the students to come up with their own questions, based on their existing knowledge of the issues, allowed for an educational video that was tailored to the age cohort and ensured they got the most out of the experience.

Ecological Impacts:

Each tree planted is estimated to sequester 1.1tonnes of CO2 over its 100-year lifetime. The majority of which will take place in the first 20-50 years of growth.

By planting 800 trees, Colston’s School, in conjuncture with the SMV and TCW, will help sequester 880tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. This is the equivalent of balancing the carbon footprint of 166 UK citizens in 2020. In addition, these 800 trees will generate 8000 square meters of Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest (TDEF) cover – a forest the size of 1.5 football fields.

Overall Project Outcomes:

 We hope this successful pilot project can serve as an example going forward for further school involvement in reforestation and ecological restoration efforts across the globe.

Our community has been heavily impacted over the last couple of weeks with travel restrictions, multiple event cancellations, and overall business slowdown.

COVID-19 has changed the way in which many of us work, be that spending more time working from home, or exchanging physical workshops and meetings for virtual ones. At the same time, despite the fact COVID-19 is on everyone’s mind, we as an innovative network must continue to work together to achieve both environmental restoration and poverty alleviation. Many within our network are continuing to create a positive impact on the various communities adversely affected by the crisis.

In light of the pandemic, TCW is temporarily reducing its UK activity and has furloughed its UK staff from Monday, 6th April, 2020 for an initial period of one month. This is not a decision that we have taken lightly, but our management and board of trustees have decided that this is the most appropriate decision at this time to ensure that we can continue to deliver our impact into the future.

Nevertheless, the wind will continue to blow and our wind turbines will continue to turn providing the Indian grid with the clean green power it still so desperately needs. To date, we have produced over 146,000MWh of clean green power avoiding over 140,000 tonnes of CO2. Our partners on the ground in India will continue to tend to the saplings that you have supported, ensuring they are given the best chance to flourish in their first 2 years of life. Our donors have supported the planting of over 100,000 saplings in India making a huge global as well as local impact. The women’s groups that are supported through your donations will still have the opportunity to access a sustainable income through tending to these saplings reducing the levels of poverty for both them and their families.

We understand that this is in an unprecedented and uncertain time for everyone, and the TCW team will be taking this opportunity to reflect, develop and come back with new ideas to ensure our mission of environmental restoration and poverty alleviation is achieved.
If you are able and willing to support us by making a donation during this time, please click here.

We will be back, but until then, stay safe and be kind.

With love and good wishes

The Converging World Team.

3) Why we need personal data:

We collect personal data in connection to specific activities such as fundraising campaigns, newsletter requests, donations, staff employment, volunteering and applications. The information that we collect is related to your request, however if you choose to withhold requested information, we may not be able to provide certain types of services.

The following has been added as an addition to Section 3 of the Privacy Statement:

If you are donating directly through The Converging World website, we use STRIPE to process your donation. STRIPE operates under its own privacy statement (https://stripe.com/gb/privacy). The only personal data we will store will be that associated with processing Gift Aid this includes; the amount donated, the date of donation, your name and address. If you agree to donate Gift Aid you are agreeing to us sharing this information with HMRC in order to process the Gift Aid Claim.

6) How we keep your data safe and who has access to it:

We take data security very seriously and will always aim to take the most appropriate precautions to ensure that we protect it.

To do this we:

• We aim to ensure that we have appropriate technical controls in place to protect your data, for example, all staff computers run on ESTE Endpoint Encryption and ESET Antivirus.

• We ensure that all staff, volunteers and contractors that may come into contact with personal data understand the importance of data security and have signed up to our internal policies which explain how to protect your data.

• We ensure that only authorised personal (Staff, volunteers and contractors) have access to your data.

• Despite this no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure and therefore we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us through our own- or third-party sites, and you do so at your own risk.

We will also only disclose information to third parties or individuals when:

• We are obliged to be law.

• For purpose of national security, taxation and criminal investigations.

• If you have agreed that we may do so.

• When we use other companies such as mail chimp (See Section 3) to provide a service on our behalf.

• If we receive a complaint about content that you have posted on our site.

• If we merge with another organisation.

• It is in the interests of children or vulnerable adults for the information to be shared, a serious crime may have been committed or there are serious risks to the public or staff.

However, we will never sell or rent your personal information to other organisations

The following edit has been made to Section 6 of the Privacy Statement:

• When we use other companies such as mail chimp or STRIPE (See Section 3) to provide a service on our behalf.

Our full Privacy Statement can be found here

With limited time and limited budgets shouldn’t we be focused on the most cost-effective solution? In October 2018, the IPCC released a report which stated that we only have 12 years left to act to avoid catastrophic climate change. So, if I am lucky enough to have £5,000 to spend, should I put into solar panels or tropical rainforests?

It feels a bit like the waste hierarchy that told us all to reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, dispose and yet everything seems focused on RECYCLE (third in the hierarchy) when clearly it is much more effective to REDUCE in the first place.

I question whether or not I am sitting on the fence with my response, ‘we need it all’!? Given the IPCC report and the warnings, the debate about which is the most effective solution in avoiding, reducing or absorbing CO₂ rages on, appears to be 30 years too late and confuses people into inaction.

If I am fortunate enough to have £5,000 to spend, I hope I don’t waste too much time thinking about how best to spend it!

In the meantime, it won’t cost me anything to try and reduce my impact through some easy-to-begin with lifestyle changes and for less than a cup of coffee a month I can plant trees that we know absorb CO₂, support biodiversity and just for the sheer love of them!

Written by: Wendy Stephenson (Group CEO)

[1] Calculations based on 4kW installed system with average UK weather conditions over 10 years

[2] Calculated across 10 years based on average cost of planting a tree for TCW partners and 1.1 tonnes absorption rate per tree over 100 years

Our proposal is that every university in the UK, would fundraise to reach three targets for tree planting: first, a forest the size of which will completely offset the university’s annual carbon emissions. Second, a tree for every student. And third, a forest the size of the total aerial footprint of the campus or university buildings.

Starting with the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, a three step fundraiser could be set up. UWE could aim to meet one of these targets, cumulatively meet all three, or set up an entirely different target (costs calculated from The Converging World’s campaign donation page):

1. Absorb my CO2 A forest the size to offset UWE’s 15,282 tonnes of annual CO2e emissions: £45,020
2. Tree peeps: A tree for all 34,424 students and staff: £112,566
3. Forest cover your area: forest the size of the aerial footprint of UWE’s Frenchay Campus: £163,500

It would be up to the universities like UWE on how to raise this money, but these targets could be reached through a combination of staff and student donations, and the creation of ‘forest the size of’ funds which utilise the wealth that many universities have at their disposal. It’s the reward of a university becoming carbon neutral that would be so profound, which could cause a domino effect of encouraging other universities and institutions to do the same. After Bristol City Council recently declared a climate emergency and has aimed to be the first city to become carbon neutral by 2030, UWE could align with the city’s ambitions to become the first university to become carbon neutral. Donating to plant the forest the size of UWE would go a long way in this ambition.

What is really amazing about reforestation and the chance it gives to universities, is that carbon neutrality will just be the beginning. Once we achieve full divestment from fossil fuels and an increase to 100% of energy coming from renewable sources, with reforestation universities can actually become carbon negative. The last time carbon dioxide concentrations were this high, global temperatures were 2 degrees higher and sea levels 10-20 metres higher than they are today, therefore actively reducing atmospheric carbon is something the planet will need to avoid climate breakdown and unfathomable levels of sea level rise. It cannot be one or the other – it must be both reforestation and carbon emission reduction to limit climate change.

Once forests the size of universities are planted, in the long term we would encourage university departments to keep links with the forest location. This could provide a valuable resource for research, whether into sustainable development or earth system sciences. It could provide opportunities for students to go on international placements for conservation, researching to what extent these rewilded areas improve biodiversity. Or students could go to work and research with local people, particularly women, who rely on forests for livelihoods such as forest harvesting for medicinal plants or nature-based tourism. Not only could universities donate to plant forests, but they could monitor the long term growth of forests and gain evidence for the potential that reforestation has in helping solve global 21st century challenges of climate change, environmental degradation, poverty and women’s empowerment.

There can be major social, environmental and climate benefits to planting trees and rewilding landscapes which favours local people and wildlife. It is known that planting and regenerating a diverse mix of native trees will improve carbon sequestration, biodiversity, ecosystem resilience and water storage, while bringing livelihoods to many of the world’s poor who live off sustenance. We believe these benefits are achievable, where in the developed world we have more than enough wealth and resources to make this happen on the scale required. By fundraising for the Forest the Size of Anywhere campaign, universities can lead the way in making the UK’s institutions carbon neutral, and eventually carbon negative.

Further reading:

How forests contribute to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals

The last time CO2 levels reached 400ppm was 3-5 million years ago

Written by, Will Eden Environmental Science undergraduate in his final year at UWE

Our Indian subsidiary TCW Renewable Energy India is seeking a Finance/Business Manager who would like to put her or his skills and experience to work in support of the growth of a young renewable energy company based in India. We are a Company that is owned by impact investors from the UK, in other words, people who want to put their money into a business that will provide both a social and financial return. We currently have 8.4MW of wind farms in Tamil Nadu, India and are profitable at EBITDA. We have blue chip companies buying our power and the opportunity to develop in other states.

Our Indian head office is based in Mumbai and our UK parent office is in Bristol. We are a small team of dedicated people who are looking for another extraordinary individual to join us and help the Company succeed in producing a profit in support of people and planet.

The role has two main areas of focus:

1. To manage the day to day business in India being specifically responsible for the accounts, audit and financial reporting to the UK as well as managing the overall business to ensure that operations run efficiently and in compliance. You will report directly to the Indian board and the Global CEO.

2. To support the Groups ambition raise significant funds for growth which might include a listing on AIM in London in the coming 12 months which will require financial modelling, coordinating and managing the due diligence and setting up robust reporting processes.

Ideally the candidate will have at least four years experience in business management and or development and is a qualified Chartered Accountant. There is the possibility to grow into the role of Financial Director and a member of the executive team and be part of the development of the business growth strategy and its implementation.

This is no ordinary role, what we are trying to achieve is extraordinary. We just might be the first charity owned business to list on AIM putting people and planet firmly alongside profit. If this approach resonates with you then perhaps you are that extraordinary person that will help make the difference.

For more information about our majority shareholder please visit theconvergingworld.org

Finance/Business Manager Key Responsibilities

• Ensuring the finance function operates efficiently and in compliance including;

• Historic monthly management accounts

• Stat accounts

• Financial audit

• Reporting on KPI’s, financial performance and risks to the UK board

• Managing overall business.

You will be exposed to all aspects of the business and as a small company, this is a very hands on role.

• Working with the Global CEO on financial modelling and presentations to prospective investors and brokers in support of a listing on AIM.

• Financial evaluation of prospective project pipeline and overseeing due diligence.

Skills & Requirements

• Excellent Financial Modelling Skills

• Chartered Accountant or strong financial skills

• Business management experience including putting in place robust reporting and management processes

• Strong presentation and communication skills to a UK audience

• Some knowledge of foreign exchange and capital investment structures would be an advantage but not essential.

Remuneration Negotiable depending on skills and experience

Contact details

Please send CV and application letter to Molly Byrne at the following email address no later than 17th April 2018 [email protected]