Last year on World Environment Day 2025 we launched our Climate Wisdom project. Climate Wisdom is a dementia-inclusive climate action project. The project brings together people living with dementia, their care partners and their communities to co-create practical, creative and rights-based responses to climate change. The 5-year  project  brings together 15 Meeting Centres across Angus, Fife & Tayside to collaborate alongside project partners Outside the Box,  Meeting Centres Scotland, The Institute for Place, Environment and Society at the University of Heriot-Watt and the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York.

Together we are working across four broad aims:

• Empowerment and Inclusion – People living with dementia, care partners and families will feel empowered to take meaningful climate actions, experiencing improved quality of life, greater autonomy and increased confidence.
• Broader Community Resilience – Through enhanced community connections, strengthened social networks, and increased capacity for collective action against climate challenges.
• Policy and Strategy Influence – Though local and regional policies informed by dementia- inclusive practices.
• Carbon Reduction Impacts – The project will contribute to measurable reductions in carbon emissions through increased awareness and adoption of sustainable behaviours such as waste reduction, active travel and energy efficiency.

How are we achieving this?

“Everyday climate action” is core to this project and we are seeing how diverse these actions can be depending on the interests, passions and expertise of the members in each Meeting Centre and their local community.

Some of our year one highlights include:

• Community gardening and grow your own
• Improving community spaces for biodiversity and wildlife
• Growing community connections to share and recycle resources including hosting bra banks
• Shared learning visits and events including Daffodil tea, Ecology Centre Spring Events, Deer Centre and Botanic Garden visits
• Working with local climate and environmental organisations to host dementia friendly activities
• Harnessing members creativity through art, music and poetry
• Influencing local, national and international policy and practice through consultation, conferences and active participation of people living with dementia.
• “I think about the environment more, when I take Buster for a walk I now take a bag and collect the rubbish”

Thanks to National Lottery players, Outside the Box have received almost £1.5m from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK, to launch ‘Climate Wisdom’. 

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